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From engineer to manager: A practical guide to your first months in leadership

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Re: From engineer to manager: A practical guide to your first months in leadership

#41

Post by caleblloyd »

theideaofcoffee wrote: post #21
klinquist wrote: post #12

A good resource for team meetings / 1:1s / etc: https://pipdecks.com

The best resource there is to not have them. They're fundamentally a waste of time. The best teams will self-organize and come to the right conclusions given vision, dare I say, leadership, from the top.

I agree. My experience is that regularly scheduled 1:1s without an agenda seem to turn into therapy sessions for a surprising amount of people. I like doing ad-hoc 1:1s with specific agendas though, such as pair programming or an architecture session for an issue an Engineer is starting to work on.

Re: From engineer to manager: A practical guide to your first months in leadership

#42

Post by nine_k »

dahart wrote: post #31
crystal_revenge wrote: post #18

I find "engineer to manager" guides are fundamentally not possible to write. I've been a manager of a team 3-4 times now and each experience was entirely different from the previous. But this post makes the biggest mistake, something I have struggled with in every management role: focusing on managing down. Managing down isn't actually that hard to get the hang of if you have strong technical skills and reasonable co…

I am intrigued by your comment but a little confused as well, could you elaborate? What do you mean by ‘best manager’? Is that one who’s valuable and good for the org, or one that’s good at getting raises and promotions for himself and nobody else? If it’s the former, I’d love to hear more about why being clueless is helpful. And what does one do if caught in the situation you describe of not ever being let into the…

I suppose the "best manager" in this sense protects his/her team from the upper echelon politics, and, being clueless, does not bother meddling with technical decisions, letting the team do their work. Their worldview is captured in the famous quotation: «You can domesticate programmers the way beekeepers tame bees. You can't exactly communicate with them, but you can get them to swarm in one place and when they're not looking, you can carry off the honey.»

Re: From engineer to manager: A practical guide to your first months in leadership

#43

Post by linehedonist »

sfpotter wrote: post #25
crystal_revenge wrote: post #18

I find "engineer to manager" guides are fundamentally not possible to write. I've been a manager of a team 3-4 times now and each experience was entirely different from the previous. But this post makes the biggest mistake, something I have struggled with in every management role: focusing on managing down. Managing down isn't actually that hard to get the hang of if you have strong technical skills and reasonable co…

Now this is in the US, but I've met and worked with numerous absolutely top quality teaching professors and they had a disproportionately positive impact on their students. Many of them were happy and well adjusted and did not seem in much more of a precarious position than any other person I've met working a job for a similar amount of money in a field they enjoy. Obviously, it depends on the college, how well compe…

The nature of a 'teaching professor' job can vary a lot, but the positions are often very precarious and unstable, as I can attest from personal experience.

Re: From engineer to manager: A practical guide to your first months in leadership

#44

Post by BLKNSLVR »

jjcm wrote: post #32

One thing that's missing from this - your metric of success will change, and you'll have to navigate that. As an IC you have a tangible representation of what you accomplished that day - the doohickey now spins, the bloop now boops when you tap it, the clicky thing now does the clickity click. In your first weeks as a manager you're going to look at your little box of accomplishments, find it empty, and you're going…

A happy and / or productive team?

- Report X made the doohickey spin

- Report Y made the bloop now boop when you tap it

- Report Z made sure the clicky thing now does the clickity click

Somewhat on time, somewhat on budget. Communications seem positive, no issues upon check-ins, maybe let's look into having fewer meetings...

Perfecto!

Re: From engineer to manager: A practical guide to your first months in leadership

#45

Post by rockinghigh »

mlinhares wrote: post #27
idiotsecant wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the best managers care primarily about politics and growing their personal stake in the organization So fundamentally gross that this is true.

That is also true for ICs, we just pretend it isn't. If you're not good at playing politics and selling yourself, the next layoff will take you out, there's no amount of engineering prowess that will fix it.

Selling yourself and your work is always a critical skill. That's how you get hired in the first place.

Re: From engineer to manager: A practical guide to your first months in leadership

#46

Post by sfpotter »

linehedonist wrote: post #43
sfpotter wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now this is in the US, but I've met and worked with numerous absolutely top quality teaching professors and they had a disproportionately positive impact on their students. Many of them were happy and well adjusted and did not seem in much more of a precarious position than any other person I've met working a job for a similar amount of money in a field they enjoy. Obviously, it depends on the college, how well compe…

The nature of a 'teaching professor' job can vary a lot, but the positions are often very precarious and unstable, as I can attest from personal experience.

Does not mean they are absolutely worthless.

Re: From engineer to manager: A practical guide to your first months in leadership

#48

Post by Amaury-El »

When I first started managing, I thought it was all about making decisions and setting direction. But over time, I realized the more important part is learning to listen, to let go, and to give others the space to grow. Building trust and psychological safety is easy to overlook, but it’s the thing most worth practicing again and again.

Re: From engineer to manager: A practical guide to your first months in leadership

#49

Post by Tokumei-no-hito »

nine_k wrote: post #42
dahart wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am intrigued by your comment but a little confused as well, could you elaborate? What do you mean by ‘best manager’? Is that one who’s valuable and good for the org, or one that’s good at getting raises and promotions for himself and nobody else? If it’s the former, I’d love to hear more about why being clueless is helpful. And what does one do if caught in the situation you describe of not ever being let into the…

I suppose the "best manager" in this sense protects his/her team from the upper echelon politics, and, being clueless, does not bother meddling with technical decisions, letting the team do their work. Their worldview is captured in the famous quotation: «You can domesticate programmers the way beekeepers tame bees. You can't exactly communicate with them, but you can get them to swarm in one place and when they're n…

wow what a quote. where is that from?

Re: From engineer to manager: A practical guide to your first months in leadership

#50

Post by zug_zug »

JimDabell wrote: post #35

> Try simple, genuine questions you are interested in: > “You mentioned going to the movies last weekend. How was it?” This does not sound genuine. At all. It sounds like you are robotically adding a fact to your notes in one meeting, then reciting it in the next for points; like there’s a recipe you are mechanically following to ++relationship. I understand that some people struggle with smalltalk and need literal s…

One million percent, this is the thing that stuck out most to me.

Maybe this is just so entrenched that it's a lost cause, but I feel like 90% of managers are just cargo-culting weird behaviors from other managers that serve no purpose (e.g. using a certain business slang like 'circle-back', never expressing genuine emotion, being incredibly circumspect, hiding the very existence of all disagreements).

It's a weird cultural thing, and what's especially peculiar is that nobody genuinely believes great leaders should do that. Everybody knows great leaders should be genuinely passionate and sincere and non-robotic. But here we are...

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