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A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

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Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#111

Post by logfromblammo »

Ensorceled wrote: post #32
plinkplonk wrote: post #12

"Don’t manage only to advance your career. Many tech companies have parallel career paths to seniority for both technical and managerial high-performers." Is this really true? Many engineers do become managers only to advance their careers. The "parallel" technical career path never seems to deliver equal amounts of power, or even money, as compared to managers on the same level. Even when a rough parity exists on pa…

In my 30 years of experience, the "parallel" technical track is really only for super stars. As merely a very good developer, management pays better.

That "parallel" track also only exists at tech companies. For non-tech companies that have in-house software development, there is only the opaque ceiling above "senior developer". The only way past it is to jump over to the management ladder.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#112

Post by dropit_sphere »

lgieron wrote: post #103
michaelochurch wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth noting is that it's not just about titles. Titles matter, but they can also become a joke. It's easy to imagine a company, realizing that its best seniors are underpaid, inventing a new title to justify paying them only 10% more instead of the 30% they should get. The bigger problem is that most companies view "engineer" as "implementor of ideas that come from the business". Hence, all that Agile/Scrum bullshit…

> The bigger problem is that most companies view "engineer" as "implementor of ideas that come from the business". Isn't that the inherent nature of a lot of the programming jobs, though? For example, I'm currently contracting at a e-commerce company. My day to day work is as you described - closing tickets that get assigned to me in the Sprint. I also suggest new tickets, but they're solely limited to technical issu…

I was thinking about the same sentence you highlighted, and I think you're right.

The problem is that it's often bundled with a similar but patently false and demonic idea---that the business and technical sides can be siloed without ill effect. They can't.

Someday someone will write a best-selling business book about how it's valuable for management to have technical expertise, and it'll have some catchy term like the "mangineer" or something.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#113

Post by branchless »

Maro wrote: post #80

I've done the engineer -> manager transition successfully about two years ago. The biggest help for me (=somebody who likes to read) was the Hardard Business Review's 'Guide to X' series: https://hbr.org/store/landing/guides In particular (X=): - Better Business Writing - Coaching Employees - Giving Effective Feedback - Finance Basics for Managers - Office Politics (parts of it) But really, all of them are pretty goo…

I knew a guy who did better business writing at Hardard!

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#114

Post by bkeroack »

lgieron wrote: post #103
michaelochurch wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth noting is that it's not just about titles. Titles matter, but they can also become a joke. It's easy to imagine a company, realizing that its best seniors are underpaid, inventing a new title to justify paying them only 10% more instead of the 30% they should get. The bigger problem is that most companies view "engineer" as "implementor of ideas that come from the business". Hence, all that Agile/Scrum bullshit…

> The bigger problem is that most companies view "engineer" as "implementor of ideas that come from the business". Isn't that the inherent nature of a lot of the programming jobs, though? For example, I'm currently contracting at a e-commerce company. My day to day work is as you described - closing tickets that get assigned to me in the Sprint. I also suggest new tickets, but they're solely limited to technical issu…

Then empower yourself by learning how the business/market works, or if that sounds stupid and boring, leave for someplace where it wouldn't be.

I'm not the OP, but the point I think is that as long as you are content to be a "code monkey" (no disrespect meant at all, but that's what it sounds like) that just does what they're told for 40-50 hours per week, you can't expect to have any upward career growth.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#115

Post by JustSomeNobody »

tamaatar wrote: post #91
ryandrake wrote: post #79

The day I decided to make it a goal to switch from developing software to management: I was sitting at my desk at 8:00 at night fixing some bug and I looked across the sea of gray half-height cubicles at a someone 30 years older than me doing the same thing with the exact same job title, probably not making much more than I. At 95% of companies, there is zero career development and advancement once you become a "Seni…

You are right about the salary. but what is your opinion on job security and employability. the way I see it, in a tech role, as long as your are flexible and open to learning whatever technology is thrown at you, you will always be employable. But in management,especially in junior management and especially in very large organisation, managers are in most cases dead weight. they don't do much.Don't they feel the ins…

There are a few good managers. Everyone else is a boss. Boss's are detriment to an organization.

