I suggest to stay techie. Management brings more stress and responsibility with limited potenital of further profrssional growth. As a techie you continue to learn and experiment new technologies and have little to no fear of loosing your marketability. This is also true that you have potential to make more money as a techie than a manager. I have hired many techies for more salary than mine, and if you ever decide to go for consulting jobs then there is no match in earnings potentail compare to management.