Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

ochronus.online

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 224 posts

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#111

Post by blacktriangle »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #108
blacktriangle wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not to mention just sitting in on code reviews and listening to the developers will help keep you continuously educated. Take notes and read up on any debates that come up that confuse you.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#112

Post by camjohnson26 »

yaml-ops-guy wrote: post #95
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…

2b) Start coding again because your superiors promote you to management but treat you like you’re still an IC and ask why you haven’t contributed any points to the latest sprint while actively shutting you out of the kinds of discussions and decisions an EM would be making in most other orgs—-while somehow simultaneously asking you to also be the bearer of frequently changing and poorly communicated business prioriti…

I keep seeing this IC term here but never saw it before, is that “Independent Consultant”?

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#113

Post by webloem »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #112
yaml-ops-guy wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2b) Start coding again because your superiors promote you to management but treat you like you’re still an IC and ask why you haven’t contributed any points to the latest sprint while actively shutting you out of the kinds of discussions and decisions an EM would be making in most other orgs—-while somehow simultaneously asking you to also be the bearer of frequently changing and poorly communicated business prioriti…

I keep seeing this IC term here but never saw it before, is that “Independent Consultant”?

Individual Contributor

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#114

Post by MobileVet »

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 have eight managers Bob' - Peter

'Eight?' - Bob

'Eight Bob' - Peter

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#115

Post by dreamer7 »

fatnoah wrote: post #85
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…

>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 th…

I'm curious. Multiple back and forth seems to indicate that you missed your previous role. Was that why you made multiple shifts? Or were they just different opportunities?

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#116

Post by watwut »

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 really honestly dont mind context switching all that much. It makes me less productive or course, but it does not make me angry or annoyed.

There are plenty of meetings I honestly dont mind at all. Some I do mind, but it is more about how those meetings are moderated then hating on meetings in general.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#117

Post by binarytox1n »

bzzt wrote: post #87
halfmatthalfcat wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, shieldin…

One on one meetings are not "creepy" - they are a chance to have an open conversation about your goals; your concerns; and anything else that needs to be discussed about your career, the organization, etc.

Do you know what the sales people in your organization do? What about the legal department? Procurement? HR? Your lack of knowledge is not evidence.

"lol, do some coding instead"? And what should I code? How do you know what _you_ should be coding? Where does that work come from? Who makes sure that you're writing quality code and not some shit spaghetti mess? When the lawyers come knocking who answers the questions about security and compliance? You're just going to write some code for that?

Your myopic complaints do nothing to further your own goals - rather than make baseless accusations, look into the problems yourself and try to solve them. You might get some career growth out of it. At the very least you'll understand that not all problems can be solved with code.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#118

Post by gfodor »

yaml-ops-guy wrote: post #95
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…

2b) Start coding again because your superiors promote you to management but treat you like you’re still an IC and ask why you haven’t contributed any points to the latest sprint while actively shutting you out of the kinds of discussions and decisions an EM would be making in most other orgs—-while somehow simultaneously asking you to also be the bearer of frequently changing and poorly communicated business prioriti…

Haha the cherry on top if so: were you paid the same?

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#119

Post by BlargMcLarg »

beckingz wrote: post #82
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Frankly, personal anecdotes disagree. I don't need managers breathing down my neck because they aren't capable of resolving the issue, and end up overcommunicating with the customers, reinforcing behavior in customers to continuously ask for information instead of realizing the harm they are doing. "Two days" means "two days", no matter how many times you ask for a progress update or try to push it to one day.

Quality managers doing more than shoving boxes, that's a different story. We are definitely lacking high quality management capacity actually capable of preventing these situations from happening in the first place. I'd argue an overcapacity of managers actually actively prevents healthy relationships and usage of developers. People who aren't capable of doing anything useful in the moment, get antsy. It is a lot easier to get antsy as a manager than it is as a developer with an endless backlog.

That's also one of my arguments against full time managers. Management work is actually pretty rare, and full time managers tend to inflate it as to not twiddle their thumbs. As we move towards more "self-managing" practices (actual self-managing), total FTE of managers required drops significantly. It makes more sense to hybridize the role, so they keep an affinity with technology, than to put them on the "people manager" path which makes them rapidly lose their connection with technology and will quickly makes them stub their toe against Dunbar's Number. That's before considering tech will rapidly take away most of management's routine work. Their most important responsibilities don't take the majority of their time.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#120

Post by yaml-ops-guy »

gfodor wrote: post #118
yaml-ops-guy wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2b) Start coding again because your superiors promote you to management but treat you like you’re still an IC and ask why you haven’t contributed any points to the latest sprint while actively shutting you out of the kinds of discussions and decisions an EM would be making in most other orgs—-while somehow simultaneously asking you to also be the bearer of frequently changing and poorly communicated business prioriti…

Haha the cherry on top if so: were you paid the same?

I sardonically feel like you already know the answer to this ;)

(but yes)

Post reply on HN