What we've learned about hiring engineering managers • Hacker News Board

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#81

Post by KKKKkkkk1 » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 6:43 AM UTC

bb88 wrote: post #61

vecter wrote: post #57

> Engineering managers at CircleCI are now dedicated to people management: focused on development of a set of engineers, tech leads, and team leads. They hold regular 1:1s and career growth conversations with the engineers who report to them, and are responsible for goal setting, feedback, coaching, and mentoring for them. They also work across a set of teams to ensure team health, knowledge sharing, business value d…

So usually the EM is either "Technical" or "Non-Technical". The Technical EM is more about design, architecture and progress, and sometimes helping the team to get code out the door. The Non Technical EM is more about this. The technical EM would communicate through a PR, say instead of having 1-on-1's. Edit: They said in the article they used to give coding problems to engineering manager candidates, and then in the…

My experience is that a manager who is sharp and knowledgeable will be able to perform the non-technical tasks with confidence and ease, while the non-technical manager will be consumed with politics and divide-and-conquering his own team and its perceived adversaries.

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#82

Post by watwut » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 8:03 AM UTC

e3b0c wrote: post #48

gwbas1c wrote: post #9

I firmly believe great software engineering managers are people who are adequate developers, but have excellent people skills. Why? They need to understand enough software at a high level to be able to manage, instead of turning lower-level details into management problems. But, they also need to find software development frustrating enough that they are happy to not have to do it every day.

I recently realized that there are roughly two kinds of people, namely people who are good at symbolic/abstract ideas and people who are good at real/physical/touchable things, which can be considered orthogonal to the extrovert/introvert categorization. For a software engineering team, I find it tends to be suboptimal to have a physical-thinking oriented manager who dislikes abstract, symbolic notions, even though t…

Yeah, I noticed that if I want to be perceived as good in x I often have to pretend that I am bad at y.

In reality, you can be good at both and like both and switch between them. You might have a preference and still be reasonably good at both. You might decide one is weakness and put effort into learning it overcoming initial dislike.

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#83

Post by analyzethis » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 8:48 AM UTC

bb88 wrote: post #61

vecter wrote: post #57

> Engineering managers at CircleCI are now dedicated to people management: focused on development of a set of engineers, tech leads, and team leads. They hold regular 1:1s and career growth conversations with the engineers who report to them, and are responsible for goal setting, feedback, coaching, and mentoring for them. They also work across a set of teams to ensure team health, knowledge sharing, business value d…

So usually the EM is either "Technical" or "Non-Technical". The Technical EM is more about design, architecture and progress, and sometimes helping the team to get code out the door. The Non Technical EM is more about this. The technical EM would communicate through a PR, say instead of having 1-on-1's. Edit: They said in the article they used to give coding problems to engineering manager candidates, and then in the…

"Technical EM"? What about architect? Or is that title no longer in fashion?

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#84

Post by Bombthecat » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 8:52 AM UTC

ep103 wrote: post #40

lmilcin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have worked for Intel for a bit. I haven't stayed there for long but I have learned a lot about how great engineering management works. Best managers I met had almost nil technical knowledge or if they did they were not advertising it very much. They were gardeners. They made sure you were occupied, you provided value, you did what you liked and all projects that needed staff were allocated staff. They will meet wi…

As a dev that has been promoted to manage (not just lead, manage) a reasonably sized team, but is still expected to code regularly, what you're describing sounds like paradise. From both the management, and dev perspective.

Funny, had an interview at a boutique consulting firm as a manager, told me something like : no no! You are not expected to bill like 90 or 100 percent. Aaaannndd I'm out. Those shops work like : bill 80 or still 90 percent while working with the team 100 percent. No thanks.

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#85

Post by mikemajzoub » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 9:02 AM UTC

pjmorris wrote: post #14

so_tired wrote: post #2

So basically "we were devs and we want managers who are devs" .. which inevitably leads to "we really need some real managers" full disclosure: i am senior dev and a bad manager

Developers can acquire 'real manager' skills. Jerry Weinberg, from volume 2 of 'Quality Software Management" "In the four decades I've spent in the software business, I've learned that there are three fundamental abilities needed to do a quality job of managing software engineering: * "the ability to understand complex situations so you can plan a project and then observe and act in order to keep the project going ac…

Thanks for posting those Jerry Weinberg quotes. I'd never heard of him, and just spent a few hours reading up on him. I think I've found another role model tonight :)

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#86

Post by vecter » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 9:27 AM UTC

fijiaarone wrote: post #71

vecter wrote: post #57

> Engineering managers at CircleCI are now dedicated to people management: focused on development of a set of engineers, tech leads, and team leads. They hold regular 1:1s and career growth conversations with the engineers who report to them, and are responsible for goal setting, feedback, coaching, and mentoring for them. They also work across a set of teams to ensure team health, knowledge sharing, business value d…

Notice how every one of these tasks are things required of the engineer to satisfy the manager. None of it contributes to the productivity of the worker. And only a small portion of it has any relevance to the productive of the company as a whole. In other words, the engineers would not notice if the engineering manager was not there (except they’d spend less time in meetings and reporting). And the company wouldn’t…

If that were the case, why does practically every company that has engineers also have engineering managers? Are we all just doing it wrong?

