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Is engineering management bullshit?

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Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#391

Post by 015a »

rco8786 wrote: post #323
015a wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe these articles are written by people who have never been managers themselves. I'd also posit that most of the defense of the position comes from managers. Do you not recognize the irony in this? I'm sure you're aware of what they say: Its difficult to get someone to understand something when their paycheck depends on it. Do you have the self-awareness to recognize that this, alone, is a huge reason why managers…

> I'd also posit that most of the defense of the position comes from managers. Do you not recognize the irony in this? That’s not irony. That’s someone with no domain expertise saying something and then someone with domain expertise refuting it. If I, a casual baseball fan, made a claim about umpires being useless in baseball and then an umpire came in to explain otherwise, that would not be irony. I’m also not an EM…

> I don’t understand your point about PMs. You’re saying that the responsibilities of an EM should be that of a PM. So you’re just arguing for a name change? Or something else?

Well, its not just a name change, but generally Yes.

The biggest thing is from the Org Hierarchy perspective. I want to preface what I'm about to say to be perfectly clear: This is not true in every company.

EMs have the final say on resourcing for code-related tasks; but poor understanding of the code, systems, etc because the Lead/Senior devs live there. EMs have the final say on product decisions from PO/PMs under them; but a poor understanding of the product because the PO/PMs/etc breathe that. EMs have the final say on designs; but a poor understanding of UX because the designers have that.

The best EMs always have some background in one of the roles I outlined above. They come from an IC background, they were due a promotion, burned out in the IC role, ran out of promotions in the IC track, whatever.

But in many situations the role of an EM becomes a mediocre mashup where the one thing they're actually good at is navigating the politics of org hierarchies; or if you want to be Business Proper, call it Communication. Ask any high school guidance councilor where "Communications" lands on the list of Valuable College Degrees and you'll get a pretty consistent answer. But: EMs somehow escaped this destiny, because tech has a weird distortion field on incomes right now.

Here's the sinister part: Because EMs hold power over everyone who reports to them, its common to see turf wars over responsibilities. Example: "We don't need to hire for a PM, I'm doing that". That's why it isn't just a simple name change; its their fundamental place in an org hierarchy that can make the role a net drag on an organization. Orgs hire them without a tactile definition on the responsibilities of the role [1]; just extrapolate "manage the engineers" to three paragraphs and call it good. You'll do roadmap planning (in collaboration with senior leadership and the PMs). You'll help prioritize incoming work from different stakeholders (in collaboration with the PMs, Customers, and Engineers). You'll help build the team (in collaboration with Recruiting). You'll mentor the engineers (but, we don't require any engineering background, so how you'll do this well is anyone's guess).

The role doesn't actually DO anything valuable; again, at best, the person has IC experience and can carve out a niche that's a hybrid of that IC experience and more coordination/communication. But at average, they're a message bus that attends meetings and parrots messages from someone that actually matters to someone else that actually matters [2].

[1] https://stripe.com/jobs/listing/engineering-manager-payment-...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4OvQIGDg4I

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#392

Post by bottled_poe »

clhodapp wrote: post #369
felizuno wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'r point is that people with 10 or fewer years of experience (which I think is many people in this thread based on the comments) might have a sample bias issue that stems from working around fewer total managers and fewer companies, where those companies also may be worse than average at selecting managers? I would agree that there are probably plenty of people who fit that mold given the state of our indu…

or the values provided by ORMs I'll point out that the world is pretty diverse and there are actually lots of people who think that ORMs were a mistake and lots of people who think that using them is always a no-brainer. There's an interesting phenomenon that it seems like a lot of folks manage to build up reasonably long careers while only running into one side of this divide or the other and not even realize that t…

> there are actually lots of people who think that ORMs were a mistake and lots of people who think that using them is always a no-brainer.

This doesn’t mean that both groups are right though.

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#393

Post by vlovich123 »

rco8786 wrote: post #184
vlovich123 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most are about average Surely you meant to communicate something different here and not a mathematical impossibility. Do you mean most fall within 1 standard deviation of the average? That still means half the managers you encounter would be below the average quality assuming a normal distribution (which it’s clearly not - skills tend to follow the power law). Most engineers are actually decidedly quite bad at soft…

Really unclear what point you are trying to make. But yes my intention of using the word "about" average and not "exactly" average was to communicate that most people hover somewhere around the middle. If you want to get really specific and get into stddevs, be my guest.

"Most people" cannot be above average. That's an information free statement.

