Ask HN: Going from Developer to Manager. What should I know or learn?

Speaking from my own experience: Be easy on yourself at first. Moving from a technical role to a management role is difficult and you may feel like you aren’t doing a good job or you’re doing and saying all the wrong things at first. Give yourself some time to adjust and don’t expect to be awesome at it right out of the gate.

If you’re at all a perfectionist like I am realize that it’s even more impossible to achieve perfect solutions when you’re dealing with relationships and people rather than software. Be kind to yourself as you learn and grow.

I say this in complete seriousness, but group therapy was probably the most important helpful training in my transition from developer to manager.

Group therapy is especially helpful because it makes you realize that, as "crazy" as some other people may seem, everyone looks at the world through their own emotional filter based on their background of personal experiences. Thus, if your job is motivating and growing the skills of people on your team, being able to truly empathize with them, and to understand what drives their motivation, is hugely valuable.

I did the transition and made mistakes on the way. I'm probably not that great a leader so you can take this with a pinch of salt. What would have helped me at the time was:

You will probably be a bit incompetent at first but that is part of the process. Maybe keep a diary of interactions you have with the team so that at the end of each day you can reflect on what you might have done differently. It's ok as long as your always striving to improve.

One of my main goals as tech leader is it get people to stay at the company! To do this you should know what your direct reports personal aspirations are, and have a clear future plan you have both decided on to get them there. You should both be reviewing this all the time.

Don't assume things about people, just ask. Some people actually like being micro-managed! Although, try to give your good people freedom within boundaries/budgets/constraints, get them to come to you if they want to go outside those boundaries. Give your bad people explicit tasks, set appropriate deadlines for them, coach them to be good people.

Try and delegate everything that you think can be handled by a team member (and they want to do it) and isn't personal development. Don't be laissez faire about it, if you delegate to someone write it down and check-in with them at an appropriate time about the task. Be disappointed when they don't complete the task in the agreed time.

You might think you have to be the charismatic leader who can inspire people to eat shit all the time but that is just not true. There are many different styles of leadership. In sales for example you can go far with contingent reward. There is also a lot of bollocks written about leadership so try and stick to facts when learning. I thought this was a good overview but YMMV https://www.amazon.co.uk/Science-Leadership-Lessons-Research....

This advice is dangerous to take too literally though. I understand what you're trying to say but when it comes down to it, people work best with a manager they relate to and respect on a personal level.

Being completely stoic at all times risks losing that personal, human connection with your teammates (yes, teammates, not team. To be an effective leader you must be a member of the team, not a separate entity above it). You need to be a human.

The most effective days of management seem to involve so much compromise that everyone is frustrated with me. It’s got not no real hit for solving problems. Also it is all fuzzy and human. A lot of devs that are pure engineers find management maddening. Something that helps me is writing daily. Keeping personal strike lists and logs. This is private and in a journal, NOT jira or whatever. I track my daily emotional state and have a matrix for disappointment, frustration, anger, and stress. 0-4 also noting if its targeted at a specific person. This helps me evaluate why so I can find a positive solution and not be irrationally shitty/counterproductive. I review the last 3 days every morning and go over the previous month on the first. This helps keep me positive and helped me see that when the real work is being done it often feels like failure. My year review of logs was actually full of positive surprises.