To offer a counter datapoint: I moved from engineer to manager while tracking my hours fairly accurately.
I can pull off 50 hours of development, including late night emergencies, some client pressure, etc., and still feel energized the weekend, while after 40 hours of management, meetings and firefighting, I become mostly useless and have to take some serious breaks. I enjoy both.
However, there are so many parameters affecting this result that I wouldn't dare to make a call on which role is more tiring in general at a regular company.
- I'm less experienced as a manager, I have to continuously learn a lot and grow fast.
- This is in a young start-up context.
- This is with a very broad scope of responsibilities.
- I'm me.
- etc.
YMMV
The largest fatigue factor to me seems the amount of context switch I have to do as a manager.
However, there are so many parameters affecting this result that I wouldn't dare to make a call on which role is more tiring in general at a regular company.
- I'm less experienced as a manager, I have to continuously learn a lot and grow fast.
- This is in a young start-up context.
- This is with a very broad scope of responsibilities.
- I'm me.
- etc.
YMMV
The largest fatigue factor to me seems the amount of context switch I have to do as a manager.