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Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

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Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#161

Post by hitekker »

andorxor wrote: post #99
lentil wrote: post #32

I've been an engineering manager for a couple of years. I'm still expected to do 50% engineering and 50% people management. As the article describes, it is a struggle to do both well. I don't see this responsibility split changing in my current role. I do often wonder what it would be like to be 100% people focused, and whether or not I would miss engineering too much. When my role first changed, I was very intimidat…

Regarding the advice in your link, how can an employee trust their manager when they're trying to get them to open up like a therapist, while at the same time gathering notes to use as "evidence" in an annual review? This is an inherent conflict of interests, and I've always regretted revealing any difficulties to managers. It usually comes back to bite me, as in "doesn't work well with others," or getting passed ove…

Speaking as another engineering manager, the advice in that link is pretty shallow. I think it encourages a rapport that feels efficient for the manager but is plain insubstantial for the report.

> I have found 30 minutes is the ideal length of time. Longer meetings tend to lead to us talking about normal day-to-day work, or going off topic altogether.

Compare this bit of advice to Andy Groves's, the former CEO of Intel and big evangelist of 1:1's:

> "I feel that a one-on-one should last an hour at minimum. Anything less, in my experience, tends to make the subordinate confine himself to simple things that can be handled quickly.” [1]

People need time to express themselves; to air their resentments, frustrations, disappointments, disillusionments. Cutting a report off before they can tell you what's really on their minds or in their hearts, does not seem like "quality 1:1 time" to me. Or at least not in the context of managing high performing knowledge workers.

[1] https://getlighthouse.com/blog/high-output-management/

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#162

Post by scrooched_moose »

My #6):

Not "letting go" to be a manager, which turns them into a micromanager. I got stuck under a brand new Engineering Manager in what is effectively his old role during the last reshuffle, and he still has to be intimately involved in every aspect of every project because it was his job. Every minor decision goes through him and I don't think I've attended a meeting in over a year where he wasn't part of it.

Between other issues with #3 and #4 it's a nightmare. I've been bringing up these issues for most of that time (it's gone from diplomatic to brutally honest over the last few months) and nothing changes.

Thankfully the job market is starting to rebound after tanking during early Covid.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#164

Post by airhead969 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #76
gfodor wrote: post #65

1. Become an engineering manager 2. Stop coding 3. Do well for a few years until you become out of touch 4. Watch your team stop respecting you on technical subjects because you’re behind the times and too rusty but don’t know it so look foolish and are ignored when you give suggestions, which radically undermines your relationships with them as well as your ability to lead 5. Watch as your role morphs from a manager…

> unless you happen to have been born with natural leadership skills (you probably haven’t) Leadership skills are important, but I disagree that leadership is something you’re either born with or not. Leadership can be taught, learned, and practiced. The real issue is that a lot of people who are pushed or drawn into management roles don’t actually like managing or leading. Some are pushed into management because the…

Yep.

One of the biggest hurdles is most people don't want to be responsible for thinking for themselves, their judgment, and their decisions.

And then poo-pooing things outside of their current role that they either don't understand or don't appreciate.

In large orgs, I think one day a month staff should have to intern in a random department to appreciate what others have to go through to build morale and empathy.

A good leader is a humble, messianic therapist, salesperson, and accountant.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#165

Post by airhead969 »

ImprovedSilence wrote: post #124
fatnoah wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The real issue is that a lot of people who are pushed or drawn into management roles don’t actually like managing or leading. Some are pushed into management because they’re the most competent IC on the team I think this is spot-on. People, for whatever reason, view management as the next step of a career when it's actually a career change. Yes, it's in the same domain, but it's a totally different job. I've done th…

I agree here to that this is the exact issue. I will also add though that I think there is another dimension as well. I think much perceived middle manager "incompetence" stems from middle management juggling direction/pressure/expectations from senior management, and the realities of the program and the engineers. The best managers are capable of managing expectations from above while keeping their team shielded fro…

Organizations should strive to:

- reduce Peter Principle and pyramid org-chart building

- retain, train, and invest in good managers as a profession, not a will to power

- hire more administrative and secretarial people to navigate the minutia to unblock highly-paid employees from finding answers in the bureaucracy and doing unnecessarily-dumb paperwork

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#166

Post by ska »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #79
iandanforth wrote: post #53

I will disagree with one point. Neither eng managers nor tech leads should be doing project management. It is a unique skill and worth having someone explicitly in charge. They should own the structure of requirements docs, story breaktown, ticketing, jira processes, etc. While they may be somewhat technical they are more ensuring consistency and quality of process without burdening devs. The best team composition I…

Do you really enjoy having 3 different managers to report to? All of whom have 3 different projects they’re dealing with? IMO, it’s better to have a 1:1 ratio of managers to teams. A 3:3 ratio is a recipe for endless meetings and communication overhead. 1:1 and 3:3 have the same number of employees, but 1:1 eliminates all of the communication overhead because there’s only 1 manager per team instead of 3. In my experi…

> 1 person handle the role of product, project, and engineering manager with 100% focus on the project and team.

