Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers • Hacker News Board

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#81

Post by bzzt » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:15 PM UTC

iandanforth wrote: post #53

I will disagree with one point. Neither eng managers nor tech leads should be doing project management. It is a unique skill and worth having someone explicitly in charge. They should own the structure of requirements docs, story breaktown, ticketing, jira processes, etc. While they may be somewhat technical they are more ensuring consistency and quality of process without burdening devs. The best team composition I…

I've never seen any team where Senior Dev / Tech lead have had any power to make "arch level" decisions. And I have a very hard time imagining a team where the other junior/mid level engineers would accept to have such decisions made over their heads, by a member of the team.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#82

Post by beckingz » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #47

cryptica wrote: post #42

I disagree about 'Still doing much technical work' being a problem. The author incorrectly infers that a manager writing code is going to take away developers' freedom. It's the opposite. The way I manage developers is I design the system into small projects with separate concerns and which can be easily integrated together. With the participation of the team, we discuss and iterate over the design of interfaces betw…

Thanks for this. I always held the opinion the "perfect" leader would be a hybrid of leading + devving, flexible enough to switch to 100% leading if need be, yet perfectly capable of picking up any technical work required, therefore never landing in the above situation out of inability. I've never seen the problem "we don't have enough management capacity". On the other hand, I've seen plenty of non-/low-technical pe…

Those are the same problems. Managers flailing when there is too much work and not enough time means that there is not enough management capacity.

Not often called out because the short term effects of managers not existing are minimal, where as without engineers work stops. Long term without managers work continues but the value tends toward zero.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#83

Post by psing » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:19 PM UTC

lentil wrote: post #32

I've been an engineering manager for a couple of years. I'm still expected to do 50% engineering and 50% people management. As the article describes, it is a struggle to do both well. I don't see this responsibility split changing in my current role. I do often wonder what it would be like to be 100% people focused, and whether or not I would miss engineering too much. When my role first changed, I was very intimidat…

nice piece! agree re: asking questions

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#84

Post by bg117 » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:23 PM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #65

1. Become an engineering manager 2. Stop coding 3. Do well for a few years until you become out of touch 4. Watch your team stop respecting you on technical subjects because you’re behind the times and too rusty but don’t know it so look foolish and are ignored when you give suggestions, which radically undermines your relationships with them as well as your ability to lead 5. Watch as your role morphs from a manager…

Don't think people are born with leadership trait. Its the experience that one goes through in work and life and along with the thinking that goes with it that makes a leader.

If people are born as leaders, how come world history is full of bad kings/emperors?

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#85

Post by fatnoah » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:26 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #76

gfodor wrote: post #65

1. Become an engineering manager 2. Stop coding 3. Do well for a few years until you become out of touch 4. Watch your team stop respecting you on technical subjects because you’re behind the times and too rusty but don’t know it so look foolish and are ignored when you give suggestions, which radically undermines your relationships with them as well as your ability to lead 5. Watch as your role morphs from a manager…

> unless you happen to have been born with natural leadership skills (you probably haven’t) Leadership skills are important, but I disagree that leadership is something you’re either born with or not. Leadership can be taught, learned, and practiced. The real issue is that a lot of people who are pushed or drawn into management roles don’t actually like managing or leading. Some are pushed into management because the…

>The real issue is that a lot of people who are pushed or drawn into management roles don’t actually like managing or leading. Some are pushed into management because they’re the most competent IC on the team

I think this is spot-on. People, for whatever reason, view management as the next step of a career when it's actually a career change. Yes, it's in the same domain, but it's a totally different job.

I've done the transition from IC to Manager, back to IC, and then back to Manager again. Unless you like and want to do "manager" things, you're going to have a bad time.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#86

Post by gfodor » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

bg117 wrote: post #84

gfodor wrote: post #65

1. Become an engineering manager 2. Stop coding 3. Do well for a few years until you become out of touch 4. Watch your team stop respecting you on technical subjects because you’re behind the times and too rusty but don’t know it so look foolish and are ignored when you give suggestions, which radically undermines your relationships with them as well as your ability to lead 5. Watch as your role morphs from a manager…

Don't think people are born with leadership trait. Its the experience that one goes through in work and life and along with the thinking that goes with it that makes a leader. If people are born as leaders, how come world history is full of bad kings/emperors?