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#87

Post by austincheney » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 9:43 AM UTC

gwbas1c wrote: post #9

I firmly believe great software engineering managers are people who are adequate developers, but have excellent people skills. Why? They need to understand enough software at a high level to be able to manage, instead of turning lower-level details into management problems. But, they also need to find software development frustrating enough that they are happy to not have to do it every day.

I only mostly agree. The soft skills are crucial. The other critical part of a good leader is vision. Engineering skills are helpful, but only so much as they help eliminate distractions from the vision. Junior engineers bring in all kinds of distractions to make things supposedly easier.

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#88

Post by lazerwalker » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 9:44 AM UTC

fijiaarone wrote: post #71

vecter wrote: post #57

> Engineering managers at CircleCI are now dedicated to people management: focused on development of a set of engineers, tech leads, and team leads. They hold regular 1:1s and career growth conversations with the engineers who report to them, and are responsible for goal setting, feedback, coaching, and mentoring for them. They also work across a set of teams to ensure team health, knowledge sharing, business value d…

Notice how every one of these tasks are things required of the engineer to satisfy the manager. None of it contributes to the productivity of the worker. And only a small portion of it has any relevance to the productive of the company as a whole. In other words, the engineers would not notice if the engineering manager was not there (except they’d spend less time in meetings and reporting). And the company wouldn’t…

This sounds like you haven't had a competent manager before (nothing to be ashamed of, I was there once!)

Meetings like weekly 1:1s are supposed to be helpful for you as the engineer. They're a safe space for you to complain, and share what sucks about your job, and brag about what's going well. It's like work therapy, but a lot of the things that you complain about can actually become things your manager can fix over time.

Things like help in goal setting might not seem strictly necessary if you're self-driven enough. But doing good work doesn't help your career if nobody notices, and spending your time focused on Doing The Thing is time you're not spending playing a game of politics to make sure upper management is hearing your name all the time. Having a manager to establish a paper trail of what you claim your goals are, and then doing them, makes it easier for everybody above you in the organization to justify giving you a raise/promotion/etc.

I agree that, in a lot of situations, poorly-trained managers do more harm than good. But I promise it's theoretically possible for good managers to provide value!

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#89

Post by khazhou » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 10:33 AM UTC

lazerwalker wrote: post #88

fijiaarone wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notice how every one of these tasks are things required of the engineer to satisfy the manager. None of it contributes to the productivity of the worker. And only a small portion of it has any relevance to the productive of the company as a whole. In other words, the engineers would not notice if the engineering manager was not there (except they’d spend less time in meetings and reporting). And the company wouldn’t…

This sounds like you haven't had a competent manager before (nothing to be ashamed of, I was there once!) Meetings like weekly 1:1s are supposed to be helpful for you as the engineer. They're a safe space for you to complain, and share what sucks about your job, and brag about what's going well. It's like work therapy, but a lot of the things that you complain about can actually become things your manager can fix ove…

> They're a safe space for you to complain, and share what sucks about your job

Not trying to be a jerk here, but they're not meant to be a place just for employee to vent. They want the manager to do something about the problems. This is usually frustrating for both people, as the manager is often not empowered to fix the problem (such senior execs not having their shit together, other teams fighting, and all that usual fun stuff) and the employee gets tired of essentially asking every week for things to change, with no improvement.

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#90

Post by scarejunba » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 12:41 PM UTC

Rapzid wrote: post #78

fijiaarone wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notice how every one of these tasks are things required of the engineer to satisfy the manager. None of it contributes to the productivity of the worker. And only a small portion of it has any relevance to the productive of the company as a whole. In other words, the engineers would not notice if the engineering manager was not there (except they’d spend less time in meetings and reporting). And the company wouldn’t…

Circle CI also supposedly only hires the "best engineers".. I didn't realize the best engineers needed so much focused management.

This is totally consistent. The best athletes receive the most focused coaching. This makes perfect sense. They need experts because they're at the leading edge. The slightest of annoyances is costing you major productivity. It is precisely the best that you need the best coaches for.