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Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

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Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#101

Post by poorman »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #79
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…

Do you really enjoy having 3 different managers to report to? All of whom have 3 different projects they’re dealing with? IMO, it’s better to have a 1:1 ratio of managers to teams. A 3:3 ratio is a recipe for endless meetings and communication overhead. 1:1 and 3:3 have the same number of employees, but 1:1 eliminates all of the communication overhead because there’s only 1 manager per team instead of 3. In my experi…

I'm not sure where the 3 managers comes from.

Product manager (Product Owner in scrum), Senior Dev / Tech Lead, Dev1, Dev2, QA, and UI/UX Designer all report to Engineering manager.

Further, changing the mindset from "as a manager these reports work for me" to "as a manager I work for these reports" improves the feeling of ICs having "multiple managers". The managers job should largely be unblocking the ICs.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#102

Post by gfodor »

bzzt wrote: post #93
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I don't get it, doesn't everyone dislike/struggle with these things? Who likes context switching, office politics, sitting in meetings and having difficult conversations

The truth is that if you’re a manager who has no other marketable skills, you can only hate pointless meetings so much since without them you’d probably be putting your resume in down at the local Starbucks. Clear an engineer’s calendar and you probably make a more productive engineer, clear a manager’s calendar and regardless of the consequences to everyone else one thing is sure: that person’s job function is no longer obvious.

If you’re in sanitation, you have a more nuanced relationship with trash than those who aren’t, even though everyone dislikes trash.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#103

Post by rhombocombus »

bzzt wrote: post #93
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I don't get it, doesn't everyone dislike/struggle with these things? Who likes context switching, office politics, sitting in meetings and having difficult conversations

I do, for one, and I truly love my middle management job. It is really compatible with my brand of insanity!

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#104

Post by blacktriangle »

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…

I seriously question #4. While the popular tools and languages and techniques churn, there are no fundamental revelations in software development that cannot be understood at a higher level by somebody who stopped programming in the 70s. If anything, not being obsessed with the churn helps these managers step back and ask fundamental questions that are often ignored by magpie developers.

It is very possible to keep up do date on all the new tech coming out at a surface level, ie enough to manage engineers and ask questions, without spending the time to deep dive into the nuts and bolts of each new tech.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#105

Post by bzzt »

poorman wrote: post #98

Something I think that's often overlooked is your relationship with your peers after the transition from "peer" to "manager". It's tough because you want to continue to treat your direct reports as peers, but that only makes it extremely awkward for them since the relationship dynamic has changed.

I agree very much, I hate when managers try to pretend to be your peer when that's clearly not the nature of the relationship. It's actually a huge pet peeve of mine: managers who always want to put their own modern twist on being a manager. Like I'm your boss, but actually I don't like to make decisions and I'm also a cool guy who's just your friend. They try to avoid the negative stereotype of the manager, but just end up not doing their job and leaving people confused, and making for a very awkward environment.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#106

Post by poorman »

poorman wrote: post #101
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really enjoy having 3 different managers to report to? All of whom have 3 different projects they’re dealing with? IMO, it’s better to have a 1:1 ratio of managers to teams. A 3:3 ratio is a recipe for endless meetings and communication overhead. 1:1 and 3:3 have the same number of employees, but 1:1 eliminates all of the communication overhead because there’s only 1 manager per team instead of 3. In my experi…

I'm not sure where the 3 managers comes from. Product manager (Product Owner in scrum), Senior Dev / Tech Lead, Dev1, Dev2, QA, and UI/UX Designer all report to Engineering manager. Further, changing the mindset from "as a manager these reports work for me" to "as a manager I work for these reports" improves the feeling of ICs having "multiple managers". The managers job should largely be unblocking the ICs.

I would further note, if you have a Project Manager that reports to leadership outside your direct team, you should have a Product Manager on the engineering team to counter-balance. Project Manager's goal is to drive leadership initiatives, where as the Product Manager's goal is to guard the members of the team so they are not stretched too thin and can build a quality product.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#107

Post by rhombocombus »

meddlepal wrote: post #94
dominotw wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Don't sell yourself out for money unless you need to. Figure out the amount of money you would like to make then if your at not getting paid that at CurrentCo go find a darling SV company, unicorn, or a FAANG+Microsoft and switch to an IC role at one of those companies and get paid better. Going into management for money is a terrible reason to become a manager... Unless of course your goal is executive management...…

I agree, and I think you should only go into management if you like managing. You can be a good IC and a good leader and a good manager, but more than likely you will be better at one or two out of those three.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#108

Post by camjohnson26 »

blacktriangle wrote: post #104
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…

I seriously question #4. While the popular tools and languages and techniques churn, there are no fundamental revelations in software development that cannot be understood at a higher level by somebody who stopped programming in the 70s. If anything, not being obsessed with the churn helps these managers step back and ask fundamental questions that are often ignored by magpie developers. It is very possible to keep u…

For 3, you can keep yourself informed without coding on the job. Continuous education is a common part of many professional careers. Just code a personal project every couple of years and read the tech news and you’ll be fine.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#109

Post by Osiris »

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…

What does PHB stand for?

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#110

Post by ht_th »

Osiris wrote: post #109
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…

What does PHB stand for?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointy-haired_Boss
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