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Mistakes I made as an engineer, but had to become a manager to see

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Re: Mistakes I made as an engineer, but had to become a manager to see

#11

Post by Jensson »

ryanlpeterman wrote: post #8
Jensson wrote: post #4

"When I was an engineer I focused on work that improved my career, but then I became a manager and realized that my engineers actually should work to improve my career!" Funny how that works.

I agree it's easy to see it that way as an IC (I thought the same!). I think the more senior you become the more you will view impact from the lens of your team/org, even as an IC

There is a strong bias to focus on things that helps yourself, that is only natural. So IC's will focus too much on things that improve their career, managers will focus too much on things that improve their career, directors will focus too much on things that improve their career etc.

Re: Mistakes I made as an engineer, but had to become a manager to see

#12

Post by stingraycharles »

Jensson wrote: post #4

"When I was an engineer I focused on work that improved my career, but then I became a manager and realized that my engineers actually should work to improve my career!" Funny how that works.

Depends on what you’re looking for in an engineer. I consider the author’s learnings to be relatively obvious, of course and engineer that “gets to know their colleagues” is doing great.

Fact of the matter is that there are a whole lot of people that aren’t necessarily into that, but are great individual contributors, and should just be left to their devices as long as they’re a positive contribution, not just to your codebase, but towards your organisation as a whole.

Re: Mistakes I made as an engineer, but had to become a manager to see

#13

Post by MisterBastahrd »

HellDunkel wrote: post #7

I dont get it. Why would you care or think much about hiring as an engineer? You probably would not even be asked to attend interviews. If you vibe with the company and share the vision okay but this is not a matter of perspective. Why would you NOT be interested in getting to know your coworkers? Why NOT have interesting conversation or a good laugh at lunch? This has nothing to do with beeing an engineer or manager…

Why?

Because you will eventually have to work with these people and their problems will become your problems, especially if you are seen by management as someone who can fix those issues. Young adults tend to group together and cling to co-workers because they haven't learned to cope with life independently of the situation they find themselves in. I generally like my co-workers, but I have no inclination to spend any independent time with them. It's not that I don't want to make friends at work, it's that I don't want a condition of my friendship to be tied to the workplace. If I'm not seeking that person independently now, then I'm probably not going to do it later after switching jobs.

Re: Mistakes I made as an engineer, but had to become a manager to see

#14

Post by ZephyrBlu »

A more interesting question is, are these actually mistakes or just part of the journey from a junior engineer to manager?

People problems and building relationships with your co-workers are things that I have realized are important over the last couple of years (Haven't done any hiring yet).

In saying that, I'm not sure it would have been wise to focus on these things earlier than I did. There were too many other things I needed to learn. Focusing on code is probably a good thing when you are a junior. Leave the higher level problems for a little later down the line.

I've thought about hiring and am interested in doing it and getting good at it because I see that it's very high value, but I don't think it's the right time. There are more important skills and behaviours for me to develop right now.

I try to focus on things 1 or 2 steps ahead of where I currently am, no more. Otherwise it's too far away from reality.

Re: Mistakes I made as an engineer, but had to become a manager to see

#15

Post by gonzaloalvarez »

HellDunkel wrote: post #7

I dont get it. Why would you care or think much about hiring as an engineer? You probably would not even be asked to attend interviews. If you vibe with the company and share the vision okay but this is not a matter of perspective. Why would you NOT be interested in getting to know your coworkers? Why NOT have interesting conversation or a good laugh at lunch? This has nothing to do with beeing an engineer or manager…

Because as you become more senior as an IC, your personal growth is directly related with your ability to influence others and deliver through others. What’s best way to do it than to ensure you bring and groom the right talent.

Re: Mistakes I made as an engineer, but had to become a manager to see

#17

Post by ryanlpeterman »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #14

A more interesting question is, are these actually mistakes or just part of the journey from a junior engineer to manager? People problems and building relationships with your co-workers are things that I have realized are important over the last couple of years (Haven't done any hiring yet). In saying that, I'm not sure it would have been wise to focus on these things earlier than I did. There were too many other th…

> Focusing on code is probably a good thing when you are a junior. Leave the higher level problems for a little later down the line.

Agreed that junior engineers should focus on code with most time (but not all). If you focus on the low hanging fruit outside of code you can have more impact overall without too much time investment there.

Re: Mistakes I made as an engineer, but had to become a manager to see

#18

Post by tenpoundhammer »

I think of all of these problems as being the managers problem and not the engineers problems. Maybe a better title is "10X Manager tasks, I wasn't aware of as an engineer".

To help engineers maximize their career I tell Junior/Level 1 engineers focus on becoming net productive, meaning providing more value than you take.

Midlevel/Level 2 engineers should becoming independent and solving lot's of their problems on their own. As they approach the top of this level start getting involved in architecture and design.

Senior/level 3 should focus on helping the team to be successful as a whole, mentoring, producing value quickly when needed, and should be able to solve most problems independently including starting a project from scratch or solving complicated performance/technical problems.

Hiring and people problems are engineering manager problems.

Getting to know your coworkers is a good career move for anyone.

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