Yeah I should have wrote “born or developed sufficient leadership skills in step 3 to offset your skill atrophy” but it would be confusing to edit now

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#87

Post by bzzt » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #66

iandanforth wrote: post #53

I will disagree with one point. Neither eng managers nor tech leads should be doing project management. It is a unique skill and worth having someone explicitly in charge. They should own the structure of requirements docs, story breaktown, ticketing, jira processes, etc. While they may be somewhat technical they are more ensuring consistency and quality of process without burdening devs. The best team composition I…

Can I just throw in a wrinkle, I'm what could be described (from this list) as an Engineering Manager and Tech Lead. I architect and implement solutions while also doing all the traditional managerial duties. I feel like I've been eaten alive lately on HN that this arrangement isn't possible and you cannot do both well, but I beg to differ.

I don't doubt that it's possible. Except from having these creepy "one-on-ones" and review meetings, I have no idea what the engineering manager is even doing all day, never seen any transparency around this. "attending meetings" is what they say, but what meetings and why, I have no idea. Nothing is delivered and nothing comes out of it, I really think it's a bullshit job. "Sets tone, handles career growth, shielding the team" lol, do some coding instead.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#88

Post by dominotw » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:31 PM UTC

Koshkin wrote: post #72

gfodor wrote: post #65

1. Become an engineering manager 2. Stop coding 3. Do well for a few years until you become out of touch 4. Watch your team stop respecting you on technical subjects because you’re behind the times and too rusty but don’t know it so look foolish and are ignored when you give suggestions, which radically undermines your relationships with them as well as your ability to lead 5. Watch as your role morphs from a manager…

In the other universe: 1. Do not become an engineering manager. 2. If pushed (e.g. by not getting raises), move on.

> move on.

move on to where? managers get paid more than IC on average everywhere.

Sure, if you are staff level stellar IC you might get paid on par with management but most ppl aren't.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#89

Post by fatnoah » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:31 PM UTC

cryptica wrote: post #48

lentil wrote: post #32

I've been an engineering manager for a couple of years. I'm still expected to do 50% engineering and 50% people management. As the article describes, it is a struggle to do both well. I don't see this responsibility split changing in my current role. I do often wonder what it would be like to be 100% people focused, and whether or not I would miss engineering too much. When my role first changed, I was very intimidat…

It's kind of ridiculous for a company to 'expect' 50% engineering and 50% people management. It should be fluid and vary depending on the skill level of the team and the complexity and criticality of various projects over time. It shouldn't be fixed at 50% like some magic number.

Agree. For all but the smallest of teams, this just means being both a poor manager and a poor engineer.

Trying to balance this was one of my first mistakes as a manager. I was a roadblock to shipping things because of my limited coding bandwidth, and I wasn't spending enough time focusing on growing people, having career conversations, ensuring my org was structured for success, etc.

Finally putting down the keyboard was the key to me being a much better manager. Yes, I don't have the depth on every framework like I used to, but I still have over 15 years of hands-on-keyboard experience and the "engineering" part of "software engineering" is less about fluency in languages, but more about how to effectively set goals, mitigate impact of external dependencies, design for performance, etc. That knowledge is still very useful.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#90

Post by ratww » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 2:31 PM UTC

nojito wrote: post #58

buro9 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a manager, and I disagree. The ranges overlap: an early career engineer will definitely be paid less than an early career manager... but a top engineer should be able to earn more than the vast majority (if not all) of the managers.

Not true. The idea that an IC is going to out contribute a top manager who oversees dozens of lower tier ICs doesn't make a whole lot of sense. A good manager is a productivity multiplier which is why the top companies spend an arm and leg training up their managers. The real issue is that is much easier to manage a group of top engineers than it is to manage a group of engineers who think that they are top engineers…

Good individual contributors are also productivity multipliers. There's nothing specific about managers that makes this trait specific to them.

Also, using salary to force engineers into becoming managers is a good recipe for losing good engineers. Either because they become managers or because they leave.