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What you give up by moving into engineering management

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Re: What you give up by moving into engineering management

#21

Post by abtinf »

doktorhladnjak wrote: post #16
OldGuyInTheClub wrote: post #8

I quit managing because I couldn't stomach the language managers are required to speak. The cliches, the obfuscation, the outright lying when relaying the c__p coming from above, the list goes on.

This was one of the hardest things for me as a manager too. You have to own the company’s message to your reports (and others) even if you disagree with it or don’t know how it came to be.

> You have to own the company’s message to your reports (and others) even if you disagree with it or don’t know how it came to be.

Why?

Re: What you give up by moving into engineering management

#22

Post by hejdjebbebd »

abtinf wrote: post #19

The biggest thing most managers give up is their mind. You start using corporate jargon. You become more authoritarian. You embrace careerism (a term I invented to describe people who erroneously conflate rising in corporate rank with happiness). You quickly learn that no one understands anything about the people or the business--and that all decisions are made by gut, cherry picked data, and story-telling. Suddenly,…

> The biggest thing most managers give up is their mind.

The biggest thing they give up is having to do leetcode interviews.

Re: What you give up by moving into engineering management

#23

Post by poulsbohemian »

simonw wrote: post #3
jader201 wrote: post #2

I moved from IC to manager for four years before moving back, and can agree with the points made here. Including the one about it being fairly easy to move back. Some ICs may find they are actually better managers, and some will find out they were better at being an IC. Others will find both satisfying in different ways, and may work out well on either ladder. I may go back to being a manager some day, but for the ti…

I've seen Charity Majors call this the "pendulum" model, where you swing back and forth from IC to management multiple times during your career. I really like that: in my experience, ICs who have been managers make better ICs and vice-versa. https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum...

I found this really hard in my career though - you move into an IC role and then the assumption is you won't be happy in a management role ever again. You move into a management role and somehow there's an assumption that you have been lobotomized and know nothing about the hands-on work any longer. It's not fair, but it can really create complications as you attempt to move your career into new directions or attempt to move to new employers.

Re: What you give up by moving into engineering management

#24

Post by OldGuyInTheClub »

jrockway wrote: post #17
OldGuyInTheClub wrote: post #8

I quit managing because I couldn't stomach the language managers are required to speak. The cliches, the obfuscation, the outright lying when relaying the c__p coming from above, the list goes on.

This isn't particularly different from any leadership role, even technical ones. To some extent, you have to own decisions you had say in making. If you just whine about upper management or their decisions, you demoralize your team. So, you have to do the opposite: cheerlead for the new status quo. Depressed people aren't going to get any work done. The situation you disagree with probably has no real day to day cons…

Matrixed organization: I had a functional (provide people to slots) role and separately a program management role (build and deliver mission-critical hardware with a completely different set of people.) I couldn't cheerlead a bunch of Ph.Ds in my functional role about the lack of raises, rising cost of healthcare for ever lowered coverage, perpetual layoffs, and ever-thickening bureaucracy. Similarly I couldn't lie to high performing technical staff on the program that the cutbacks in equipment, facilities, and training along with increased "oversight" by non-technical chumps were in their and the product's best interests. When you lie to good technical people, they will never trust you again and they will tell other good technical people. Without that trust, nothing good gets built.

I decided to put together the best team possible for the program and keep the nonsense away from them. The hardest part was realizing I would not be an intellectual force but rather the bozo deflector. We succeeded but bozos have thin skins and long memories. At that time, I gave up all management roles and went back to being a technical guy looking for technical growth. This was over a dozen years ago and it has been difficult as technical work gets more and more offloaded but I'll never accept another management role again.

Re: What you give up by moving into engineering management

#25

Post by abtinf »

throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #7

I've actually given up all of these things years ago, and I'm an IC. Maybe I'd be fine as a manager. I give zero shits about placating my ego by being the smartest person in the room. I want everyone else on the team to make their own decisions, learn lessons, and be actively contributing in all ways. And honestly, most problems and imperfections are fine. Let people do something in a crappy way. It will eventually h…

> Maybe I'd be fine as a manager.

Speaking as someone who has held senior management roles: judging strictly from this comment, you would make for an excellent management candidate. Assuming you survive the disillusionment upon seeing how other managers and senior leaders actually operate.

Re: What you give up by moving into engineering management

#26

Post by OldGuyInTheClub »

abtinf wrote: post #21
doktorhladnjak wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was one of the hardest things for me as a manager too. You have to own the company’s message to your reports (and others) even if you disagree with it or don’t know how it came to be.

> You have to own the company’s message to your reports (and others) even if you disagree with it or don’t know how it came to be. Why?

In the one bit of company management training I got, the company lawyer explained: As a manager, you represent the company and its interests 24/7. You can try to help an employee but only so far as it doesn't affect the company's bottom line.

There was a lot more and it was eye-opening.

Re: What you give up by moving into engineering management

#27

Post by bl4ckm0r3 »

I have been a swe for most of my life then transitioned into a manager (corporate and small/mid startups) for a while and am a director now (scaleup unicorn). The politics is something that always bothers me, the higher you get in the ladder, the more people are obsessed by "just following the process", and there's always so many inefficient processes that are applied in environments that definitely do not require such overkill, but make people feel like they are "doing the right thing" by following as many processes as possible - if you follow the rules you don't have to think. Hours and hours of group meetings (that definitely could have been a slack message, with better outcomes), so many reports no one read, different and often incompatible styles of management, a complete switch from trust-and-ownership to micromanagement from upper management. But the thing that always bothered me the most is being in the middle between the people you care about (your team) and the people that tell you to do things because they can't be bothered actually doing them (upper management).

I still miss those days where I could put my headphones on and code, solve real problems with my team, ideate and create and focus on the user, not on "making the machine run".

Re: What you give up by moving into engineering management

#28

Post by wunderland »

Most ICs in the organizations I’ve worked on have to fight for focus time, have long feedback cycles, have to deal with conflicts, etc. At least with a manager you’re getting paid more! The risk is slightly higher but the reward is significantly higher; you’re taking credit for a larger amount of work, but doing the same amount of work yourself (maybe sometimes more, but also often significantly less than an IC).

Management is easier than coding unless you really hate working with other people.

Re: What you give up by moving into engineering management

#29

Post by abtinf »

bl4ckm0r3 wrote: post #27

I have been a swe for most of my life then transitioned into a manager (corporate and small/mid startups) for a while and am a director now (scaleup unicorn). The politics is something that always bothers me, the higher you get in the ladder, the more people are obsessed by "just following the process", and there's always so many inefficient processes that are applied in environments that definitely do not require su…

"With the storehouse of skills and knowledge contained in its millions of unemployed, and with the even more appalling underuse, misuse, and abuse of skills and knowledge in the army of employed people in all ranks in all industries, the United States may be today the most underdeveloped nation in the world." - W. Edwards Deming, Out of the Crisis

Re: What you give up by moving into engineering management

#30

Post by badpun »

abtinf wrote: post #19

The biggest thing most managers give up is their mind. You start using corporate jargon. You become more authoritarian. You embrace careerism (a term I invented to describe people who erroneously conflate rising in corporate rank with happiness). You quickly learn that no one understands anything about the people or the business--and that all decisions are made by gut, cherry picked data, and story-telling. Suddenly,…

> Your only job as a manager is to protect and develop the team under you.

That sounds like the philosophy of a tumor. Clearly, a manager has to care about other things as well, such as - how can my team contribute to the business in the most valuable way?

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