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Should managers still code?

theengineeringmanager.substack.com

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Re: Should managers still code?

#271

Post by windward »

tyre wrote: post #196
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you a better EM because you code nights / weekends? Genuinely curious, as I have to choose managing or continuing as an engineer pretty soon

Code review, respect from engineers, directly feeling the pain points in our development process, I can commit small features strategically (like if a partner team isn't getting a lot of love but we're under-resourced), better partner pairing with engineers, balancing tech debt with new features, shipping directly to users builds empathy

>I can commit small features strategically (like if a partner team isn't getting a lot of love but we're under-resourced)

Like a 10X (cost) intern?

Re: Should managers still code?

#272

Post by kamaal »

pjerem wrote: post #264
kamaal wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I don’t know man. Can Bezos code? Can he operate a forklift? Most top level legendary CEOs, could. Zuckerberg, Gates, Jack Welch, Edison, Larry Page, Sergey Brin all worked their way up from the floor to the corner office. >>At certain points things need to be let go of if you want to keep growing. This is how you arrive at the situation Boeing is currently. Im sorry but not all businesses have a cookie cut text bo…

> Most top level legendary CEOs, could. Zuckerberg, Gates, Jack Welch, Edison, Larry Page, Sergey Brin all worked their way up from the floor to the corner office. Sure but the tech CEOs success is an anomaly : most if not all the people you cited were able to get to the top because the context was highly exceptional (because personal computing and internet were a total greenfield). (Also not to mention that, beyond…

I mean if you are selling detergent, paint or soap its a different argument there.

But even in that case you still have to be darn good at distribution, financials, marketing etc.

You can't exactly dictate things cluelessly at a abstract level like managers in software do.

Re: Should managers still code?

#273

Post by windex »

Practitioners need to be led by a practitioner. I worked for a while with a team leader whose only connection to the team was absorbing credit, giving confusing orders and acting like he saved the day. I dont want to work with aggregator managers ever again.

Re: Should managers still code?

#274

Post by ozim »

andoando wrote: post #143
ozim wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see how you can understand something without being part of it. It is like learning stuff from the book vs learning hands on. There is no book that will teach you skiing. The same for working with the team - it is so much different than listening and trying to understand. Everyone nags about how MBA graduates ruin everything by thinking that you can manage and it doesn’t matter who and what.

But you are a part of it. You are the manager of the codebase, you should actively be part of the discussions of what's being merged in, what your architecture looks like, what changes are required to complete a new project, what issues are arising, what the blockers are on projects, whats slowing down your team etc. None of that requires you to sit down and code. If you're really listening and asking the right quest…

After thinking about what you wrote here I have some conclusion:

If someone is "good manager" that does all those things whether he writes the code or not he is going to be a "good manager" anyway. Explicitly writing code might not be best use of time but hey if person feels like he needs it that is on him.

If someone is "bad manager" that doesn't bother to deal with technical details and wants only to do "important management stuff" and thinks he can manage by proxies like counting story points or counting closed tasks, does not care about HTTP client A or B and learning the system, he is going to be a "bad manager" and will never even care about writing code.

Finally "bad manager" and "good manager" - is hard to tell because "bad manager" can be good for the company or a team as much as "good manager" and depending on many other factors it can be that "down to earth, hands dirty, good manager" might be really bad for the company or a team depending on business context.

Re: Should managers still code?

#275

Post by mcny »

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…

> 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.

Please take care of your health. Humans need sleep, Even when you think you don't. Try to get enough sleep. Try to have at least some time during the day where you don't have any mental stress.

I have these videos that keep showing on my Instagram suggested reels that remind me that in a hundred or two after I am dead, literally nobody will have any clue I even existed. If hard work makes you happy, that's good. Keep working hard. However, definitely make time for sleep.

Controversial opinion: you shouldn't need drugs (caffeine) to help you wake up.

Re: Should managers still code?

#276

Post by onion2k »

ironmagma wrote: post #240
burnte wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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."

I have 25+ years of dev experience, and currently work as an engineering manager for teams who write code in a language I've never used (but in a domain I understand well). What do you think I'm missing?

Re: Should managers still code?

#277

Post by bipson »

dataflow wrote: post #158
nine_zeros wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An engineering manager's job is: take long-term ownership for the performance of the team This is a rather naive, mid-level management-style take. The real EM job is to represent the team to the company, to be aligned with company priorities, and to be a backstop for the team. In other words, being the leader - the face, the prioritize, and the helper of the team. Performance-style nonsense is what is used in wareh…

> The real EM job is [...] being the leader [...] of the team That's quite a confusing description. Then what does the team lead do? Manage the team?

There is plenty of words written on what the difference is between leading and managing.

True leaders are role models, not higher-ups, the ones where authority comes from competence, not position, showing the way, not just telling what to do, facilitating self-organization, giving direction, prioritizing, giving vision and perspective, not orders, fostering intrinsic motivation.

Re: Should managers still code?

#278

Post by windward »

Aeolun wrote: post #181
andoando wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just tell them all to regularly communicate/listen to their team? Sounds way more efficient.

Doesn't work, because the team won't always tell you of the issues that block them (normalization of deviance). Sometimes you need to find out yourself.

You can see this when you join a (disfunctional) new team, notice the friction, then suggest improving it.

Re: Should managers still code?

#279

Post by rcxdude »

jaggederest wrote: post #150
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? My manager can code, used to code, sometimes does code, but they aren't familiar with their team's current work. Many directors started in other roles in the movie industry, typically as writers, PAs, or other subspecialties. Chad St…

Though the fact that directors have certain biases from how they working into the role does also highlight an issue with this kind of effect: when you have technical leads or project managers on a big multi-disciplinary project, they will have a natural tendency to favor the areas they are more familiar with, and bias the decision-making and planning of the project around that. It can be difficult to step back and optimize for the project/system as a whole.

Re: Should managers still code?

#280

Post by bl4ckm0r3 »

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 one was a coder once, they don't need to keep coding to understand what a coder does. Plus it's a bit hard to be a manager of different profiles and different stacks and understand what everyone does from a coding point of view (different stack, different frameworks and abstractions etc) especially while time passes and tech changes so much, so quickly.

I do agree that it's important for a coder to keep coding but mostly for the manager itself as it's removes some of the old biases and it's a continuous learning process on something that, technically speaking, they should be passionate about. Plus it does help to have conversations with other developers and don't sound like a person who only listens to vivaldi at a dnb concert.

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