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#394

Post by 015a »

bumby wrote: post #311
015a wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe these articles are written by people who have never been managers themselves. I'd also posit that most of the defense of the position comes from managers. Do you not recognize the irony in this? I'm sure you're aware of what they say: Its difficult to get someone to understand something when their paycheck depends on it. Do you have the self-awareness to recognize that this, alone, is a huge reason why managers…

This is interesting. What, in your opinion, should the core definition be (if anything)? And how is that eroded when tasked to an engineering manager vs. a project manager? One of the major issues I have with the article is they lean heavily on the "creative work can't be managed like manufacturing widgets" train of thought. It feels to me that they define developers as artists when the article is about engineering.…

I think Software Development is far more creative than you give it credit. Let me list a few realities of modern software development:

1) You give a spec to ten different engineers. You'll get ten wildly different solutions, from decisions within a single programming language, to different programming languages, to microservices and serverless.

2) So: make the spec more specific to reduce the variability. Now an engineer has to write the spec; and we're back to square one where the spec is just an expression of how they would develop it. You give it to ten engineers, and you still get ten different solutions; but maybe less variable.

3) Of those ten solutions, most will fail in weird ways, because software breaks. That's what software is known for; breaking. Its hard, probably impossible, to write reliable software, and we're on a deadline, so like 30+% of the team's time is spent just on operations.

4) Of those ten solutions, most will fail to account for some edge case, because the spec didn't cover that edge case, because (reasons). Well, file a followup ticket.

Those bullet points represent so much variability in how the future will play out that any ability to "manage" it is an exercise in futility. Add in interruptions, add in PTO, add in cross-team coordination, incidents, every day longer that a project takes reduces the accuracy of estimates substantially; that can't be managed (well).

That's why product engineering is fundamentally a creative effort. Maybe not like Art or Music; I liken it to more like, well, video game development (which, you know, people write code in so its really confusing to me why Culture considers that creative but not typical software development, I guess its because they produce something Pretty and Fun).

Video games have deadlines. They have business demands. Customers. Product-market fit. Roadmaps. Coordination. Massive, massive variability in implementation. Massive unknowns about what the final product will look like. Massive technical problems involved in bugs, performance, optimizations, maintenance, different platforms.

Here are five careers pages for major video game studios. Seriously, go to all of them, and tell me how many positions they have open for "Manager of People Who Do Traditionally Creative Things": [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. Its not many, if any. They have roles like this, for sure, but they're not phrased or labeled from the perspective of "Writer Manager"; they're phrased as Lead Writer.

And the critical point there is maybe one involved in the hierarchy and power relationship. But more importantly, its background! The Lead Writer WAS a Writer. That's experience in the domain of the people you're leading; that helps massively in every responsibility this role should have. Timelines? Hella. Roadmapping? Heck yeah. Mentorship? The forbidden word that big tech managers hate.

But Tech is a weird microcosm where EMs are just Managers. The best EMs have an IC background, but many job postings list ZERO requirement to that effect [6], and ask any Engineer-turned-EM: They ain't doing much Engineering anymore. That's not just a benign anomaly; its a problem with how our industry builds companies. And we sit around twiddling our thumbs wondering why engineers hop jobs every year or two; its because, well, the pay is probably better, but also because its a coin flip on whether your manager is actually good, or just some guy that talks good.

Hypothetically, what is a better path forward? Get rid of "Engineering Management". The team has a Lead Developer, who is legally or whatever, the person who "manages" the team (there's that word again, KILL IT WITH FIRE). That role is a peer to PMs, POs, Designers, etc. That role requires a long history of actually doing engineering; and still does it, at least from a high level (meetings are necessary and, yeah, its hard for Engineers-Turned-EMs to find time to code; but writing/reviewing specs, PRs, mentoring the team by helping them debug problems, I'm salivating at the idea of having a manager like this).

[1] https://www.insomniac.com/careers/

[2] https://sms.playstation.com/careers

[3] https://www.valvesoftware.com/en/ (kind of interesting that their home page is their open roles. hiring like crazy! no managers).

[4] https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/careers/jobs?keyword=ma...

[5] https://www.respawn.com/careers

[6] https://stripe.com/jobs/listing/engineering-manager-payment-...

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#395

Post by refurb »

maxbond wrote: post #81
refurb wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think the issue is that it's sort of circular, like, "managers provide value when they convince other managers not to be obstacles". I think there's important stuff managers can do, but creating complex hierarchies that they then have to navigate or circumvent is a neutral contribution at best, from a systemic standpoint rather than an individual one. For this high performer who's earned their promotion, having the…

But if the reason they needed a manager to advocate for them was that other managers were either adversarial or ambivalent, that's just adding back value that was previously removed.

