I recommend you start an MBA program at night. There is no single book, there is no single topic, you need a broad range of new perspectives to be a truly effective manager.
Ask HN: Books to read when you transform from SWE into SWE Management?
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Re: Ask HN: Books to read when you transform from SWE into SWE Management?
#32Everyone recommends The Manager's Path, but I don't think it's a good book to explain HOW to become a manager. The book's goal is to explain the career path of a manager from tech lead to CTO.
My #1 recommendation these days is "Become an Effective Software Engineering Manager" by Jamies Stanier. This book explains how to approach the work a manager is involved in and what you can expect from the day to day. Planning, hard conversations, performance reviews etc.
Also, look for general management books. Leadership is something all humans do – software management is about managing creative people. Some other books I recommend are:
• Creativity, Inc by Ed Matmull • Crucial Conversation • Team of Teams
For email newsletters, I recommend Software Lead Weekly (https://softwareleadweekly.com/) and Better Allies (https://betterallies.com/more-content/).
Lastly, I also write a blog called Build the Stage (https://www.buildthestage.com) about managing SWEs. I've got posts about performance reviews, team meetings, how to give feedback, etc. It'll help you out.
Re: Ask HN: Books to read when you transform from SWE into SWE Management?
#33One quick observation: you say that your new role focuses on Devops etc... That sounds like a tech lead to me. A manager focuses on their people, not a tech stack. One of the hardest parts of transitioning from an IC to a manager is letting go of control of technical decisions, and learning to trust your team. Of course you need to be able to set the general direction, but it's more about building a culture than it i…
As a military officer I agree that trust is a huge amount of effective leadership. It’s something that is immediately visible when visiting a different team. So what do you do, as a software manager, if you don’t trust your team? Do you set higher technical standards? Do you invest in training? Do you hold responsible for failure to deliver a certain level of quality?
Depends on the diagnosis!
Two blog posts: [1] from Rands on skill vs will.
And [2], from Roy Rapoport on a five-step process for dealing with problems.
In both cases, it’s not enough to say you “don’t trust” your team. You have to do the work to diagnose WHY things aren’t working the way you want - do they see there’s a problem? Do they want to fix it? Do they have the skills?
Trying to fix a problem you can’t diagnose is going to be very hard.
[1] https://randsinrepose.com/archives/avoiding-the-fez/
[2] https://medium.com/@royrapoport/the-five-conditions-for-impr...
Re: Ask HN: Books to read when you transform from SWE into SWE Management?
#34Just read this recently from SO blog, hopefully it is helpful:
https://stackoverflow.blog/2022/02/23/what-you-give-up-when-...
Re: Ask HN: Books to read when you transform from SWE into SWE Management?
#35I’ve just made this transition myself! Congratulations! I have a very short list of reading recommendations here: https://www.cenizal.com/reading/ In addition to the blog links on that page, I found these books to be the most useful: High Output Management, by Andy Grove. My number one recommendation for anyone interested in managing people, particularly engineers. This book presents methods and processes for helping…
High Output Management always gets recommended. How did his management work out for Intel?
To quote Wikipedia:
> He was the third employee and eventual third CEO of Intel, transforming the company into the world's largest semiconductor company.
Looks like it worked pretty well.
Also from Wikipedia:
> He relinquished his CEO title in May 1998, [...] and remained chairman of the board until November 2004.
Care to guess when the decisions causing today's woes for Intel started happening?
Re: Ask HN: Books to read when you transform from SWE into SWE Management?
#36I’ve just made this transition myself! Congratulations! I have a very short list of reading recommendations here: https://www.cenizal.com/reading/ In addition to the blog links on that page, I found these books to be the most useful: High Output Management, by Andy Grove. My number one recommendation for anyone interested in managing people, particularly engineers. This book presents methods and processes for helping…
High Output Management always gets recommended. How did his management work out for Intel?
He became CEO in 1987, when Intel's stock price was in the range of $0.10-0.20.
When he left the post of CEO in May 1998, Intel's stock price was ~$9.50.
A 10x return over a decade is pretty damn good.
Re: Ask HN: Books to read when you transform from SWE into SWE Management?
#37I'd recommend you check out the Level-up Engineering podcast. They cover engineering management topics with a large library of content out already, and it keeps going strong.
https://codingsans.com/engineering-management-podcast
Re: Ask HN: Books to read when you transform from SWE into SWE Management?
#38Join the Rands Leadership Slack. Highly highly recommended: https://randsinrepose.com/welcome-to-rands-leadership-slack/
You can learn an awful lot by just browsing around, but they also have channels for questions, both with your name and anonymous.
Re: Ask HN: Books to read when you transform from SWE into SWE Management?
#39Before answering, can you share what do you want to get out from your career?
Some starter questions:
Why do you want to get into software management?
Do you want to get into software management in general, or for the particular company you working for?
Is it a stepping stone to your goal, e.g. building your own product?
The books shared in other comments are all good, I personally vouch for the Mythical Man Month. I consider High Output Management a must read for management in general. The Elegant Puzzle is quite useful for team of certain scale, but I would say less useful for startup of a few engineers. Still useful, just less.
Re: Ask HN: Books to read when you transform from SWE into SWE Management?
#40There’s really only one thing you have to take away from ‘The Mythical Man Month’ and ‘Peopleware’ in my opinion (more people != more work), but they’re still valuable reads.
This. DeMarco's Peopleware is a bit more hands on compared to the man month.
Man month is also pretty dated by now. There is some valid advice in the book still, but oftentimes it has to be 'translated' to the modern computing environment. Other things in it are just completely outdated.