TLDR: Give a shit about your coworkers.
Thats it, thats the whole post.
Mistakes I made as an engineer, but had to become a manager to see
101–109 of 109 posts
Re: Mistakes I made as an engineer, but had to become a manager to see
#102Agree ,but do not think you have to become a manager to see those mistakes.
Re: Mistakes I made as an engineer, but had to become a manager to see
#103I’ve been fortunate to work with the same core group on engineers and qa for more than a decade. Managers come and go, but we all get along well, enjoy our work, have great benefits, and are compensated well enough that none of us have felt like moving on. However, we recently got a new manager who is a pain in the ass. Fridays are normally no meeting days (this comes from much higher up), but he scheduled a 1 hour m…
This seems like the kind of thing you could take to your skip-level or even higher in the management chain. A single new manager causing multiple long-serving employees to become disgruntled should be a bright red flag to a competent leadership team.
Unfortunately, we can’t do that. Not everyone on the team is white, but enough are that if we complained about the new manager it would most likely come off as racism. Better to find a new job first and then let HR know of our concerns in the exit interview.
Re: Mistakes I made as an engineer, but had to become a manager to see
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
It must suck having to work with people who need to be “nudged” to do their jobs, every day.
It’s very much part of the job at any organisation. At any level, you have in front of you people with a lot on their plate, competing interests and different prioritisation abilities and it’s your role as a manager to give them enough information for them to prioritise adequately. It might be straightforwardly reminding a developer that right now we really have to ship this feature or it might be subtly making a man…
My manager does not have to do this with me. We meet once a week where I update him on my progress for the projects assigned to me, or decide which next project I should take on. If anything impacts my ability to deliver, or if anything is unclear in terms of scope or priorities I talk to him on Slack to resolve it.
I am a professional. I do not need to be reminded about what I have promised to do. Maybe that's why I'm paid good money to do what I do.
Re: Mistakes I made as an engineer, but had to become a manager to see
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right. The "soft skills" that make you popular and likeable with your peers are seriously disjoint from the "soft skills" that show you're in tune with management's (possibly unstated) priorities and know how to navigate them and know where the actual decision-making power centers are (and aren't). Sometimes, these skills are antagonistic to each other. Trying to munge these all together under one label seems counter…
Where can I learn more about these practical, important, or less thought about "soft skills" (like ZephyrBlu's interesting examples) more effectively? I feel like I've encountered these points (e.g. writing for a specific audience) through separate online posts at disparate times. But, is there a definitive, more comprehensive resource detailing all of these soft skills and more? I realize that I'm basically looking…
Through self improvement literature! The problem is there’s a lot of bad self improvement literature out there.
You are also right that a lot of it can only be approximately taught, because the process of internalizing the skills has a lot to do with figuring out how to work with your own personality.
Re: Mistakes I made as an engineer, but had to become a manager to see
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Code should always be focused on; it should be constantly rewritten, Your PO: I've noticed you've been rewriting a lot of methods in the code base. Can you please tell me which stories on the board this sprint those rewrites are attached to? We need to focus on sprint work, and as we established as a team last PI Planning meeting, the emphasis this quarter is on shipping features from the Customer Experience epic.…
It's funny people tolerate this kind of stuff. I'd be out the door immediately, and I have been before. You don't have to work for companies that do this kind of insanity.
At any company, your job is to do what the company needs done and that is rarely your choice.
It's gonna get much, much harder to find the kind of laid-back company you favor, where you can work on whichever part of the code base you want, when you want. There's much less money sloshing around, and what's there needs to be spent on priority items.
Re: Mistakes I made as an engineer, but had to become a manager to see
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's funny people tolerate this kind of stuff. I'd be out the door immediately, and I have been before. You don't have to work for companies that do this kind of insanity.
At any company, your job is to do what the company needs done and that is rarely your choice. It's gonna get much, much harder to find the kind of laid-back company you favor, where you can work on whichever part of the code base you want, when you want. There's much less money sloshing around, and what's there needs to be spent on priority items.
> At any company, your job is to do what the company needs done and that is rarely your choice.
Doing what the company needs done can also mean not taking orders from your PO. Depending on your situation, that could manifest as ignoring them, working around them, convincing them it was all their idea, directly challenging them, or going over their head. Skullduggery. Ass-kissing if necessary. Be a hero or a martyr in the end, but at least end each day with a clear conscience.
None of that being my preference, given the choice. All I expect from a PO is a collaborative relationship where I'm treated as an equal and not some member of the worker underclass who's just there to close tickets.
When the project collapses under its own weight as a consequence of the PO's own choices, is the PO going to take the blame? Is the PO going to help when production goes down? Will they working overtime to fix things? Who suffers? The PO? Not so much.
Re: Mistakes I made as an engineer, but had to become a manager to see
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where can I learn more about these practical, important, or less thought about "soft skills" (like ZephyrBlu's interesting examples) more effectively? I feel like I've encountered these points (e.g. writing for a specific audience) through separate online posts at disparate times. But, is there a definitive, more comprehensive resource detailing all of these soft skills and more? I realize that I'm basically looking…
Through self improvement literature! The problem is there’s a lot of bad self improvement literature out there. You are also right that a lot of it can only be approximately taught, because the process of internalizing the skills has a lot to do with figuring out how to work with your own personality.
Well, through the small fraction of self-improvement literature (or courses) that isn't garbage. But it will take lots of time and energy to discern which is which.
The more trustworthy and time-efficient way is from coworkers/ mentors/ friends.
Re: Mistakes I made as an engineer, but had to become a manager to see
#109I 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 th…
I really like the way you categorized different SWE levels. Thank you for the insights!