Is engineering management bullshit?
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Is engineering management bullshit?
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Re: Is engineering management bullshit?
#2I'm a manager. This is a low-energy take on management, focused on the part of the job I call "keeping the spice flowing": knocking out tickets, landing key results, and coordinating with other teams. For a manager, this is all low-impact work.
High impact management work isn't mentioned here. These are things like developing your people and networking. It's a lot of work to get somebody promoted, even if that person is a well-known high performer. Networking with other managers, product managers, finance, IT... building influence with other parts of the company, this pays huge dividends for your team.
High-impact managers focus their efforts around the people on their teams.
Re: Is engineering management bullshit?
#3I'm a manager. This is a low-energy take on management, focused on the part of the job I call "keeping the spice flowing": knocking out tickets, landing key results, and coordinating with other teams. For a manager, this is all low-impact work. High impact management work isn't mentioned here. These are things like developing your people and networking. It's a lot of work to get somebody promoted, even if that person…
Note how everything you categorize as 'high-impact' is basically politics.
"Rather than focus on delivering results (which again is difficult(!), might be wrong, and often not easily identified by leadership), these people spend time making alliances and crafting narratives about outcomes instead of delivering. Title acquisition becomes the goal, seeking to maximize the expected organizational rewards, at the expense of direct results, all while working to minimize accountability."
Re: Is engineering management bullshit?
#4Most of the "engineering managers" I've had to work under have been utter bullshit. Didn't learn anything from them (technically or in regards to leadership) and were there merely to check a box, play babysitter and/or sit in meetings all day that had zero impact on our work streams.
The few who did have impact (1) were skilled engineers in their own right and were able to translate that into more management, (2) understood that managing down is much more important than managing up and (3) knew how to say "no" to upper management effectively. Those are very few and far in-between imo.
Re: Is engineering management bullshit?
#5I'm a manager. This is a low-energy take on management, focused on the part of the job I call "keeping the spice flowing": knocking out tickets, landing key results, and coordinating with other teams. For a manager, this is all low-impact work. High impact management work isn't mentioned here. These are things like developing your people and networking. It's a lot of work to get somebody promoted, even if that person…
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Re: Is engineering management bullshit?
#6This is such a tired take. It's part of a steady stream of commentary that reads something like "non-engineering-role X is bullshit."
Here, we see engineers reduce the contributions of such common roles as: Product Manger, Program/Project Manager, Scrum Master, Marketer, CEO, etc., as fungible or run by the biggest boogeyman of all, the dreaded MBA.
These arguments most typically result from not an inability, but an unwillingness to understand, the complexity and nuance that goes into running a business, and to recognize that actual smart people can make real contributions in non-engineering roles.
It's just personal and professional immaturity. Every time I ready these comments and articles, I really hope that the folks writing them are able to grow out of this mindset. They'd be a lot happier and more productive.
Re: Is engineering management bullshit?
#7I'm a manager. This is a low-energy take on management, focused on the part of the job I call "keeping the spice flowing": knocking out tickets, landing key results, and coordinating with other teams. For a manager, this is all low-impact work. High impact management work isn't mentioned here. These are things like developing your people and networking. It's a lot of work to get somebody promoted, even if that person…
Note how everything you categorize as 'high-impact' is basically politics. "Rather than focus on delivering results (which again is difficult(!), might be wrong, and often not easily identified by leadership), these people spend time making alliances and crafting narratives about outcomes instead of delivering. Title acquisition becomes the goal, seeking to maximize the expected organizational rewards, at the expense…
Politics is something you do or something that is done to you is the saying no? Would you rather someone from engineering do your politics for you? Or someone from product or the business? I think the engineering person will look after you better.
Where it becomes fascinating is the 10+ year EM. They used to know what to do, but clearly don't anymore. They either accept that, and lean on their leads for technical decisions and just focus on politics, or dont accept it and thats what it can get bad fast.
Re: Is engineering management bullshit?
#8Engineers that have to do management and paperwork stuff cry that they're so busy with paperwork that they can't engineer. So management hires a guy for them and they cry about how that guy doesn't do anything.
Re: Is engineering management bullshit?
#9I'm a manager. This is a low-energy take on management, focused on the part of the job I call "keeping the spice flowing": knocking out tickets, landing key results, and coordinating with other teams. For a manager, this is all low-impact work. High impact management work isn't mentioned here. These are things like developing your people and networking. It's a lot of work to get somebody promoted, even if that person…
Note how everything you categorize as 'high-impact' is basically politics. "Rather than focus on delivering results (which again is difficult(!), might be wrong, and often not easily identified by leadership), these people spend time making alliances and crafting narratives about outcomes instead of delivering. Title acquisition becomes the goal, seeking to maximize the expected organizational rewards, at the expense…
I mean, a company is made up of a bunch of people, all with different ideas on how thinks should be done and in the end it’s often influence that decides the path forward.
Of course organizations have politics. It will always be that way unless you get rid of all the humans.
Re: Is engineering management bullshit?
#10My manager joins our stand up and basically just says “had some meetings yesterday, have some more today”. No wonder why we think the job is BS