As someone in a CTO position now but being a serious IC ~5 years ago, I'm curious. How was the transition back for you? I love my job, but I also miss it.
So far (been about 9 months), I like being an IC a lot. I still get to be a leader and mentor, but have a lot less paperwork to fill out come review time! I always enjoyed the coding part of the startup CTO job more than the manager part anyhow. I feel that if I ever want to get back in to management, either at my current employer or somewhere else, I'll be able to make that transition pretty easily.
But if I go full-time manager, I don't know how easy it would be to flip back to dev / IC.
