You work for the team. You are there to remove obstacles, make sure everybody knows what the objective is etc. You are not there to take away developer time with meeting after meeting. The more you can stay out of the way, and take care of external (to the team) obstacles, the better.
Ask HN: Going from Developer to Manager. What should I know or learn?
181–186 of 186 posts
Re: Ask HN: Going from Developer to Manager. What should I know or learn?
#182A basic podcast that I’ve found useful is Manager Tooks. It contains a lot of good habits and tools. Listen to it on your commute for a month or two and you’ll get the gist of it. The Effective Executive by Drucker is a great intro to leadership. He puts the role in the context of getting results. A couple other thoughts: 1 - Communicate the same message over and over. Do it verbally and in writing. 2 - Have weekly 1…
Weekly 1 on 1s with all reports is not useful or feasible. If you have 8 reports that's 10% of your work week swallowed.
Even if it takes 50% of your time, this is like coding for a dev - it's your primary job and you can't skip it. Andy Grove had a rule of thumb on how much time to spend on what in his book High Output Management. Summary here: https://getlighthouse.com/blog/high-output-management/
Re: Ask HN: Going from Developer to Manager. What should I know or learn?
#183I keep a list of all the resources that have inspired and helped me here: https://github.com/charlax/engineering-management
It starts with a few high-level book recommendations, and blog articles for more specific topics.
My favorite book, which has not been listed in this thread, is: Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders. David Marquet, who used to command a nuclear submarine, explains how he achieved high levels of motivation and output thanks to empowering his team.
Re: Ask HN: Going from Developer to Manager. What should I know or learn?
#184I'm actually doing the exact same thing. I started my managerial role on 1/1, so I'm definitely interested in the advice presented here. Thanks!
Re: Ask HN: Going from Developer to Manager. What should I know or learn?
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is super interesting. Something I've started doing on a smaller level. I've already made good progress on managing my emotional state (thus productivity) and want to improve the habit. When do you schedule to write or log? Specific times in a day? If you had a template I'd assume it would include mood tracking and todo list, anything else? Thanks for sharing this.
I do all the writing first thing when I sit down in the morning. Before I talk to anyone. I use a dot journal, kind of like a graph paper moleskin, but a dot grid. Date the left page and time. Do feelings. I’ll also note the weather, if it’s a special day or holiday and if people are around, who. Then I review the last few pages and I start musing. On the right page I title “ todo:” and start making the list. As I ro…
That was so great. I've been journaling for a while now but can't seem to leverage it as much as you have.
I'm especially curious about how it helps you anticipate risks. If you have a way to illustrate this I'd most appreciate it.
Re: Ask HN: Going from Developer to Manager. What should I know or learn?
#186I gave a talk about this subject in particular. Here are the slides: https://slides.com/elbrujohalcon/deck-2-7