But "adversarial" management is just a reality in company that has $X to spend and 12 different ways to spend it.

Business decisions often have to made with limited data. A engineers "super cool feature that should obviously be implemented" is not so obvious at the CEO level where there are multiple competing projects.

As such there is a need to "sell" ideas internally -> that's politics.

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#396

Post by edmundsauto »

abc_lisper wrote: post #80
edmundsauto wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has switched between management and IC work, I’ve found management to be much, much more difficult to do well. Management should be managing people, which is much harder than managing code. Perhaps this is why there are so many bad examples. The job is nearly impossible to do exceptionally well.

I have seen many (extremely smart too) engineers cry at work, but never managers. Make of it what you will.

I've worked at several big corps and the managers are the ones who take all the stress. I would never ask one of my team (or one of my colleagues) to work to the point where they cried - this is a negative signal.

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#397

Post by maxbond »

refurb wrote: post #395
maxbond wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the issue is that it's sort of circular, like, "managers provide value when they convince other managers not to be obstacles". I think there's important stuff managers can do, but creating complex hierarchies that they then have to navigate or circumvent is a neutral contribution at best, from a systemic standpoint rather than an individual one. For this high performer who's earned their promotion, having the…

But if the reason they needed a manager to advocate for them was that other managers were either adversarial or ambivalent, that's just adding back value that was previously removed. But "adversarial" management is just a reality in company that has $X to spend and 12 different ways to spend it. Business decisions often have to made with limited data. A engineers "super cool feature that should obviously be implement…

Just because it is the reality doesn't mean it can't be critiqued though, right? If the CEO doesn't have insight into this situation because their attention is divided - maybe the CEO should provide the people closer to the problem with the information they need to do their jobs, and trust that they've hired good people who will digest this information, prioritize appropriately, and get the job done? If they can't trust that's the case, then isn't that the problem we should be discussing? Maybe the CEO should focus on the strategic direction of the company and securing the investment required to implement it, and not manage projects at the feature level?

Generally I find that managers are awesome at facilitating stuff and making sure information gets where it needs to go but that when they dictate it leads to bad decision making because they don't have the proper insight. This becomes exacerbated as you add levels of indirection are between the manager dictating decisions and the people on the ground implementing them. That isn't per say their fault, it's just the dynamics of hierarchies. As information travels up the hierarchy it becomes more essentialized and nonspecific. It loses fidelity. Statistics can travel up the hierarchy, experience can't. So that engineer who's close to the problem has this rich first hand information about the system, and the CEO has a spreadsheet and third- or forth-hand accounts of the situation on the ground.

There's certainly a lot of global, systemic insights you can make from that position and useful work to be done. But it's probably not whether a individual feature of a broader project should or should not be implemented. Internal salesmanship is a bandaid, but structuring the organization differently is a solution.

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#398

Post by icedchai »

feoren wrote: post #250
drstewart wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If managers and PMs stopped working they'd be replaced by engineers who are by and large more capable at adaptation anyway. It's funny how these ultracapable genius engineers don't just start their own company free of these bullshit manager and PM roles and just steamroll the competition, isn't it?

A few reasons: 1. They would rather be building cool things than doing all the other things involved in running a company. Nobody said managers are doing literally nothing, just that they're generally not very good and they really don't deserve or earn the authority they have. Their role is a support role, like a typist or a document manager or something. They should be considered basically secretaries to the enginee…

The real reason is a lot of us are risk adverse. We’ve seen startups go bad many times. It seems easier to work a mediocre but relatively high paying job, save, and invest.

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#399

Post by icedchai »

robjan wrote: post #154
switch007 wrote: post #10

My 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

In the scrum guide, the scrum master is considered to have a management role. Although it's a management role, I don't believe it's a people management role. That's what the Engineering Manager does and ideally they wouldn't be attending the scrum.

I had a scrum master that literally did nothing. He tried to get me to do his work, like running planning poker, updating sprint status slides, and other assorted nonsense, while he literally phoned it in from his kid’s baseball game. I was the tech lead on the team and flat out refused. Eventually he got one of the more junior engineers to do it.

Re: Is engineering management bullshit?

#400

Post by icedchai »

AlwaysRock wrote: post #182

Thankfully most of the managers I've worked for were still doing or able to do the job of a senior/lead person of the team who they managed. The few I have had who were not capable of that were really ineffective. They didnt know how to handle top performers. They didnt know how to help low performers. They become managers of micro bits of information that they collected and passed up to their manager so despite the…

Same. The best engineering managers I’ve had were also very capable engineers.
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