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

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#91

Post by pjmorris » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 1:39 PM UTC

mikemajzoub wrote: post #85

pjmorris wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :)

I got to meet him, several times. He is as thoughtful and eloquent in person as he is in writing. He's certainly one of my role models, so I commend your choice :)

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#92

Post by jonstewart » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

The right sort of engineering manager for a company very much depends on the size of the organization. Large companies can afford to have professional managers with minimal technical skills because they can also afford to have lead developers and architects. In a smaller organization, that’s not possible and you need to understand the team you have and then mitigate the inevitable weaknesses of the managers.

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#93

Post by rossdavidh » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 3:17 PM UTC

stronglikedan wrote: post #18

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.

Or, like me, they love development and don't find it frustrating, but they would rather follow the money.

Often (I don't claim always), such a person is not as good at being an engineering manager as someone who was just ok with developing, because they keep wanting to interfere in low-level development decisions. Because, you know, those were the kinds of decisions they made when they were doing the job they actually loved doing.

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#94

Post by wool_gather » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

ionforce wrote: post #43

itronitron wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Best style I have seen is 'people' manager that has the soft skills and interest to do the organizational performance stuff, and separate 'project' managers that manage the work and teams. This allows technical staff to easily move around as needed to different projects without it being a big deal. That also encourages the project managers to be good so that people will be interested in working on their projects.

Most organizations don't have the foresight or bandwidth to organize things this way. It's always just one person do everything. I hate it.

Same. My current org actually got rid of our project managers over the last year and a half. So now my direct (engineering) manager is basically an overburdened full-time PjM, with spillover landing in my lap constantly (I'm an engineer and a team lead). It's extremely frustrating. And I can't even remember the last time he and I had a one-on-one.

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#95

Post by Moto7451 » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 6:37 PM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #67

Moto7451 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked at companies, and know others who work at companies, where being an Engineering Managers means you're 90% developer and 10% manager. You're expected to do one on ones, assign work, but mostly code.

I would expect that to be called tech lead. Though probably closer to 80/20 (or lower) than 90/10 by the time you include all the extra work and meetings he or she has to go to by dint of being in that role (vs say the next most senior engineer).

I completely agree and that's been my argument the whole time as well.

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#96

Post by mychael » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 7:03 PM UTC

This entire post is a perfect example of the awful corporate jargon infecting our culture right now.

For example

> As our take on this organizational model evolved to align with our needs as a distributed engineering organization, we realized we wanted to distribute leadership more.

- "organizational model": "We divide our team into smaller sub teams according to X"

- "evolved": Something failed and we need to fix it.

- "align": (trendiest word in corp jargon right now)

- "distributed engineering organization": People working remote.

- "distribute leadership": More leaders.

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#97

Post by agoodthrowaway » Sat, Feb 02, 2019, 8:15 PM UTC

I am on the fence about this. I think it sounds great in theory and it may even work for smaller companies. However, a problem I’ve encountered with this approach to engineering management is that it ignores what the managers need to do to develop and advance. My current company has a very similar role for managers. The problem is that for the managers to advance they have to make an impact to the wider org. So this leads to the craziest, most toxic politics I’ve ever seen. In my opinion, when managers can be judged on their ability to make good technical decisions, it leads to a more objective outcome when judging the performance of a manager.

My take is managers are there to support their engineers but also to make decisions when the team does not have consensus.

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#98

Post by bb88 » Sun, Feb 03, 2019, 1:46 AM UTC

twright0 wrote: post #69

bb88 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This isn't the nomenclature I'd use. What you describe as a "Technical EM" is what I'd call a "Tech Lead", who doesn't have people management responsibilities (things like 1:1s, recruiting, growth and success of the team, etc) and focuses solely on the technical execution of a team. In my book an EM is always responsible for those people management things, and I'd use "Technical EM" to describe an EM who secondarily…

Fair point.

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#99

Post by Rapzid » Sun, Feb 03, 2019, 2:41 AM UTC

scarejunba wrote: post #90

Rapzid wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Before I write out a long response on how I, as somebody who played sports and received coaching, believe that non-technical managers of software engineers and sports coaches contrast more than they compare I have to ask.. I'm guessing your being sarcastic? :D

Re: What we've learned about hiring engineering managers

#100

Post by mooreds » Sun, Feb 03, 2019, 7:51 AM UTC

trhway wrote: post #13

brink wrote: post #3

> We look for candidates’ ability to mentor and add value to technical discussions while understanding their own limitations, supporting a technical decision without acting as a decision-maker. It's nice that they are keeping this in mind. I was a technical lead for a new product in the company at my last job and had a new engineering manager hired over me. I ultimately quit because he wouldn't let me do my job, insi…

> supporting a technical decision without acting as a decision-maker. manager is ultimately responsible for his team decisions (of course bad managers do try to scapegoat that responsibility down onto the team when the stuff hits the fan) and being responsible for the decisions can't be separated from making those decisions.

> being responsible for the decisions can't be separated from making those decisions.

Disagree. This is the essence of delegation. You trust the person or team to decide the best path forward.

Do you think Tim Cook is responsible for the sum of decisions at Apple (yes)? Do you think he makes all the decisions(no)?

Good managers trust the team. If they don't, they'll repeat the team's work and ruin team morale and burn themselves out.