Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership • Hacker News Board

Re: Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

#21

Post by marcinzm » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 3:07 PM UTC

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #13

dimitrios1 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best engineering manager in my career was not amongst the best developers I knew. (Conversely, the worst engineering manager in my career was one of the best developers I knew). He had two particular skills that many will never have or take a decade or two to cultivate: he could provide you feedback, empathetically, and make you feel like he is genuinely interested in your success and improvement, and he could re…

That's fair but my perspective as a lowly engineer was I wanted a role model to learn from and help upskill my career. My people manager managers never had the skills to provide me with any growth, the only reason I'm at where I am today is because I decided I wanted to level up and taught myself outside of work. It's my goal as a manager to be that manager that I never had and lead by example for my reports technica…

A manager is only a role model if the promotion structure is Engineer->Manager. At most modern tech companies that is not the main promotion structure. It's Engineer->Senior Engineer->Staff Engineer->Etc. Engineering management is a different path you can choose just like you can become a product manager but it is not the expected path.

Re: Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

#22

Post by halfmatthalfcat » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 3:10 PM UTC

marcinzm wrote: post #19

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see where I made the connection between practicing the craft and hacking together solutions. If an engineering manager (presumably one who attained this position because they were or are a good engineer) is going to fix something, they're going to apply best practices because they know what they're doing. If an engineering manager was hired just because they know how to manage, well then they aren't really an…

Engineering skills decay with time and even the most technical manager will be out of touch compared to someone who spend 100% of their time on code. They also have the pressure of the buck stopping with them and not having to deal with the tech debt fallout which creates an incentive to just hack things. Some will avoid this but most won't. >presumably one who attained this position because they were or are a good e…

They don't have to spend 100% of their time coding. Why not 50%? If you spend half your 40 hours a week coding, after presumably having had a career in engineering as a developer in the past, coding half the time will continue to support your technical knowledge well into the future.

I refuse to believe that managers shouldn't code. Actual managerial tasks do not take up that much time. Like I said in a previous comment, in my experience (as a manager), managerial tasks take up maybe 20% of my time per week. What's going on with the other 80%? I'd be bored out of my mind if I wasn't coding as much as I currently am.

Re: Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

#23

Post by Zigurd » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 3:12 PM UTC

dimitrios1 wrote: post #11

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #7

I've had some god awful managers in my engineering career and my managerial philosophy is twofold: have empathy and keep coding. Most, if not all, of my managers over the past 10 years have been people managers cloaked as engineering managers who have all stopped programming a decade ago. So much respect is lost for managers who have turned their back on the very craft that brought them into management. Before the pe…

The best engineering manager in my career was not amongst the best developers I knew. (Conversely, the worst engineering manager in my career was one of the best developers I knew). He had two particular skills that many will never have or take a decade or two to cultivate: he could provide you feedback, empathetically, and make you feel like he is genuinely interested in your success and improvement, and he could re…

Keeping current on coding, while not attempting to be the best coder in the building, is a key soft skill in terms of participating understanding, and evaluating technical decisions and problems. Empathy comes from placing yourself in the other person's shoes.

This is also true for communicating enterprise-wide considerations to coding teams. They have to trust you not to blindly push senior management priorities. If you know the cost of both capital and tech debt, you are more likely to have represented the coding team and influenced decisions, and be able to communicate decisions effectively.

Re: Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

#24

Post by halfmatthalfcat » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 3:14 PM UTC

marcinzm wrote: post #21

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair but my perspective as a lowly engineer was I wanted a role model to learn from and help upskill my career. My people manager managers never had the skills to provide me with any growth, the only reason I'm at where I am today is because I decided I wanted to level up and taught myself outside of work. It's my goal as a manager to be that manager that I never had and lead by example for my reports technica…

A manager is only a role model if the promotion structure is Engineer->Manager. At most modern tech companies that is not the main promotion structure. It's Engineer->Senior Engineer->Staff Engineer->Etc. Engineering management is a different path you can choose just like you can become a product manager but it is not the expected path.

I can't say I've ever been in a company where the path wasn't either:

Engineer -> Senior -> Principal -> Staff -> Distinguished

OR

Engineer -> Senior? -> Manager -> Senior Manager -> Director

In both scenarios though, they've been a more senior engineer.

Re: Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

#25

Post by marcinzm » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 3:15 PM UTC

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #20

blacktriangle wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that role model should not be your manager, it should be a senior developer. A good manager is not a role model to teach you, a good manager realizes the importance of lowly engineers having role models and creates a structured mentorship program to make sure that need is being met.