This is incredibly difficult to get right. A good product manager needs to be spending time "in the field", sometimes literally but always in terms of focus. A good engineering manager has to be spending time "in the lab", again literally & figuratively.

These two things are in contention, and balancing them properly in one person is very difficult.

Anyone who has project management skills can do that part, but trick is dedicating enough time to it. On a complicated project, this can easily become a full time job.

matrix management has it's own challenges (not that this is the only way to handle it) but your contention that because there are 3 "managers" involved means that everyone "has" 3 managers just isn't true. Most of this stuff is about responsibilities, not chain-of-command.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#167

Post by ska »

camjohnson26 wrote: post #112
yaml-ops-guy wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2b) Start coding again because your superiors promote you to management but treat you like you’re still an IC and ask why you haven’t contributed any points to the latest sprint while actively shutting you out of the kinds of discussions and decisions an EM would be making in most other orgs—-while somehow simultaneously asking you to also be the bearer of frequently changing and poorly communicated business prioriti…

I keep seeing this IC term here but never saw it before, is that “Independent Consultant”?

It means "individual contributor" , and implies you don't have any reports. As opposed to "tech lead" or "player-coach" (currently in vogue) which implies you are supposed to be effective as a technical contribute but also have a formal manager relationship with at least one person. Let a lone a classic manager who doesn't do much or any direct contribution technically.

There is some confounding in this thread of manager-of-people roles and manager-of-things roles, which also causes confusion.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#168

Post by lmilcin »

The single biggest mistake I see new managers make consistently is not training your self awareness and being retrospective.

Everybody makes mistakes. The trouble is if you are not on the lookout to identify, correct and learn from them.

In my opinion, every other advice is secondary as it can only work if you are honest with yourself and wanting to apply it to improve your work.

No advice will help if you think you are better than everybody else and you attribute all your failures to other people letting you down or working against you.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#169

Post by airhead969 »

gfodor wrote: post #129
fatnoah wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The real issue is that a lot of people who are pushed or drawn into management roles don’t actually like managing or leading. Some are pushed into management because they’re the most competent IC on the team I think this is spot-on. People, for whatever reason, view management as the next step of a career when it's actually a career change. Yes, it's in the same domain, but it's a totally different job. I've done th…

I don't agree with this. I enjoy management and coding. However, when I'm in a manager role, I consider contributing with coding to be an essential part of the job, to maintain my ability to lead the team with credibility, truly understand what their job is like, and differentiate myself relative to other managers, who by and large have bought into the narrative they can't and shouldn't try to code. This cuts directl…

A lot of technical leads who become managers assume they're doing a good enough job on the management side and that they have to master every technical detail, when the truth is they're only convincing themselves that their split allegiances, attention, and priorities aren't a problem of trying to work two jobs.

An engineering manager who was technical, listens to their staff, and delegates can still be respectable and has the time and focus to help the team in a greater capacity with non-technical things proactively rather than reactively.

An engineering manager who can setup an HA database is as useful as a fireman who can play chess. It's all well-and-good, but it doesn't add value to the management of the team if someone else has that duty. Technical leads yes, but not managers.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#170

Post by airhead969 »

humanlion87 wrote: post #138
gfodor wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with this. I enjoy management and coding. However, when I'm in a manager role, I consider contributing with coding to be an essential part of the job, to maintain my ability to lead the team with credibility, truly understand what their job is like, and differentiate myself relative to other managers, who by and large have bought into the narrative they can't and shouldn't try to code. This cuts directl…

I would like to add my perspective as an IC who is reporting to a technically-focused manager. I feel frustrated that my manager does not spend even 10% of the time they spend coding on coaching/guiding/giving feedback to me. I feel that part is more important aspect of being a manager compared to churning out code. I understand the need to keep on top of the codebase, especially when coding is something you really l…

Technical leads should be helping ICs. It doesn't always have to be the manager in particular.
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