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Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

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Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#211

Post by njwi332 »

gfodor wrote: post #128
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…

No, I'm not talking about those kinds of skills per se. ("Fundamental revelations.") I'm talking about: - Grokking what actually sucks about the tools, languages, frameworks, etc in use. And grokking what complaints of suckiness are shallow or misplaced. The former is an opportunity to deliver empathy for the team's suffering and propose good solutions, the latter is an opportunity to remind engineers (esp junior one…

I completely agree with you. How do you prevent this happening? I've relocated from a team where I used to be a software engineer on the team (and therefore had a peer-level understanding of the systems) to one in a different company where I'm starting from day 1 as a manager. How do you maintain/build that localized domain knowledge? It doesn't feel like it's solvable by doing a week of coding now and again.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#212

Post by HellDunkel »

airhead969 wrote: post #191
HellDunkel wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a technical manager?

Manager of technical people. I guess we could recast the term "technical manager" as "one who attempts to both do and manage."

Guess it all boils down to management vs leadership. I just wish we could go back to not calling every second employee a manager of something.

„manager of technical people“ is great example. You would expect a technical person who the team respects with equally great management skills, farsight and vision.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#213

Post by cryptica »

hnfong wrote: post #145
cryptica wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's likely I wouldn't want to hire or sponsor you either because you seem to jump to conclusions and make incorrect assumptions. The projects I manage are open source, I pay in crypto (which has been going up in price so my team is earning more over time) and I pay based on value added (small base sponsorship amount + generous bonuses at the end of each month based on delivered value) not lines of code or hours…

I wasn't convinced of the gp commenter's sentiment about you being a less-than-ideal boss to work with but it seems you proved his/her point. Not sure whether you actually understand the issue raised by him/her -- the process of defining, designing and architecting a solution is very much something that an junior engineer would aspire to be able to take responsibility for one day. But under your working model, only o…

When you code all the time for over a decade, you know what good code looks like. When you care about the product, you know what a well implemented feature looks like from the user's perspective. So it's easy to approximate value from these two aspects.

The people who work with me learn a lot about architecture because I explain everything. I only had 1 manager who had a similar style as me in my own career as a developer (out of over a dozen) and I wish I would have had more of them or that I could have worked for them longer.

You're assuming things because you've probably never seen a good manager in your life. It's difficult to imagine something better than the best you've known.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#214

Post by ta988 »

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…

Interstingly I found a similar career path in many scientists. Some of them are getting completely out of touch (you never see them in a lab, they don't learn new techniques, they rigidly defend things they learned before but that is obsolete) and just presenting their students/postdocs works and editing papers.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#215

Post by dontreact »

cryptica wrote: post #213
hnfong wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't convinced of the gp commenter's sentiment about you being a less-than-ideal boss to work with but it seems you proved his/her point. Not sure whether you actually understand the issue raised by him/her -- the process of defining, designing and architecting a solution is very much something that an junior engineer would aspire to be able to take responsibility for one day. But under your working model, only o…

When you code all the time for over a decade, you know what good code looks like. When you care about the product, you know what a well implemented feature looks like from the user's perspective. So it's easy to approximate value from these two aspects. The people who work with me learn a lot about architecture because I explain everything. I only had 1 manager who had a similar style as me in my own career as a deve…

To put it more concretely, how many people have you been able to promote into a role like yours where they are defining the architecture, in the last 5 years?

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#216

Post by coding123 »

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…

Ugh and it's not usually their fault. Too many orgs are promoting this by making manager pay higher. In a sense higher pay is the career goal. Why stay in coding when you can get a 30k bump for coding plus whipping people?

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#217

Post by P_I_Staker »

cryptica wrote: post #45

Under "Still doing much technical work": > Focusing on your team’s health and growth will pay much higher dividends than still being half an engineer. This logic is completely flawed as it assumes that the manager has reached a point in their career when they have nothing else to teach and nothing else to learn about coding. I'm an excellent coder and manager but I'm still learning all the time, even after 15 years.…

Counter point: There's a lot of delusional engineering managers that say they want to be "hands-on", but that's not in the best interest of the team. They are either not top notch coders, or they can't juggle all the work. What they're doing is being selfish, because they don't want to be a manager, they want power and money. They need to grow up and do what they signed up for.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#218

Post by sanderjd »

TheColorYellow wrote: post #209
sanderjd wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is about right, but one sticking point I've found is: what kind of employee is the project manager? Who do you hire, what is the career trajectory? There is a temptation to have them be a manager, because hey, manager is in the name! But having gotten over that, there is a version of the job that is essentially entry level work; what you describe of managing the tickets and all the stuff is just not very…

Agree with this point completely. Ideally it seems as if you'd want someone with administrative capabilities and focus but with enough understanding of the tech and business side that they're able to understand context and conversation. Problem is, although its easy to find administratively capable resources who you can pay a decent salary to retain, the minute you require them to understand broader context the incen…

Oof, I really don't think that's a good use of a product manager's time. I want them out talking to customers, or evaluating similar products from other companies, or using their own product to understand its capabilities and gaps, or looking at metrics, or just writing and debating product proposals. I honestly think there is already way too much work that is way too valuable for them to be doing, for them to take on project management duties. It's a much closer fit for an eng. people manager if a dedicated resource can't be found or hasn't worked out. At least their job is already interrupt driven and focused on knocking down blockers for their team.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#219

Post by acconrad »

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…

Are you interested in being an engineering manager? If so send me an email we're hiring

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#220

Post by SergeAx »

yaml-ops-guy wrote: post #139
ImprovedSilence wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree here to that this is the exact issue. I will also add though that I think there is another dimension as well. I think much perceived middle manager "incompetence" stems from middle management juggling direction/pressure/expectations from senior management, and the realities of the program and the engineers. The best managers are capable of managing expectations from above while keeping their team shielded fro…

How have you found success balancing these things? It’s been my experience that managers of the first group eventually become unintentional members of the second group, even despite their best efforts to maintain productivity of their subordinates with intentional prioritization and grooming exercises because the business wants that new feature yesterday, and not getting it means lost revenue, angry customers and neg…

> business wants that new feature yesterday, and not getting it means lost revenue

That's just plain bad planning on a business side of the company. They should either fix that, or face gradual departure of their workforce, from best to mediocre.

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