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Ask HN: Switching from developer to project manager. What to keep in mind?

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Re: Ask HN: Switching from developer to project manager. What to keep in mind?

#41

Post by cpeterso »

I moved from dev to technical program/project management at Mozilla. Given the organization's open source projects and bottom-up hacker culture, we have no unified project management process or tools. We have Bugzilla, GitHub, wikis (public and private for security sensitive work), Etherpad, Trello, Jira, Confluence (Atlassian's wiki product), Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Smartsheet, and other tools. Every team users different subsets of tools. Choice is good but can make collaboration between teams or at a higher program level more challenging.

I'm curious whether Google or Facebook have standard project manager processes and tools internally. I know Facebook users Phabricator, but they also user GitHub.

Re: Ask HN: Switching from developer to project manager. What to keep in mind?

#42

Post by dpark »

heisenbit wrote: post #37
mabbo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the title doesn't mean you're a people manager. You're the developers' peer This, 1000 times. The Project Manager role is one of convincing others, helping organize them, and smoothing out relationships with other teams/organizations. If you try to act like an authority figure, the devs working with you wind up in an "Office Space" style "I have 8 bosses" problem.

Some PMs wear at times the peer hat. However I believe it is not a good idea to consider yourself a peer. Confusion about roles can lead to conflicts. By design the PM has to have to last word in most critical decisions, especially with outside contacts and that makes one stand out. An important part of the PM role is to say "NO" to all sides - while a peer may say only "no" - and this requires power. How to achieve…

> However I believe it is not a good idea to consider yourself a peer.

But PMs are peers. PM is not a position of authority. If you are acting as a PM and try to present yourself as if you have the authority to override dev decisions or demand that they do certain things, it might work, or you might breed resentment and hurt your interactions as well as the general team dynamic.

A PM should treat devs as peers and work to reach compromise and get buy-in from key stakeholders. A PM should not attempt to force their vision or plans onto the team. If you can't do the job without being in a position of authority, then you're not a good PM.

Re: Ask HN: Switching from developer to project manager. What to keep in mind?

#43

Post by amorphid »

As you probably know, estimating how long software takes to develop is at best challenging, and at worse impossible. Part of estimating how long something will take comes from some domain expertise. I encourage you to continue dabbling in the technologies you're team uses, so what you know doesn't drift too far from what your team knows.

Another reasons to keep dabbling is that you may decide you don't like project management. If you work as a PM for two years without writing any code, trying to get back into development is gonna be much harder.

Lastly, as a code dabbler, don't try being a developer yourself. That's no longer your role. The occasional git commit to fix a typo or something is fine, but you don't wanna be that guy who is a control freak, always refactoring the code your team delivers. If you wanna write code, stay in development.

Re: Ask HN: Switching from developer to project manager. What to keep in mind?

#45

Post by zippergz »

zippergz wrote: post #44

Make sure you have a very clear understanding of the difference between a Project Manager and a Product Manager. I've found that lots of developers think they're the same thing....

And also that project management (or product management) are not "management" in the normal sense of the word.

Re: Ask HN: Switching from developer to project manager. What to keep in mind?

#47

Post by we3k »

zippergz wrote: post #44

Make sure you have a very clear understanding of the difference between a Project Manager and a Product Manager. I've found that lots of developers think they're the same thing....

Interested to know your version of difference between Project Manager vs Product Manager.

Re: Ask HN: Switching from developer to project manager. What to keep in mind?

#48

Post by dylanha »

usgroup wrote: post #13

Out of interest, why are you switching to project management if you wouldn't mind me asking?

I'm not the OP but I'm thinking of switching too. My reasons:

Often writing the code for microcontrollers can be overwhelming especially when it's full of bad style or I have to understand a new library. There is often a difficulty mismatch. I find myself hating my programming job for hours, only thinking about money.

I have never tried program management and honestly it sounds easier. I watch my bosses just ask me for time estimates then take credit when I succeed and blame me/fire me if I fail to deliver by that date. I want to put myself in such a favorable position. (Although if I own the company, I'm probably financially responsible for losses too)

Even if I get rejected 9/10 phone calls, is it worse than dealing with compiler errors and run time errors all day? How hard is it to talk to customers and relay it to developers?

It seems the only real hard part with management is 1) estimating the difficulty of tasks, 2) knowing if your programmers are really struggling or if they are just slacking off. 3) trying to extract ideas from customers who don't know what they want

Re: Ask HN: Switching from developer to project manager. What to keep in mind?

#49

Post by enjo »

jives wrote: post #14

Many developers try to keep track of everything in their head. That won't work as a PM. Your time will usually be much more fractured than it was a dev, as you track multiple ongoing projects at various levels of detail. If you try to keep everything in your head, you will most likely start dropping balls, and if there's anyone who shouldn't drop balls, it's a PM. So, my advice: make lists and track the status of eve…

Many developers try to keep track of everything in their head. That won't work as a PM.

It doesn't work as a developer either :)

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