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Should managers still code?

theengineeringmanager.substack.com

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Re: Should managers still code?

#171

Post by tibbar »

nine_zeros wrote: post #168
tibbar wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not quite sure where you're getting "performance = maximizing units of output" from my post, as the whole point was the difference between squeezing out a little more code vs. keeping the team on track doing actually valuable stuff. Either way, I think we mostly agree here: the EM is the face of the team who makes sure the team, as a unit, is doing valuable work as a sustainable pace that's understood as such int…

> However, to be clear, software teams, engineers, and engineering managers are absolutely evaluated on their performance, Yes, and no one said that this kind of evaluation has produced long term success. It has widely been recognized that when upper management is more involved in evaluation rather than leading teams of managers themselves, they address issues and market conditions too late. Thus, affecting businesse…

Pardon my cynicism, but this doesn't really change anything. These companies are still evaluating their employees, just informally. They are still promoting and firing people. There are still teams who are doing well and teams that are not. There are teams that picked the right goals and met them, and teams that failed to deliver on their promises for yet another quarter. There are still teams with happy stakeholders and teams that infuriate everyone whom they interact with.

It doesn't matter how you measure it or try to ignore it, the buck still stops with the manager of each team.

Re: Should managers still code?

#173

Post by zemvpferreira »

protocolture wrote: post #160

I cant work for someone who doesn't understand what I do. An unused sword rusts in its sheathe. I remember working for a gent years ago, who was stressed out that my output was so low. He declared "I started this business in my living room let me show you I can do any job in this building" He came to my workspace, where I had 20 servers stacked on my workbench. He looked at them. Attached a single power cord. And the…

I don’t know man. Can Bezos code? Can he operate a forklift? Would he still even recognize Powerpoint if you opened it for him? At certain points things need to be let go of if you want to keep growing. Some managers might keep technical skills sharp, but I’m not sure they’re much better managers for it.

Re: Should managers still code?

#174

Post by eschaton »

etamponi wrote: post #109

No. The amount of work that a manager has to handle to do their job right is incompatible with coding at a professional rate. If you have a manager that codes, then they won't have (enough) time to: - Write and design your packets (if in a corporation), or your career path (if in a smaller company) - Align with other teams, get consensus, shield you from politics beyond your level. - Make long term planning and makin…

This has not been my experience; at Apple most of my managers were very good and were also coding.

Re: Should managers still code?

#175

Post by serviceberry »

protocolture wrote: post #160

I cant work for someone who doesn't understand what I do. An unused sword rusts in its sheathe. I remember working for a gent years ago, who was stressed out that my output was so low. He declared "I started this business in my living room let me show you I can do any job in this building" He came to my workspace, where I had 20 servers stacked on my workbench. He looked at them. Attached a single power cord. And the…

> I cant work for someone who doesn't understand what I do.

But you already do. Unless you're working for a tiny startup, your CEO or the Board probably doesn't understand the specifics of your code.

You can't run a large company by making every person super-involved in every detail. You have layers of abstraction that make it possible to reason about an org of hundreds or thousands of employees. The Board trusts the CTO to oversee technology. Your CTO trusts your director / VP / whatever to run a large chunk of it. That person delegates a smaller part of running the company to your boss.

The whole point of each layer is to abstract away some of the underlying messiness. They exercise professional judgment for day-to-day operations and provide a clean interface that provides health signals, requests resources as needed, etc. And I think what many folks miss is that it doesn't stop with their boss. It stops with you! Your boss generally trusts you to make design and implementation decisions and is expecting you to provide a reasonable interface to that. If your boss has a reasonably-sized team but is spending their day writing code, then honestly, why are they in a management position to begin with?

Re: Should managers still code?

#176

Post by protocolture »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #173
protocolture wrote: post #160

I cant work for someone who doesn't understand what I do. An unused sword rusts in its sheathe. I remember working for a gent years ago, who was stressed out that my output was so low. He declared "I started this business in my living room let me show you I can do any job in this building" He came to my workspace, where I had 20 servers stacked on my workbench. He looked at them. Attached a single power cord. And the…

I don’t know man. Can Bezos code? Can he operate a forklift? Would he still even recognize Powerpoint if you opened it for him? At certain points things need to be let go of if you want to keep growing. Some managers might keep technical skills sharp, but I’m not sure they’re much better managers for it.

