Ask HN: Developers who became engineering managers, how was the experience?

Its very different, few skill sets carry over from engineering, at first it seemed like I wasn't doing anything useful at all.

The challenge is not going back and doing technical work that someone on the team can do because it feels good to 'get something done', and it isn't possible to just edit some code in an engineer reporting to you and recompile them so that they work 20% faster than they did before.

There are a lot of bad managers. You'll hear all sorts of horror stories. But there isn't a book that explains good management, there are 100's of books and they are all different because how management makes sense to a person is unique to that person. When I first started managing I would read books that people recommended. Sometimes there was something useful, sometimes it was opaque. Some assumed you had no understanding of others emotions, others assumed that what others were feeling was as clear to you as if they had an emotional status monitor hanging over their head.

Three things emerged from the mess;

1) There are always two people in a manager/employee relationship and that pair is unique, and the tools need to be appropriate for that pair.

2) People who work for you, are notoriously bad at telling you that you suck. Try to cultivate relationships outside of your group that can give you a different perspective of how things are going.

3) At the end of the day respect, responsibility, and a clear understanding of what is expected is the most effective way to keep people happy and productive.

So to summarize, yes the new role was challenging and what was more, frustrating, in part because the tools I had learned for developing new engineering skills were not applicable. It isn't a job for everyone, this is for sure.

I think you could generally classify that sort of role as an "Architect," which is usually a senior/lead engineer who works directly with business analysts/PMs to design the product and also "manage up" to set expectations with the business.

I have about 9 months of experience as an engineering manager after a little under 4 years of experience as a developer. I found it a mostly straightforward transition, but perhaps I had a background that prepared me better than a lot of people have.

Good leadership is paramount I found - it makes the difference between a team that is focused on executing and one that is mired in other issues. As a Marine, I strongly believe in the Marine Corps leadership principles [1] and applied them with great success in improving the work experience for the engineers I was managing in a dysfunctional environment - I have been told that I was the best manager some of these people had as a result, one engineer with over 20 years of experience in the industry.

Anything you are not able to accomplish to make people's lives better at work makes their lives harder, so you must use that as motivation to do the best you can to give them the tools and environment to succeed.

Trust in your engineers to make the right decision & the judgment of the team as a collective - your job is not to handle the technical stuff in general.

Keep eyes and ears open for stuff coming down the pipeline and its effect on the team (people might be interested in certain projects, or it might even affect technical design sometimes).

Keep listening for the things each team member may need/want. Actively probe, and take action wherever possible to help accomplish it.

The list of things that one may want to know is endless. An ability to learn & adapt is very important for a good manager. Seek advice from above and below constantly.

[1] http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/leadership.htm

I made the transition after 12 years as a developer.

One of the issues I had was mistakenly assuming all the people working with me would be easy to get along with and hard working, which was how I behaved and is a factor in my becoming a manager.

It's not that way at all. You see the 80/20 rule play out, where you have a few A+ players who do most everything, a few people who do decent work, and then a handful of duds. Attitude-wise, the harder people work, the more pleasant they tend to be. The duds can be indifferent towards you or even hostile.

Being a developer and being used to controlling my work product, I had to make a shift to trusting other people blindly and that wasn't easy for me. Over time, I realized it was the most effective way to get people to do their best work though - trust that they'll give good results until they repeatedly prove otherwise.

I always felt my only chance to stay relevant in the IT industry is to move to a more managerial position because there are so many smarter developers than me, especially the sort that codes in their free time or has a formal education in CS. Essentially I felt that almost everyone is smarter than me. After being a self-thought developer for 15 years I made a transition to Product and I boost the title of Senior Technical Product Manager. Here are some of my thoughts:

- The variety of companies and cultures is way more heterogeneous than I ever thought. I worked as a dev for mediocre companies where I was one of the weakest in the team and I worked as a PM for NASDAQ companies where I was a probably better developer than the average.

- As a developer I was often frustrated by the inefficiencies in the system that I could not change. AS a manager I am often frustrated by the inefficiencies in the system that I can not change.

- You can learn social skills same as you can learn swimming or dancing. Regardless of how much of a neckbeard you are, if you commit to it, you can learn to be a people person. Use your analytical skills as an advantage to filter out bullshit and follow evidence-based advice. Giving a compliment works 99% of the time.

- The recruitment process for managers is a sham. You must know to recite all the hippest theories but in the actual job you will often fight to fix the most obvious inefficiencies.

- I have less stress and higher salary as a manager. This may not apply universally, but as a manager I will never cause production outage or P0 defect.

- My technical background is a huge advantage, still, there are managers with much better people skills, negotiation skills, business intuition etc. Many others just hide behind buzzwords and fake smiles. Listen and learn.

- Manager or not, I highly recommend this gem of condensed, practical advice: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mobile-MBA-Skills-Further-Faster/dp... (based on the success of the book Jo Owen diluted the same content in much longer book The Death of Modern Management)