As for being afraid of giving up that hard skill:
1. Unlike going into actual sales or management, you don't give it up entirely. Your technical skills are still very valuable. It will give you confidence when you demo stuff and clout amongst engineering types (which are key to getting the technical win). It's just not THE thing that your performance is measured against.
2. Having presales experience will help you significantly if you choose to go back into full time engineering. You'll have a better idea of what customers want and how sales are made. This will help you gauge when/how to build the right thing and approach sales-y/business people.
In fact, my biggest pet peeve with engineering is that unless you're working at the earliest stages of a startup, you're so far removed from what customers actually want but are incentivized on your tech prowess. This creates perverse motives that tend to be more complex and anti-customer in the name of software craftsmanship and scalability.
I'll check out the book and the subreddit.
> This adjustment is challenging. It's weird to not have my technical abilities be the thing my performance is measured against (though you definitely need to have it, and having more of it is an edge, if your sales/soft skills can counterbalance it).
This is actually one of the reasons holding back as I feel like I am giving up a tangiable hard skill I have (tech / being judged on tech) to a more riskier performance barometer. But hey, need to risk it to get the rewards I guess.