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I work for a large technology corporation, which has about 150,000 employees worldwide. The company has four major groups: personal computers, printers, high-end computers and software. I'm a Research & Development project manager in the software branch.

Within my branch there are hundreds of projects worldwide run by one or more project managers. I'm manager of one particular project involving diagnostics. Thirteen people report directly to me each day. They are the software developers (engineers) who do the technical coding for the project. My main function is to put the engineering tasks into business context. Most engineers don't think about the customer or business; they focus on coding and technology. One of my tasks is to ensure that we do what is best for the business and the customer and not just for "technology's sake." Every month we decide what we will try to accomplish. I'll dole that work out to the engineers, and throughout the month I'll monitor the progress. Much of my job consists of risk management and prevention. I also deal with customer escalations, the problems that arise from our services. In these cases, we explain to the customer in detail what happened, why it happened, and why it won't happen again.

Every major company in the world buys our products. Our products help monitor the vitality of web applications and their connected systems for these major corporations. Our software guarantees that the hardware and software environments in their systems are up and running correctly, which is absolutely critical to their success. If a company's Web site malfunctions, it costs them a lot of money. We help prevent this situation.

Our sales range from $50,000 to $10 million. The customer might buy a suite of 10 or 20 products in that $10 million and our product is one of those.

I work at a specific site, and I'm in charge of 13 people. My boss works at the same site and has 60 people under him. His boss is in the Bay Area; he's got a couple hundred people under him. He reports to a manager who oversees all of Research & Development, which is a couple thousand. He reports to a guy who heads the entire software group, which has 7,000. The software guy reports to another manager, who then reports to the CEO, Mark Hurd.

In high school the only thing I was good at was math, so I said, "Okay, I'll do math." I can still remember my math teacher Mr. Gilhool, who remarked in passing, "If you're good at math then forget math and do computers. There's much more money in it." I knew nothing about computers. This was 1977. I didn't even know computers existed. I knew they were out there but it was like, "You can make a career out of computers?" He changed my life by saying that. I may have struggled and stuck with math and never discovered computers, and I'd be a mess right now because you can't make any money at math. I started taking computer classes and switched over immediately to a four-year degree in Computer Science from the University of Michigan. They called 1981, when I graduated, "the year of the programmer." There were just tons of programmer jobs. I had job offers from four different companies in seven different places. I looked in the warm belt states because I was tired of the Michigan cold, and I ended up choosing a company in the Bay Area (California). My site was just opening, and in 1984 I got an offer and have been here ever since.

At first I was in software development and did programming. Then we came to this site, and I worked as a programmer from '84 to '86. The project was growing, and there was an opening for a project manager. I wasn't ready by any means, but nobody else was around, so I thought, "If I don't take it somebody else will." I became a team leader back in '86. Initially I was managing about two people and still doing programming. I didn't become purely project manager until the early '90s. Since then I've grown and taken project management classes. I picked up my credentials for Project Manager Professional, an internationally recognized certification. This certification illustrates that you have minimal knowledge and understand certain processes.

It depends on how aggressive you are. I've known people who say, "I want to be a section manager, whatever it takes." They'll scour the whole site and look for section manager jobs. However, it's hard to advance in a section other than your own because you need to understand the domain. It's not just about managing people and processes; it's about knowing the domain that you're managing. In all the time I managed, there were very few openings for section manager, the next level up from project manager. I never felt that I wanted to be at that level because the higher you go up, the more ambiguous your job becomes. I didn't want to deal with that ambiguity. You move further away from the technology. Also, the higher up you go, the less personal time you have. You end up working way too many hours.

The way the software world works in my site, most of the project managers have a lot of experience. Lately we don't hire engineers to become project managers. We might hire from within, but the way it's been going overseas, the competition for jobs has been fierce. We can usually find an experienced project manager, and we don't promote the engineers. What happened to me happens less than it used to, but it still occurs occasionally. You have to be more prepared. They don't throw you into it like they used to and say, "Here, you're a manager now. Figure out how to do this."

I usually get in at 8 o'clock and leave at 5:30. I typically work at the office for about 8 hours a day. Then I'll usually work an hour or two from home at night checking e-mail.