I don't understand why managers cannot fulfill both roles though? The job of management isn't hard (I'm doing it). Outside of the project management responsibilities, there is a lot of time doing nothing. If I wasn't coding, as a manager, 80% of the time I would sit around doing nothing. I strongly believe that managers should be able to fulfill both roles but maybe it's just because I've been burned by so many manag…

I've been a manager for a while and at best I get 20% time to code. With 8+ reports the weeks tends to break down into:

* 20% for 1-on-1s and dealing with management level issues people bring up.

* 20% spent on hiring

* 20% on various status meetings (team, cross-team, with my boss, etc.)

* 20% spent on pro-actively finding or solving issues before the explode. This includes networking with my counterparts in the rest of the org so I get information and build political capital.

Re: Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

#26

Post by dominotw » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 3:17 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #10

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #7

I've had some god awful managers in my engineering career and my managerial philosophy is twofold: have empathy and keep coding. Most, if not all, of my managers over the past 10 years have been people managers cloaked as engineering managers who have all stopped programming a decade ago. So much respect is lost for managers who have turned their back on the very craft that brought them into management. Before the pe…

I dont need managers to be coding. I do need them to have technical background and willingness to understand what tech is relevant to them - I had only bad experiences with non-technical managers. But I really dont understand why they should be coding. Even active developers are not able to fix whatever in any module, you fix only in areas you understand. When shit is on fire, I dont want managers or other random dev…

> need managers to be coding.

> understand what tech is relevant to them

can they really understand tech by merely reading whitepapers and youtube videos?

Re: Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

#27

Post by waylandsmithers » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 3:18 PM UTC

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #16

marcinzm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You highlight one of the reasons it's BAD for an engineering manager to still be coding or at least able to code your production code. It incentivizes them to just hack things themselves rather than building proper processes and structure for the rest of the team (on call rotations, training, breaking silos, etc.). Overall that leads to a worse engineering environment rather than a better one.

I don't see where I made the connection between practicing the craft and hacking together solutions. If an engineering manager (presumably one who attained this position because they were or are a good engineer) is going to fix something, they're going to apply best practices because they know what they're doing. If an engineering manager was hired just because they know how to manage, well then they aren't really an…

I think the response to your original comment was more that having the "Ugh, forget it I'll just fix it myself" last resort option could be a crutch for a manager

Re: Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

#28

Post by dimitrios1 » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 3:18 PM UTC

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #20

blacktriangle wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that role model should not be your manager, it should be a senior developer. A good manager is not a role model to teach you, a good manager realizes the importance of lowly engineers having role models and creates a structured mentorship program to make sure that need is being met.

I don't understand why managers cannot fulfill both roles though? The job of management isn't hard (I'm doing it). Outside of the project management responsibilities, there is a lot of time doing nothing. If I wasn't coding, as a manager, 80% of the time I would sit around doing nothing. I strongly believe that managers should be able to fulfill both roles but maybe it's just because I've been burned by so many manag…

>The job of management isn't hard (I'm doing it).

Where do you work? Sign me up! I have hardly any time to code after weekly sprint-related ceremonies, 1:1's, cycle planning, and architecture and code reviews.

The job of management, like the job of any developer, varies from company to company, and situation to situation. Thankfully, the people side of my job as a manager is easy right now, but only because the people I manage are reasonable people to work with, and well receptive to feedback. It was very difficult last year when I had to work through more delicate relationships between the employee and employer. As always, it comes down to people.

It also sounds like the place you may be managing at may not be challenging enough for you. Perhaps it's time to make a change?

Re: Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

#29

Post by dairem » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 3:21 PM UTC

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #20

blacktriangle wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that role model should not be your manager, it should be a senior developer. A good manager is not a role model to teach you, a good manager realizes the importance of lowly engineers having role models and creates a structured mentorship program to make sure that need is being met.

I don't understand why managers cannot fulfill both roles though? The job of management isn't hard (I'm doing it). Outside of the project management responsibilities, there is a lot of time doing nothing. If I wasn't coding, as a manager, 80% of the time I would sit around doing nothing. I strongly believe that managers should be able to fulfill both roles but maybe it's just because I've been burned by so many manag…

I'm an engineering manager and find it hard to relate to this. With 1:1s, ops reviews, planning, retros, design reviews, support syncs, etc., I have ~6-10 hours of meetings per day - then for non-meeting work I'm writing roadmaps, interviewing, managing escalations, doing project management, status reports, etc. How do you have 80% of your time free as a manager after this? I think that makes sense to code if you have that time, but my experience is that having that much time available as a manager would be an outlier.

Re: Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

#30

Post by known » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 3:25 PM UTC

Protect yourself from Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), Narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), Psychopathy (lack of remorse and empathy), Sadism (pleasure in suffering of others)