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Should managers still code?

theengineeringmanager.substack.com

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Re: Should managers still code?

#201

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

wkat4242 wrote: post #170
n_u wrote: post #37

Strong yes for 3 reasons 1. Reducing dev friction. When I had managers who coded they were ruthless about removing friction in the dev and deployment pipeline because they had to deal with it too. If build times went up, deployment infrastructure broke or someone’s PR broke dev they would roll it back immediately. If someone consistently blocks PRs the manager noticed the trend and would address it. 2. You get a much…

> When I had managers who coded they were ruthless about removing friction in the dev and deployment pipeline because they had to deal with it too. For me a good manager is a facilitator, not a leader. Someone who removes obstacles for us. Whether they themselves are affected or not. Someone only fixing an issue because they have to deal with it too seems like a pretty bad manager to me. They're not for pushing targe…

When the company tells your manager "we need to cut wood" and you tell your manager "I need to sharpen my axe", these things are in harmony but it's still a balancing act. The manager should trust your judgement, but they may also have a better view of the short-vs-long-term tradeoffs, and sometimes we spend too much time sharpening. Sometimes we don't spend enough.

I think a good manager should be able to take a swing with the axe to get a feel for its sharpness.

Re: Should managers still code?

#202

Post by ssalazar »

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.

Counterpoint: I don't want a boss who is so detached from the rest of life & society that they have copious free time on nights and weekends to practice coding.

Re: Should managers still code?

#204

Post by YZF »

protocolture wrote: post #176
zemvpferreira wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm pretty sure the CEO of AWS can't do any engineering work anywhere in AWS. He's an MBA and an Industrial Engineer (whatever that is). He used to be a product manager.

Re: Should managers still code?

#205

Post by noirbot »

whstl wrote: post #105
apwell23 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, they also tend to start interfering in the solutions proposed by their team. It hard to stave off that temptation.

First: it's not "interference" if they are also part of the team. Second: If their ass is on the line, then they DO get a bigger say. They are paid for seeing potential problems, guiding the team, among other things.

Man, I wish the manager's ass was ever on the line. The amount of times I've seen a manager's whole team get laid off and the manager get moved to a different team to fuck everything up again is too many times.

I think I've seen a manager get laid off never. And often seen half their team laid off because they were terrible at their job, but the management class takes care of their own.

Re: Should managers still code?

#206

Post by noirbot »

etamponi wrote: post #140
bastardoperator wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends, I always took a sprint task, certainly less than the team itself, but how do I design a career path if I'm blissfully unaware of the work that is being done? How do I plan long term if I don't understand the technical complexity of the problems being faced? Why would I waste time on conflict resolution when I can spend time enabling and building people? You want to argue about your colleague, or make do you…

I am not gonna argue because I totally see your point. I'll keep my "No" because I think you can still do everything positive you listed without coding. I know it because I had great managers for 10 years, and none of them touched a line of our code. They did know how to code. It just wasn't their job anymore.

Strong agree. The best managers I've worked for have been capable of coding and were often former devs, but didn't insert themselves into the team's flow like that.

It's very easy to turn "but I code" into a weird ego trip for a manager to try to look good while just making their team slow down to deal with the fact they're bad at code review or coding at all.

It's not like there's a lack of work to do for most managers that's not coding.

Re: Should managers still code?

#207

Post by noirbot »

pragma_x wrote: post #48

Should they be able to? Absolutely. Should they exercise this on projects they manage? Probably not. I ran into this problem years ago. It's not exactly good form to be manager that contributes to the team's project, is at the apex of code review, and is responsible for team performance reviews, all at the same time. It can work, but without other people at your level reviewing your work, you'd be asking the team you…

I've definitely seen this - managers reviewing or submitting code that was woefully unfinished. It forces the team to decide how much to push back against the person who decides if they get a raise in a way that's decidedly unfair. It also taints your perception among the team.

It's that old quote - better to keep silent and be thought possibly a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. If your job isn't primarily coding, and you parachute in to "help out" and end up making more work than you save, that burns a lot of goodwill that you can't really get back. You're not some junior dev that's going to get better with mentorship.

Re: Should managers still code?

#208

Post by AdieuToLogic »

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.

Managers are responsible for maximizing what people they work with can achieve. This does not require them to be able to do what their team can do.

> I dont think a manager of software engineers needs to code the application he manages, but he should be continually coding something to remain sharp.

A counter to this is; a manager of software engineers needs to remove roadblocks impeding the success of the team.

Good managers enable their coworkers, micromanagers weigh in on or perform commits.

Re: Should managers still code?

#209

Post by noirbot »

lexandstuff wrote: post #95
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My best managers did code! They didn't close tons of tickets but they did do small things, and by keeping active in the codebase they were very cognizant of the state of documentation and technical debt, and could make informed decisions without relying on second-hand reports. It kept their understanding of the codebase grounded in reality. They knew which features were held together with duct tape, what areas needed…

This is 100% my experience. I appreciate a manager who can jump into the codebase to fix the small stuff: typos, lint issues, updating minor dependencies, etc., unblocking devs from doing the main work. I like when they have some sense of the reality of the codebase, as you put it, and know who is actually contributing vs bullshitting. The worst managers I've ever had were the so-called "technical" managers who had n…

I think this is kinda the best way. If you're a manger who used to code, do the sort of tedious tech debt stuff for your team. Update dependencies. Build small tooling improvements. Do the sort of stuff your devs probably want to do but have higher priority work that will get in the way. That's likely work that doesn't require you to have deep knowledge of how everything works, but still provides value.

If your project is complex enough that's not an option, then write onboarding docs and other technical stuff. IMO, the manager shouldn't be writing code much, but they should always keep a running version of the project. They should be able to run tests, confirm that PRs function locally, just keep a basic attachment to things.

Re: Should managers still code?

#210

Post by felizuno »

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 guess I don't get what's objectionable about working for someone who doesn't understand how you do what you do. Isn't what matters being appreciated? I certainly can't work for someone who doesn't value what I do, but I can care less whether they actually understand how I do it.
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