It's pretty unstructured. We have meetings once a day in the morning to check on the status of the project. I have other regular meetings, but otherwise it's up to me to get my work done. For example, today I came in and checked e-mail. I had an 8:30 a.m. meeting with an engineer to talk about some technical issues. I did more e-mail. At 10 a.m. I met with my group of 13 engineers for about 20 minutes. Then we had an hour and a half meeting to do a technical review. Afterwards I had lunch. I usually eat my lunch at my desk. I'll exercise at lunch two or three times a week, playing tennis or basketball, and I'll take up to two hours when I do that. After lunch I did some more e-mail. Today I had another meeting with a new engineer in my group to talk about the project and my expectations of him. I dealt with a couple of hot issues that came up. The rest of the time I did some planning and checked on the status of my project.

I do a significant amount of communication and planning through e-mail. I spend half my day a solid four hours a day, or more on e-mail. I get more than 100 a day and send out 40 or 50. I probably get 20 a day that I actually have to deal with directly and the rest are mass e-mails and different things that I can scan through and not look at in detail.

So my day is split between checking e-mail, going to meetings, checking on the status of the project, working on status reports, and troubleshooting customer problems. Also, I spend part of my day learning and reading about trends in the industry and means to understanding our product better. Our software products are unbelievably complicated, and it takes a lot of knowledge to understand how they work and how they interact with technology. I try to learn enough to understand what's going on. I also help test the product when I have time. It helps me understand the product, find flaws in it, and suggest improvements.

There's always something different happening. No two days are ever the same. I'll have days when all I do is meet with my engineers one on one. I'll have days when I spend more time talking to the other managers to check the status of the project. I always spend time in e-mail dealing with customer issues or conducting business. Some days are busier than others.

When you first start out as a project manager you'll be making $80,000 or $90,000. As you get more experience you get raises over time. If you're the very, very best you might make $150,000. Such a person would probably become a section manager. Typically it would be $120,000 or $130,000.

There is a raise process every year based on merit, but since 2000, because of globalization, our salaries have been very tight, and the raises and bonuses have been tight. Now we have once-a-year bonuses that range from zero to 10 percent. The bonus averages 6 or 7 percent.

We get shares of stock every year. Above that we get 15 percent off of stock we purchase. There are also other extraneous benefits. I get the max of 20 vacation days every year and unlimited sick days. Starting off you get 10 days of vacation a year. Plus everyone gets 10 or 11 mandatory holidays. Unused vacation time carries over year to year. I can keep up to 35 days of vacation. We get medical benefits. The 401(k) is very lucrative the company kicks in 6 percent.

Flex time is the real benefit. You can work your own hours. You have to be there at certain times, but you can come in later, leave earlier, work at home. They're very, very flexible. In the R&D industry you can take vacations without worrying too much. The project can live without you for two weeks.

I probably take three weeks off a year. Since May, I've gone to Michigan for five days, took a week off to go to New York and took another week off to go to Las Vegas and Zion National Park. This winter I'll take ski days.

My work/life balance is excellent. I'm not overworked by any stretch. I work about 45 hours a week. The good thing about this career and the flexible hours is that you can work around family activities. Throughout my career I've made it a point to be home in time for dinner with my family. I manage to play tennis three to four times a week, basketball one to two times per week, work out at the gym another two to three times a week, and still spend plenty of time with my wife, and daughters when they are home from school.

Some R&D groups work 80 or 90 hours a week. I have been lucky enough to avoid those situations, but they do exist in our industry.

Well, from about 2002 until this year stability was a real problem. We were having a lot of layoffs and it was pretty unstable. As of 2007 I feel very stable. Our branch is doing well. We have a good net profit. That used to be the problem: we were losing money or having zero net profit. Our CEO didn't tolerate it; he fixed it by doing a lot of layoffs.

They changed the program, so now I'm expected to save for my own retirement and not to rely on the corporation for it. They still kick in money every year, but once I retire I'm done. I'll get a lump sum payment, plus my 401(k) and that's my retirement. I'll also have to pay for my own medical insurance once I retire. I'll probably need to work until I'm 60 to save the amount of money I want to save up so I can retire comfortably.