Groups of companies, like Amazon, dont really make sense to me in abstract so I cant really comment.

But whoever the head of AWS is should definitely have a grasp of fundamentals.

Re: Should managers still code?

#177

Post by protocolture »

serviceberry wrote: post #175
protocolture wrote: post #160

I cant work for someone who doesn't understand what I do. An unused sword rusts in its sheathe. I remember working for a gent years ago, who was stressed out that my output was so low. He declared "I started this business in my living room let me show you I can do any job in this building" He came to my workspace, where I had 20 servers stacked on my workbench. He looked at them. Attached a single power cord. And the…

> I cant work for someone who doesn't understand what I do. But you already do. Unless you're working for a tiny startup, your CEO or the Board probably doesn't understand the specifics of your code. You can't run a large company by making every person super-involved in every detail. You have layers of abstraction that make it possible to reason about an org of hundreds or thousands of employees. The Board trusts the…

Specifics sure. I dont expect them to understand the specifics. I dont want them across every task.

But I also dont want to (and currently dont have to) explain specific risks regarding what I do, I dont have to justify how long things take, because my management understands that. We speak the same language. Its glorious.

I mean just comparing my clients that have relevant technical knowledge, vs the ones that dont, the clients that dont have that knowledge need "meetings" and "catchups" and immense email threads in the order of 10 times the ones that do understand. Thats measurable (to me) waste.

Another observation of mine is that non technical people really have no ability to recruit and manage technical people. I have seen multiple businesses brought low because the "technical" person brought in to manage the "technical" side of the startup actually had NFI. Or when they do accidentally hire someone competant, their requests for resources or time are ignored, even when well justified. The non technical founder or CEO either has to trust someone (which fails a lot) or they dont trust someone (and thats even worse).

Re: Should managers still code?

#178

Post by protocolture »

serviceberry wrote: post #175
protocolture wrote: post #160

I cant work for someone who doesn't understand what I do. An unused sword rusts in its sheathe. I remember working for a gent years ago, who was stressed out that my output was so low. He declared "I started this business in my living room let me show you I can do any job in this building" He came to my workspace, where I had 20 servers stacked on my workbench. He looked at them. Attached a single power cord. And the…

> I cant work for someone who doesn't understand what I do. But you already do. Unless you're working for a tiny startup, your CEO or the Board probably doesn't understand the specifics of your code. You can't run a large company by making every person super-involved in every detail. You have layers of abstraction that make it possible to reason about an org of hundreds or thousands of employees. The Board trusts the…

>If your boss has a reasonably-sized team but is spending their day writing code

They dont need to spend all day writing code, they need to spend their nights and weekends making sure their skills dont rust.

Re: Should managers still code?

#179

Post by joeblubaugh »

protocolture wrote: post #178
serviceberry wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I cant work for someone who doesn't understand what I do. But you already do. Unless you're working for a tiny startup, your CEO or the Board probably doesn't understand the specifics of your code. You can't run a large company by making every person super-involved in every detail. You have layers of abstraction that make it possible to reason about an org of hundreds or thousands of employees. The Board trusts the…

>If your boss has a reasonably-sized team but is spending their day writing code They dont need to spend all day writing code, they need to spend their nights and weekends making sure their skills dont rust.

> they need to spend their nights and weekends making sure their skills dont rust.

Life is more than work

Re: Should managers still code?

#180

Post by somethoughts »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #173
protocolture wrote: post #160

I cant work for someone who doesn't understand what I do. An unused sword rusts in its sheathe. I remember working for a gent years ago, who was stressed out that my output was so low. He declared "I started this business in my living room let me show you I can do any job in this building" He came to my workspace, where I had 20 servers stacked on my workbench. He looked at them. Attached a single power cord. And the…

I don’t know man. Can Bezos code? Can he operate a forklift? Would he still even recognize Powerpoint if you opened it for him? At certain points things need to be let go of if you want to keep growing. Some managers might keep technical skills sharp, but I’m not sure they’re much better managers for it.

On the flip side - I find it very understandable that one might not want to have ever worked at Amazon even in its early days and instead would prefer to work (or have worked) at a much smaller, engineering focused organization.
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