Have you tried diving into some gnarly bugs or some off-critical-path items that would help you stay in the code while doing these other things? A manager’s job is typically about building a team as their product, but it’s also important to stay connected to the technical part - both for love and for relevance / humility.

Have you asked (if available) someone to help with recruiting? Maybe offload some of the nitty gritty things that you aren’t adding value on to someone that can, or somebody that works for you and is interested in that side of the work?

To enjoy every minute of the day requires understanding why you are doing it - to build your team. Connecting back to what it will get you may help.

If you’re stuck doing stuff you don’t want to do because somebody above you “said so” (the curse of middle management) then that may make things a lot harder but you may also talk to them to help shape your role into what you want for what they need.

I'm managing in one form or another for ~12 years, so... somewhat experienced at least, but take with a grain of salt.

Does it get better? Maybe. That really depends on what you like. If you find joy in, essentially, coaching & teaching, it's a great job. If you enjoy politics, you'll be OK. If you get your joy from creating, it's much harder.

You still create, as a manager. Teams. Processes. Cultures. All things that have incredibly long feedback cycles, nowhere close to writing some code, running it, iterating. I've currently got things in flight that (hopefully) will pay off three years from now. There is no instant success.

That said, all the things where I as a dev said "Why on earth are we doing this stupid thing"? I get to fix those. Or, alternatively, to learn why it's not quite so stupid as I thought.

Politics will happen, though. Wherever humans interact, there are politics. There are healthy levels, and dysfunctional levels. (Everybody lobbies for their project, but there are plenty of lines they shouldn't cross)

Excel sheets will happen, too. After text docs and e-mail, it's your most important tool. (And many of us who came from tech nourish their yearning for building things by scripting the hell out of them, because that's all we get to code)

But again, if you like interacting with people, at some point, a switch will flip. You'll have a day of back-to-back meetings about genuinely interesting efforts, and you'll walk out of it thinking "Damn, I can't believe they pay me for just spending a whole day chatting about cool stuff". You'll see the first of your reports stepping into a leadership role. You see a multi-year, multi-team effort come to fruition and can honestly say "would've failed without me bringing the teams together"

So yes, it can be enjoyable. It depends on what you want, though. There's nothing wrong with doing a management stint and going back to coding after a few years, either. A lot of front-line managers bounce back and forth between the two sides.

Hope that's at least remotely helpful.

EDIT: Forgot to say that your place sounds... not quite healthy. It might be a question of finding a company that actually values managing and doesn't have it degenerate into total soul suck. They do exist.

Looping back in from my other answer - looking at this, I think you probably know what you want to do, but are still trying to hedge a bet each way. I absolutely empathize - I have been in this exact headspace quite recently.

To answer some specifics, from my perspective

> I'd love it if a more experienced manager could chime in here and speak to whether or not that really can be enough to power one through the endless meetings, excel reports and politics given time.

Yes, of course. Some find meaning and purpose in that and enjoy it. However, I think you do not, not truly. And this is probably why you are keeping a leg in the tech side - especially based on your paragraphs around this one.

My suggestion is talk - out loud - to someone about this and resolve what you actually want to do with yourself. And then make a decision. Because being stuck between these two things will tear you up far more than making a potentially "non-optimal" decision (whatever that actually means).

As to me - I chose option 3, working for myself as a consultant. I realised that while I love the people aspect, I have some distaste for various aspect of traditionally corporate life. Now I can just swan in, talk game at high and low levels and leave when I need to. Works for me. Might not work for you. This is an intensely personal junction you are at and only you can know the correct answer.

The recruitment is definitely a killer. If at all possible, outsource as much of that as you can. To internal recruiters, to engineers in your team, to external recruiters, to a pa you might want to hire to do bits of it.

> it seems similarly risky to just give in and go back to pure code, and give up on this managerial aspect.

Why do you say that? It certainly depends on company and industry, but there are many companies that have a parallel individual-contributor track where you can achieve a level (that is: seniority, benefits, compensation) analogous to management-track Senior Director or VP.

What were the most important management skills you cultivated to be so successful managing your team?

> That means an 8-10 hour day...

Wow, do you work in a sweatshop or some kind of slavery?