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Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

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Re: Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

#91

Post by temporallobe »

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…

You need both. And in my experience it’s rare that an engineer will have strong soft and hard skills. I have known exactly one person with that rare combination, and he has since started his own successful company.

Unfortunately the smartest and most component engineers I have known have nearly always come across as being arrogant. They have a very solid grasp of their domain and a strong skillset, but they also expect everyone around them to be at their level and instantly follow everything they’re saying. These people sometimes even have disciples who follow the philosophy of arrogance and engage in gatekeeping. I have concluded that while this is not ideal, it’s often par for the course.

Conversely, the best engineering leaders I have known (architects, tech leads, product owners, requirements analysts, etc.) have had really strong empathy and encouraged healthy debate while also making everyone’s input and analysis feel welcome and valued. Their technical skillset is not necessarily the strongest but they’ve usually been good generalists who could talk intelligently about something at a high level without having to know the technical details. These people have also been able to take those arrogant engineers and have gotten them to successfully collaborate with everyone from the junior devs up to management. A good tech leader really is just a good mediator.

Re: Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

#92

Post by hyko »

alexpotato wrote: post #71

Lou Holtz [0] has a very pithy mental model for how to evaluate leadership: Everyone asks three questions of people leading them: 1. Can I trust you? 2. Do you care about me? 3. Are you committed to excellence? (aka do you have high standards). Think about someone you admire. Odds are the answer to the above for them is "yes" to all three. Now think of someone you have had a lot of problems with. Odds are the answers…

This seems very close to the stereotype content model, which asserts that every interpersonal impression is formed along two dimensions: warmth and competence.

Feeling someone cares fits the warmth dimension; commitment to excellence is a hallmark of competence. I would say the word trust can encompass both.

[0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_content_model

Re: Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

#93

Post by temporallobe »

afarrell wrote: post #36
halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Question for HN: If you were talking with someone at a conference and heard him say > The job of management isn't hard (I'm doing it) What signals would you look for to tell the difference between these two possibilities? A. This person has so much tacit knowledge of good management that they don't realise how much skill they are applying day-to-day. B. This person has zero awareness of how their team is burning out…

I have concluded that nothing is easy. Being a manager (at least a good one) is definitely not easy; being a good engineer is definitely not easy. They are both difficult in their own district ways.

The most important skill to have in the workplace, management or not, is humility. This absolutely does not mean that you’re a pushover, but it does mean that you should never deceive yourself with the notion that you’re infallible.

Re: Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

#94

Post by ammanley »

marcinzm wrote: post #46
halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 comm…

I've written in another post where I spend 80% of my management time. I could cut it down to 20% but then I'd be building up the management version of technical debt. As I see it, there's a lot of things you don't have to do but doing them makes your team function better in the medium and long term.

Read this, and it gave me a lot of clarify and appreciation for my own manager. Thank you for adding this. You sound like you've got a balanced perspective on the engineering manager experience.

Re: Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

#95

Post by [deleted] »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #22
marcinzm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 comm…

[deleted]

Re: Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

#96

Post by angrais »

scruple wrote: post #52
halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I've seen people go from Engineer to Manager, skipping over, for want of better phrasing, the senior engineering ranks. In both cases it went poorly and a founders child was involved, indirectly at first and then later directly.

What do you mean a founders child was involved? Was that the person who skipped the senior rank?

Re: Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

#97

Post by jimkleiber »

hyko wrote: post #92
alexpotato wrote: post #71

Lou Holtz [0] has a very pithy mental model for how to evaluate leadership: Everyone asks three questions of people leading them: 1. Can I trust you? 2. Do you care about me? 3. Are you committed to excellence? (aka do you have high standards). Think about someone you admire. Odds are the answer to the above for them is "yes" to all three. Now think of someone you have had a lot of problems with. Odds are the answers…

This seems very close to the stereotype content model, which asserts that every interpersonal impression is formed along two dimensions: warmth and competence. Feeling someone cares fits the warmth dimension; commitment to excellence is a hallmark of competence. I would say the word trust can encompass both. [0] - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_content_model

I've often played with these concepts in my head, completely oblivious that someone had coined them and developed them. Thank you for linking this!

Re: Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

#98

Post by dasil003 »

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #15
watwut wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They should be coding because they're "engineering" managers. What's the point of having engineering in your title if you're not actually practicing the craft? They should be coding because they'll be able to relate to their supports in a deeper and more fulfilling way. They'll be able to mentor and provide guidance on technology best practices and patterns. They should be coding because they'll be able to more accur…

The role where you're still hands-on on a team is sometimes called a Tech Lead Manager, and there is a ceiling to this role. The next step up is true Engineering Manager where you have to be able to talk to engineers on other teams and gather information without being familiar with their code. If you rely on direct knowledge of code in all circumstances you won't be able to effectively operate in an organization with thousands of engineers and millions of lines of code. This is super hard, and relies on deep experience in the trenches (preferably 10 years+), but it is the only way to solve broader organizational problems that cause projects to fail, and many eng months or years to be shitcanned.

Re: Soft Skills in Engineering Leadership

#100

Post by seekitabroad »

username90 wrote: post #79
alexpotato wrote: post #71

Lou Holtz [0] has a very pithy mental model for how to evaluate leadership: Everyone asks three questions of people leading them: 1. Can I trust you? 2. Do you care about me? 3. Are you committed to excellence? (aka do you have high standards). Think about someone you admire. Odds are the answer to the above for them is "yes" to all three. Now think of someone you have had a lot of problems with. Odds are the answers…

Here is a fourth: 4. Do you delegate high visibility tasks? Managers who don't do this work hard to hog all the glory, spend all their time in meetings with other managers or presenting to higher level people etc. It isn't good for them nor their reports, by not growing the reports skills they have a hard time getting to the next level as a manager. Also they create a situation where they are the bus factor 1, which…

A lot of times, the trouble is that it's challenging to say no or delegate in the first place. We found that this works for us internally for helping to drive delegation: https://darja-bunch.medium.com/an-engineers-guide-to-saying-...
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