I don't have an answer, but I appear to be accidentally (and for now, hopefully only partially) making that transition right now...
I am an 'older' engineer (in my 40s) who just came off a decade-long stint doing solo freelancing, mostly for one rather laid-back client - so it's pretty much been a career progression break. Started a 'real job' about 6 months ago, as an IC, in a local (long way from US) startup with approximately 60 people in tech department. Did a simple project to familiarise myself with the code base and tools - then started working on a larger, multi-team project...
Then was person-in-charge for the project within my team...
With one, then two (and now three) of my teammates working on the project 'under me'...
Then was committer/deployer-to-prod of project for my team...
Then another teammate decided (AFAIK it was his choice) to move teams, and I agreed to take his deputy-team-lead and code-owner responsibilities - in February when his move is done...
Then a bunch of other teams got involved in the project, many of them committing to my team's repo - so now I'm mostly reviewing, commenting, advising, coordinating...
Then team lead goes on New Year holiday, now I'm running stand-ups, approving early leave for Christmas/New Year's Eve...
I am now (while TL is on holiday) apparently reporting directly to VP of Engineering, who is Austrian and a bit of a hierarchy guy, and who has barely spoken to me before this week...
In the course of about 3 months I've got from engineer to at least temporary team lead and code/project owner. Although things have gone a little Mythical Man Month with me as the bottleneck, I'm winging it for now. I'm trying to be fairly strict with code quality - although that's weakened as deadlines approach and pass - but I'm probably a little soft on people management, which I instinctively don't really want to do, so it's easier to say yes.
It's more, and different, stress from what I've been used to in the past, and it's not necessarily bad, just new. I am expecting to speak to someone fairly soon about increased compensation for increased responsibility, which is noticeably something that has not come up at any point so far.
I am an 'older' engineer (in my 40s) who just came off a decade-long stint doing solo freelancing, mostly for one rather laid-back client - so it's pretty much been a career progression break. Started a 'real job' about 6 months ago, as an IC, in a local (long way from US) startup with approximately 60 people in tech department. Did a simple project to familiarise myself with the code base and tools - then started working on a larger, multi-team project...
Then was person-in-charge for the project within my team...
With one, then two (and now three) of my teammates working on the project 'under me'...
Then was committer/deployer-to-prod of project for my team...
Then another teammate decided (AFAIK it was his choice) to move teams, and I agreed to take his deputy-team-lead and code-owner responsibilities - in February when his move is done...
Then a bunch of other teams got involved in the project, many of them committing to my team's repo - so now I'm mostly reviewing, commenting, advising, coordinating...
Then team lead goes on New Year holiday, now I'm running stand-ups, approving early leave for Christmas/New Year's Eve...
I am now (while TL is on holiday) apparently reporting directly to VP of Engineering, who is Austrian and a bit of a hierarchy guy, and who has barely spoken to me before this week...
In the course of about 3 months I've got from engineer to at least temporary team lead and code/project owner. Although things have gone a little Mythical Man Month with me as the bottleneck, I'm winging it for now. I'm trying to be fairly strict with code quality - although that's weakened as deadlines approach and pass - but I'm probably a little soft on people management, which I instinctively don't really want to do, so it's easier to say yes.
It's more, and different, stress from what I've been used to in the past, and it's not necessarily bad, just new. I am expecting to speak to someone fairly soon about increased compensation for increased responsibility, which is noticeably something that has not come up at any point so far.