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You're barely managing

barely-managing.bearblog.dev

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Re: You're barely managing

#11

Post by mettamage »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #4

It's interesting. I agree with everything in that article. At the same time , I also agree with similar but opposing articles complaining about people who did train to be managers (by going through university program) now leading technical people without having a clue on what those people are doing, how their problems are solved, etc. I think this is a generalized class of frequent hiring / placement problem: I have…

The thing is: soft skills aren't that needed at the entry level. I've noticed that no one cares that I trained a lot of soft skills by doing a psych bachelor, an honors program based on soft skills, hundreds of hours of meditation.

They just want to know:

- Can you code according to the requirements of the business?

Sometimes soft skills are needed for that, but not nearly to the level that I trained them at. So, the skills languish. I might get picked up to become a manager at some point and they might be relevant again, I'll retrain them. For now though, I've noticed my soft skills aren't that relevant. My ability to code and push features out as fast as possible (with good code quality) is.

Re: You're barely managing

#12

Post by danielvaughn »

tayo42 wrote: post #10
danielvaughn wrote: post #6

I began my first management role a few years ago (through the "successor" path outlined in the article). My manager left for another company, and since I'd been with the team for 4 years at that point, I was asked if I wanted to take over. I agreed, not realizing how much of a shift it was. It's an entirely different profession, and it's made me wonder how realistic the notion of an Engineering Manager is. It's sort…

> who actually went to business school for management. Are these actually good? Sometimes I feel like education has such a large disconnect from reality. Especially true in corporate fields. There is also the meme of MBAs showing up and ruining everything. I also went to business school for undergrad, idk if any of it is useful. though it was a while ago now

That's my general perception as well, but I'm not sure what the alternatives are. I suppose I shouldn't have narrowly focused on business school - what I really mean is just what the author describes. Someone who has specifically trained to become a manager.

Re: You're barely managing

#13

Post by iamdbtoo »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #4

It's interesting. I agree with everything in that article. At the same time , I also agree with similar but opposing articles complaining about people who did train to be managers (by going through university program) now leading technical people without having a clue on what those people are doing, how their problems are solved, etc. I think this is a generalized class of frequent hiring / placement problem: I have…

Some the absolute worst managers I've ever had were the ones who were also "management coaches" or trained by them. They just read a bunch of books and blindly applied it to everything and taught others to do the same.

Re: You're barely managing

#15

Post by zingababba »

danielvaughn wrote: post #6

I began my first management role a few years ago (through the "successor" path outlined in the article). My manager left for another company, and since I'd been with the team for 4 years at that point, I was asked if I wanted to take over. I agreed, not realizing how much of a shift it was. It's an entirely different profession, and it's made me wonder how realistic the notion of an Engineering Manager is. It's sort…

I've had the misfortune on being on a highly technical team where a thoroughly business minded manager was hired. Most of the team including myself was gone within 6 months. Absolute disaster.

Re: You're barely managing

#16

Post by phone8675309 »

> Just imagine if other professions had that split of self-taught vs. formally taught. Plumbers, doctors, _lawyers_... There would be massive variability in the quality of their work and their overall success, and yet that’s the exact gamble every company around the world is taking.

Fun fact about lawyers - in many places there's still the ability to enter the profession through the concept of "Reading law" which is exactly what it sounds like - reading through court cases and doing work under the tutelage or apprenticeship of an existing lawyer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_law

The move to law education being the overwhelming majority way to enter the profession is only an advent of the beginning of the 20th century, and it caught on because the American Bar Association lobbied states to only allow people who went to law school and passed the bar exam to practice law.

Re: You're barely managing

#17

Post by nine_zeros »

SassyGrapefruit wrote: post #3

Most people just aren't cut out for it. To be a good manager you need to .... 1. Be willing to be wrong a lot and admit it 2. Show vulnerablility 3. Deal with constant setbacks and disappoinment Most people get the reigns and are suprised to find out its actually a thing nobody wants. Like being a social worker.

> 1. Be willing to be wrong a lot and admit it

2. Show vulnerablility

3. Deal with constant setbacks and disappoinment

This. It takes balls to take the hit for the team and to admit when something goes wrong. Often that means nuking your own promotion or looking worse to your own boss.

Most first level managers are just not ready to stop playing that promotion game themselves. And in their quest for their own promotion, they impose too much burden on the team.

The literal filter for hiring a manager should be "You might not get any promotion for 10 years. Are you still interested in this job?"

Re: You're barely managing

#18

Post by jauntywundrkind »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #5

> How many managers do you know who studied to be managers of people? > I mean more than a couple of one-day courses; I mean someone who studied to be a manager the way someone studied to be a software engineer or doctor. > I personally don’t know anyone, and while those degrees definitely exist, it’s got me wondering: of the total managers in the world, how many of them have those qualifications? Is it even 1%? ...…

I didn't get that the author was saying this post was going to fix everything.

What seemed incredibly valuable was that it provides the top level context for how we got here. This article does a good job getting you past first order thinking of how to manage, and makes one consider how & where managers arrived; it's the Chesterton's Fence of management. https://fs.blog/chestertons-fence/

Re: You're barely managing

#19

Post by angarg12 »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #5

> How many managers do you know who studied to be managers of people? > I mean more than a couple of one-day courses; I mean someone who studied to be a manager the way someone studied to be a software engineer or doctor. > I personally don’t know anyone, and while those degrees definitely exist, it’s got me wondering: of the total managers in the world, how many of them have those qualifications? Is it even 1%? ...…

The vast majority of literature in management (definitely in the tech sector) is essentially a long form opinion of a single person.

I personally only started to take more seriously the writing of people who a) have been managing for a long while successfully, and b) regularly sync up with other managers so that their pieces aren't a sample size of 1.

Re: You're barely managing

#20

Post by linuxftw »

danielvaughn wrote: post #12
tayo42 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who actually went to business school for management. Are these actually good? Sometimes I feel like education has such a large disconnect from reality. Especially true in corporate fields. There is also the meme of MBAs showing up and ruining everything. I also went to business school for undergrad, idk if any of it is useful. though it was a while ago now

That's my general perception as well, but I'm not sure what the alternatives are. I suppose I shouldn't have narrowly focused on business school - what I really mean is just what the author describes. Someone who has specifically trained to become a manager.

Do attorneys have managers? No, they have senior partners, that are also attorneys. They have clerks to handle the mundane stuff.

The wrong model is being applied to software. Managers are redundant.

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