The decision
The recommendationA creative solution
Go deeper into backend and infrastructure, steering toward ML infrastructure: partner with your company's new ML team on serving or pipelines as a senior engineer, and take tech-lead mentoring duties.
The steps
- Tell your manager today you want to support the new ML team as senior infra.
- Volunteer to own their model-serving or data-pipeline setup.
- Ask to mentor one or two engineers as a tech-lead trial.
- Refresh linear algebra and statistics for an hour weekly.
Why
You enjoy system design and mentoring; senior ML infrastructure work plus tech-lead duties uses both without a demotion.
What you give up
You skip modeling depth and an immediate management title.
What would change the recommendation
If a tech-lead trial shows you prefer coaching and delegation to building, take the management role at your company.