You're dealing with a lot of new technology so you're always exposed to new ideas. There are always new and different things to learn. I enjoy the challenges of learning new things and staying fresh. Plus, the money is good, and the flexible hours are great. I get to work with some of the best software minds in the country right now, especially since we laid off the non-performers during recent cut backs.

After 26 years I'm tired of learning new technology. It can be a pro but I'm just burnt out on technology. I don't find it as exciting anymore. Yet most people in our business really like it. They're real techno-geeks.

The lay-offs we've had over the years have been incredibly frustrating and negative. There's nothing worse than trying to make a list of who you're going to lay off. That caused me a lot of stress over the years. It was the result of globalization they moved 50 percent of our jobs overseas. A lot of it had to do with our management making poor decisions. When our CEO said, "Be profitable or else," they had to cut and cut big.

Until 2000, the U.S. job market was phenomenal. Any decent programmer could make a really good living. Since then they've gone global, and jobs have gone to China and India: software jobs, hardware jobs everything. Projects and groups are moving overseas. However, lately they're finding the overseas jobs aren't all they're cracked up to be.

There's still a pretty high demand for developers. More and more, things are being automated by the computer, and there are more Web applications, so there's greater need for programmers to work on them. If you're a good computer programmer you can always find a job, but not as easily as it used to be. Within the computer industry you don't just become a project manager like that (snap!). You have to work your way up and learn a domain. Then you can go two ways technical or project manager. If you're really good technically you can avoid all the hassle of being a project manager and make yourself more marketable by staying technical.

Salaries were going up significantly from 1981 until 2002. Since globalization hit and all the jobs started going overseas, the software salaries have been not quite frozen, but chilled. They still go up 1 to 2 percent a year, but not 10 percent.

The computer science people that come out of college today have a lot more skill than when we came out in '81. The amount of technology they have to learn and the sophistication of that technology is much greater. Once they enter a job, there's a ton they still have to learn. It's a lot more difficult to be a good programmer than it was in '81.

They're everywhere. Large software companies are more congregated on the coasts L.A., Bay Area, New York, and Boston. There are small and medium-sized software companies all over the place and IT departments that need programmers at every company.

In the U.S. it's a free-for-all. That's why they can fire people at will. If we've got to trim people, we trim people. If we're not making a profit, we'll cut people. There's no recourse; you can't sue the company. In other countries there are all these different approval boards you can't just lay people off.

Typically, college graduates do not set out to be project managers. Instead, they usually choose an industry and then work themselves into the jobs of managing programs or projects. My advice is to pick your industry first and then decide if you are better suited to go the management route or improve your skills in your field. For example, in the computer industry, almost all companies have a dual-ladder approach. A person can still move up in stature and receive pay while staying technical. They can become technical leads and architects and not have to directly manage people. The other route to take is the one I took, which is going into the project-and-people management area.

The technical route, frankly, is more marketable if you are good and, honestly, more satisfying as you are judged by the work that you do and not by the work that others do. However, some people like me are better suited to manage people as they either enjoy it or they are not technical enough to move up that ladder.

Take as many courses on project management and leadership as possible. There are also plenty of books on the subject that you can read. I would strongly recommend that you obtain your Project Management Professional certificate, which you get through an internationally recognized company called the Project Management Institute. The PMP certificate will make you more marketable and help you keep up your skills, because you are required to attend classes.

In general, to be a good project manager, you need to be well-organized, self-motivated, and be able to understand and lead other people. If you are extremely shy and introverted then you should stay on the technical side if you are going into computers, or improve your skills in whatever field you're in.

Managing projects and people is a lot harder than it looks. The job is not easily defined, and you have to be tolerant of ambiguity. Also, you must be able to drive projects from start to finish. You're rarely given much direction, but instead thrown into a pretty nebulous situation, and you have to decide how to create the process, follow the process, drive the progress and lead others to get the project out within the factors set by the stakeholders. That said, it's a very challenging and rewarding job, and when the project is completed, you can always look back and know that you were essential to its success.