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Should managers still code?

theengineeringmanager.substack.com

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Re: Should managers still code?

#231

Post by asdf6969 »

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…

> you already do

Most of us rarely interact with these people so it doesn't matter. They're just the newest placeholder name in the emails I get every few months as they're shuffled around.

Re: Should managers still code?

#232

Post by isaacremuant »

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.

In practice, many act as an intermediary who can take the credit for the wins while passing down blame for the misses.

It's not a good leadership trait but it's an effective career advancing move.

The entire list on the post reeks of aspirational intermediary that doesn't actually do any of those things as effectively as empowered project/team leads who do contribute to the product. It's fluff and very easy fluff to remove without feeling pain. Of course, mediocre teams will have mediocre developers who won't want responsabilty and will benefit from intermediary "bossy" managers.

Re: Should managers still code?

#233

Post by asdf6969 »

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.

Do you read books about management in your evenings?

Re: Should managers still code?

#234

Post by JackMorgan »

Two things:

- It's dangerous for the manager's career to lose the ability to code. After five years they will have regressed nearly to a Jr engineer's ability and would need significant effort to get back into interviewing shape. I've interviewed so many managers who didn't like management or aren't quite good enough to stay in the management track who can't even remember how an if statement works.

- Small companies and early startups are much more likely to need engineers over politicians, so the manager working on engineering is much more helpful in smaller teams.

In my experience in all pretty small companies, keeping hands on the keyboard was essential for me and the team. This was great because I got tired of being a manager and wanted to go back to pure engineer again.

Re: Should managers still code?

#235

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

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…

What do you mean by "coding at a professional rate"?

The reason managers should code is more so that they maintain familiar with the state of the codebase. There's no particular output rate required for this, they don't even need to merge their changes, but they should be getting their hands dirty and making sure they still know how the pieces fit together.

I wouldn't trust a long term plan from someone with their head in the clouds. They have to be able to see the ground to draw a roadmap.

If they close a few tickets here and there, that's just icing on the cake.

TFA says the manager should be in the code but not necessarily writing code. I disagree. The only way to be in the code is to write it, even if you throw away what you write. I agree with TFA that the manager should not be in the critical path (unless there's some sort of crisis). But I don't think they can keep current in the state of the code by just reviewing PRs, unless they're a real coding genius.

Re: Should managers still code?

#236

Post by [deleted] »

theresistor wrote: post #106
webdever wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree but, playing devil's advocate, is this true for other roles? Does a movie director need to know how to build sets? How to sew costumes? How to use Blender/Maya/Houdini? My manager can code, used to code, sometimes does code, but they aren't familiar with their team's current work. Like imagine you were a coding manager 10 years ago with AI experience. Sometime over the last 10 years your team does AI…

> I tend to agree but, playing devil's advocate, is this true for other roles? Does a movie director need to know how to build sets? How to sew costumes? How to use Blender/Maya/Houdini? I don't know that much about movie making, but my understanding is that there would be managers and/or leads within each specialty, who are (among other things) managing the interaction between their specialty and the director / prod…

[deleted]

Re: Should managers still code?

#237

Post by vasco »

halfcat wrote: post #195
GlacierFox wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want them to come to work and do their job, then go home and waste their nights and weekends doing a variation of your job? How about, a proportion of their work day must be allocated to keeping up to date with the tools behind the thing they're attempting to manage?

> So you want them to come to work and do their job, then go home and waste their nights and weekends doing a variation of your job? No. This would be a person who already happens to spend their nights and weekends coding. There are plenty of people who like building things, whether it’s woodworking or software. > How about, a proportion of their work day must be allocated to keeping up to date with the tools behind…

If you get what you want you'll have a shitty Pull Request for you to review on Monday mornings with your eager boss waiting for your approval on the PR.

Re: Should managers still code?

#238

Post by vasco »

tyre wrote: post #190
GlacierFox wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want them to come to work and do their job, then go home and waste their nights and weekends doing a variation of your job? How about, a proportion of their work day must be allocated to keeping up to date with the tools behind the thing they're attempting to manage?

> waste their nights and weekends doing a variation of your job Why is that a waste? I'm an EM and code both at work and on nights/weekends. During the work day, I spend most of my time helping other people directly (code review, talking through designs, 1:1s, xfn collab, etc.) To build larger things, I do them nights and weekends. It's not a waste. I'm better as an EM because of it. And being a better EM gets me mor…

You just don't know how to manage your time yet. This is every manager's first few months. The totality of your work should be done at work, or you're actually pretty bad at your job, efficiency wise at least. You'll tell yourself you're doing more than others, but eh.

Anyway, people told me that and I scoffed as well, so it's useless to type this, it's the type of thing you adapt after going through it.

Re: Should managers still code?

#239

Post by zdragnar »

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…

If your boss can do your job, one of you is redundant.

Managers of engineers should be the interface to the business and other units within the organization. That's a big enough job without requiring coding skills on top of it.

Re: Should managers still code?

#240

Post by ironmagma »

burnte wrote: post #188
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. Someone can understand what you do without being able to do it.

This really calls into question your meaning of the word "understand."
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