Will I like it?

If you have ascertained your why, and you understand the true underlying motives, to make the Developer-to-Manager transition, then I can assure you that your journey will be meaningful and rewarding. The journey itself will be challenging and difficult at times, which is to be expected. Whether you will enjoy a professional life as a manager is a great question.

For me, I have no doubt that it has made my career more rewarding and interesting. I had the choice of continuing to test and develop software, which is how I began my career in IT. While I enjoyed writing and breaking code (preferably someone else's), I found myself wanting to learn more and more about the managerial side of the software business: the commercials, the development process, the team, and the people.

In short, I had a natural curiosity toward being a manager in the software business. I found myself with less and less time to write code because I was volunteering for more and more managerial responsibilities, starting with organizing simple team meetings and learning more about tasks and roles connected to, but not actual, software development, such as release and deployment management and configuration management.

As I took on more of these additional responsibilities, I gradually learned more of the skills required to be a manager. My overall knowledge base and confidence also increased, which is both cause and effect. So, ask the Will I like it? question differently: Would you like it if you weren't a manager?

If your answer is Yes, then perhaps you should revisit your why to be absolutely sure you have a deep and genuine drive to make the transition. If your answer is No, then you should go for it and commit yourself as much as you committed to becoming a brilliant developer.

Life as a team, development, or project manager is genuinely interesting and rewarding in its own right. It's not to be simplistically compared with being a developer or any other position.

There will be days when you hate it, and you wish you weren't a manager, but there will be many days when you absolutely love it and can't imagine doing anything else as rewarding as building a team or delivering a complex project.