Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Should managers still code?

theengineeringmanager.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 319 posts

Re: Should managers still code?

#301

Post by pc86 »

peterldowns wrote: post #68
pc86 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've bounced back and forth between IC and EM (intentionally) and I've seen some that get very very close then completely blow it with one of these. One in particular would put people through management training for a full day each week for months, give them a very senior director, all the "right things" but then cut their IC duties by maybe 10-15% at most and give them a team of 12 people to manage. And they wondere…

I don’t see your contact info in your HN profile but could I get in touch with you to learn more about how teams can get this right? My email is in mine.

I reached out!

Re: Should managers still code?

#303

Post by ironmagma »

onion2k wrote: post #276
ironmagma wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You haven’t provided enough information to say for sure. If all your reports are happy, then probably nothing, but that’s a big “if.”

Language barrier can be quite high between JS, COBOL, and Haskell depending on what the situation is. With 25 years of experience, how have you not found the time to learn basically every language used in industry today?

Re: Should managers still code?

#304

Post by etamponi »

apwell23 wrote: post #285
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…

> shield you from politics beyond your level. ppl here always say "politics" is just learning to work with other people. So your manager is shieding you from working with other ppl ?

Good call. I am not referring to that though :) I mean scenarios like:

- Other director comes and says: why should we work with your team instead of rolling out the same product ourselves (and getting your team laid off)?

- Our director comes and says: your team is too slow, why? You should do X instead of Y. Z Is super urgent: cancel your plans and do it.

- Other manager: my team is better than your team! My people deserve a raise/promo/whatever more than yours.

Re: Should managers still code?

#305

Post by GlacierFox »

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…

For a lot of people, their job isn't 100% of their life and their weekends are reserved for... Life. I respect you though. I'm glad your job is something you enjoy to the extent you happily regularly extend it into your personal time.

Re: Should managers still code?

#306

Post by protocolture »

jt2190 wrote: post #292
protocolture wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> 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. Which they pay you for? Otherwise why don’t you drop them as clients? I’m unclear how that’s “waste” from a business perspective.

Waste from their perspective. And TBH I would rather be doing technical work than reexplaining technical work.

Re: Should managers still code?

#307

Post by burnte »

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."

True, but not in the way I think you might be inferring. A construction planning/quoting engineer can give incredibly well detailed and highly accurate plans and timelines for building a building, road, bridge, etc. They don't know how to make the steel, or how to weld properly, or how to mix the concrete, or how to measure slump, or a thousand other tasks the construction workers know by heart. I don't need to know exactly how my developer does XYZ, but I can have a strong enough understanding to know if it's the right approach, how long it will take, what problems to expect, how to work around them, etc. I have an on-staff developer who is brilliant, and even though I don't know SQL very well, nor the language our EMR is written in, he comes to me sometimes for technical advice because I understand what is happening internally, and even come up with ideas on how to solve problems without being able to implement the fix myself.

It requires honest appraisals of your own skills and weaknesses, which is tough. But when I give an estimate on programming projects, we hit my targets on time, on budget, because I know how to write a spec, how to manage a dev team, how to QA, and how to keep development running productively. I can code a little, but I'd be the worst coder on my team, but that's not how my time is best spent.

Re: Should managers still code?

#308

Post by PeterStuer »

One of the most regrettable things I did was stop writing code. There were the usual things; to busy to keep it up, not a good look in mgmt circles, keep coding hurts your upward mobility potential etc., all true, but I felt I was on a slippery slope towards effectively managing development.

Tech is in constant flux. While the basics rarely change, and yes, there is a lott of reinventing the wheel in programming approaches, thongs do progress and you feel your grasp weakening.

So now I code again. Not daily, but enough to complete some projects on my own. It feels great, and it definitly has a positive impact on my overall capabilities.

Re: Should managers still code?

#309

Post by sosborn »

HWR_14 wrote: post #294
cutemonster wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> jobs where the bosses bosses boss does know the job Doesn't make sense. With 7 - 10 reports per manager, that means the higher up boss or CEO should know how to do the jobs of 350 - 1000 different people. (7*7*7)

If you promote up, and you have 3 levels, then the CEO should have done the exact job of 3 people below him on his ascent.

Hard disagree. Would it be helpful? Sure. But a good boss just needs to know when to trust the judgement and opinions of his subordinates.

Trouble comes when they don’t understand the work, but make decisions as if they do.

Re: Should managers still code?

#310

Post by protocolture »

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #208
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…

How do you know what roadblocks are valid to remove if you dont understand what they do.

How do you performance manage employees if you dont understand what they do.

Post reply on HN