Managers manage. They don't wait until there's a fire and then start running around tossing the blame ball. Boss's do that.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#116

Post by jt2190 »

spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #52
alexandercrohde wrote: post #14

I cannot tell if blog post is this a theory or 15-page commercial for one man's opinions. The title claims it turns engineers into remarkable managers, yet provides no evidence. I see a lot of bold claims (e.g. "As with any new job, the most important task you should be doing at any given time will definitely be uncomfortable. It should be") but this piece lacks the reflection and perspective of a PG think-piece or a…

Didn't Steve McConnell (code complete) suggest that managing up should be a firing offence.

No mention of firing offenses... Perhaps you're misremembering Steve's description of project management mistakes, one of which is to "place politics over substance" [1], where the project manager tries to convince stakeholders that the project is progressing well, when the data says otherwise.

[1] "Classic Mistakes Enumerated" http://www.stevemcconnell.com/rdenum.htm

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#117

Post by pnathan »

michaelochurch wrote: post #78
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until engineering decides to do something about it, engineering will always be subordinate to management. There are no true parallel career paths.

Until engineering decides to do something about it, engineering will always be subordinate to management. There are no true parallel career paths. You nailed it. That is all. If we want respect, we have to fucking earn it by forcing businessmen to see us as equals, whatever the effort and cost.

* Who writes the checks?

* Who writes their own check?

Those people hold the power.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#118

Post by chuckcode »

ryandrake wrote: post #79

The day I decided to make it a goal to switch from developing software to management: I was sitting at my desk at 8:00 at night fixing some bug and I looked across the sea of gray half-height cubicles at a someone 30 years older than me doing the same thing with the exact same job title, probably not making much more than I. At 95% of companies, there is zero career development and advancement once you become a "Seni…

True in my experience that managing developers paid better and had other perks like more equity and some control over priorities and projects that was nice. Technical or pure software companies seem to do a better job of valuing engineering talent and how core they are to business but still not as good as they could. The two things I've seen over and over are:

1) Pure technical people are under appreciated and in general under compensated in most organizations. Often management doesn't understand how important they are.

2) Good managers/management are under appreciated by most engineers. It is hard to measure quality in management and it is one of those jobs that when you're doing it best it appears like you're not doing much as you're avoiding bad projects/crisis in the background and putting your people forward to make sure they get their credit and are enabled to get their work done.

I'd like to see some more courses to help technical people be better at management as it isn't something you'll necessarily be good at just because you're really smart. I'd also like to see a technical 101 course for management types so they can better appreciate their true tech talent.

On a side note I thought Havard's article about management research at google and related hacker news comments were interesting. Most management philosophies I've seen weren't in the tech space and I'm not sure the production line and sales team techniques transfer over to software. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6762222

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#119

Post by michaelochurch »

pc86 wrote: post #87
michaelochurch wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until engineering decides to do something about it, engineering will always be subordinate to management. There are no true parallel career paths. You nailed it. That is all. If we want respect, we have to fucking earn it by forcing businessmen to see us as equals, whatever the effort and cost.

I'm curious what exactly you have in mind.

Well, if nothing else works, a programmer's union.

I'd prefer something more like the Screen Actor's Guild, which provides support (legal assistance if you need it, access to talent agents) but doesn't regulate compensation. That said, I don't think things necessarily need to go that way, and I don't want to see the negatives of traditional labor unions. But that shouldn't be off the table. The other side isn't going to play nice, so neither should we.

Re: A Plan to Turn Engineers into Managers

#120

Post by 15155 »

kevinSuttle wrote: post #84

I've never understood this. At some point, you suddenly become great at managing people? No. You worked your way up by being good at what you do, coding. http://lizthedeveloper.com/how-to-reward-skilled-coders-with...

At some point you realize that your career is going to hit a dead end in most organizations.

That's the reality.

Software engineers, by and large, are under-compensated relative to value produced.

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