As a non-technical product manager having direct developer reports, how do I help them grow in their career? We don't have engineering managers in our org and hence the product managers have to double up as engg. managers as well. And most of my team developers are very young and recent graduates and I want them to get the right mentorship to grow. I do have regular one-on-one chats with them in a casual setting and discuss about non-work things.
Ask HN: How to provide feedback to developers as a Product Manager
1–10 of 12 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to provide feedback to developers as a Product Manager
#2You can't. It would be like an architect attempting to give feedback to a junior electrician. You have to be able to assess someone's work output (i.e. code in this case) to know where they are and what they might need to get more experience doing.
If you don't have an engineering background or any senior engineers around, you don't have expertise to share or to even know if what they are building is being done properly. Properly means many different things and there can be many different solutions to the same problem that are all fine.
I would suggest your organization hire an EM and/or a Senior Engineer/team lead that can help guide solutions. Or if you're in a department of a larger company, see if there are mentors available from other departments.
Re: Ask HN: How to provide feedback to developers as a Product Manager
#3Good for you for trying to do right by your team, but oof. An entirely junior team with no tech leadership is going to have problems beyond mentorship.
Re: Ask HN: How to provide feedback to developers as a Product Manager
#4From the paragraph you've shared here this sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
How is the quality of work of these developers being assessed? Is there anyone senior overseeing their work – and if so, would they not be more suitable?
And in terms of the team structure, I genuinely find it hard to believe that the majority of your team are recent grads... That's insane. Imagine if you went to the dentist and it was full of of junior dentists – would not be concerned about the quality of dental care you'd receive? Do you process CCs, do you handle sensitive data, do you provide business critical services? Because if you do you really need to be ensuring you're doing things correctly and not just hacking stuff together like it's a college project...
Honestly I struggle to ensure quality in teams where ~25% of the team are junior...
Re: Ask HN: How to provide feedback to developers as a Product Manager
#5You can't. It would be like an architect attempting to give feedback to a junior electrician. You have to be able to assess someone's work output (i.e. code in this case) to know where they are and what they might need to get more experience doing. If you don't have an engineering background or any senior engineers around, you don't have expertise to share or to even know if what they are building is being done prope…
As an experienced engineering manager, 90% of the membership and coaching my reports asked for was non-technical. Work output was rarely discussed as senior engineers and peers handled code concerns during the PR process.
Re: Ask HN: How to provide feedback to developers as a Product Manager
#6[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: How to provide feedback to developers as a Product Manager
#7I agree with the other commenters that if all you have are juniors this will cause problems and - unless some of them are more than what meets the eye - you are doomed. I was however once in the shoe of your Devs and I may have a few pointers that you can do that helps them, regardless of how successful your product will be.
0. Get a senior programmer next to them to be a tech lead. (Yeah yeah I know..)
1. Describe the problems they need to solve as detailed as you can then trust them as much as you dare to bring a solution. Do not try to invent/describe the solution. This helps critical thinking and independence.
2. If anything is finished, be happy for it and communicate your happiness. This gives them direct contact to a person whose problems they can solve and is a great motivator.
3. Get them an udemy or similar account and try to set together a learning/development path that interests them and can be used in their daily tasks. This helps gaining knowledge.
4. Praise them when they hit their goals
Re: Ask HN: How to provide feedback to developers as a Product Manager
#8You can't. It would be like an architect attempting to give feedback to a junior electrician. You have to be able to assess someone's work output (i.e. code in this case) to know where they are and what they might need to get more experience doing. If you don't have an engineering background or any senior engineers around, you don't have expertise to share or to even know if what they are building is being done prope…
As an experienced engineering manager, 90% of the membership and coaching my reports asked for was non-technical. Work output was rarely discussed as senior engineers and peers handled code concerns during the PR process.
They indicated it’s a team of all juniors so I didn’t see how they can receive any coaching on software. There’s a lot of growth from junior to mid and senior, it can happen fast but without guidance the basic work and software designs could be a large issue.
Re: Ask HN: How to provide feedback to developers as a Product Manager
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
As an experienced engineering manager, 90% of the membership and coaching my reports asked for was non-technical. Work output was rarely discussed as senior engineers and peers handled code concerns during the PR process.
They indicated it’s a team of all juniors so I didn’t see how they can receive any coaching on software. There’s a lot of growth from junior to mid and senior, it can happen fast but without guidance the basic work and software designs could be a large issue.
[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: How to provide feedback to developers as a Product Manager
#10Sounds pretty lulzy but just try to coach them on non tech things like comms etc and just yolo hope that the tech stuff works itself out.