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Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

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Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#91

Post by ghaff »

alistairSH wrote: post #63
daenney wrote: post #21

In about 90% of companies I’ve seen they expect you to do all the manager things and be an engineer too. It’s not so much a mistake individuals make as that it’s an explicit expectation that you’ll be wearing multiple hats. Folks generally get bombarded to manager because there’s no career ladder and this is what people think they have to do next to be able to continue to grow. And once you become a manager it doesn’…

Folks generally get bombarded to manager because there’s no career ladder That's a pretty serious organizational flaw. At my employer, we have a well-define architect path that ends with "Technical Fellow" which on the job matrix is parallel with director-level management. As a developer, I see 4 basic career tracks. Developer-track - caps out at principal developer, thought most people in this role are capable of ar…

>That's a pretty serious organizational flaw.

I agree that "no career ladder" is a serious flaw. That said, it's not uncommon that, in terms of money anyway, IC tracks tend to cap out at lower levels than management tracks even if there is a well-defined IC track.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#92

Post by nomy99 »

gfodor wrote: post #65

1. Become an engineering manager 2. Stop coding 3. Do well for a few years until you become out of touch 4. Watch your team stop respecting you on technical subjects because you’re behind the times and too rusty but don’t know it so look foolish and are ignored when you give suggestions, which radically undermines your relationships with them as well as your ability to lead 5. Watch as your role morphs from a manager…

Though I thoroughly enjoyed reading this dark path, in reality the bar is set so high in top companies that an engineering manager is usually an architect/senior engineer/and a people manager.

So most don't make it, and those who do have a tremendous career that's fulfilling and financially rewarding.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#93

Post by bzzt »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #76
gfodor wrote: post #65

1. Become an engineering manager 2. Stop coding 3. Do well for a few years until you become out of touch 4. Watch your team stop respecting you on technical subjects because you’re behind the times and too rusty but don’t know it so look foolish and are ignored when you give suggestions, which radically undermines your relationships with them as well as your ability to lead 5. Watch as your role morphs from a manager…

> unless you happen to have been born with natural leadership skills (you probably haven’t) Leadership skills are important, but I disagree that leadership is something you’re either born with or not. Leadership can be taught, learned, and practiced. The real issue is that a lot of people who are pushed or drawn into management roles don’t actually like managing or leading. Some are pushed into management because the…

I don't get it, doesn't everyone dislike/struggle with these things? Who likes context switching, office politics, sitting in meetings and having difficult conversations

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#94

Post by meddlepal »

dominotw wrote: post #88
Koshkin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the other universe: 1. Do not become an engineering manager. 2. If pushed (e.g. by not getting raises), move on.

> move on. move on to where? managers get paid more than IC on average everywhere. Sure, if you are staff level stellar IC you might get paid on par with management but most ppl aren't.

Don't sell yourself out for money unless you need to. Figure out the amount of money you would like to make then if your at not getting paid that at CurrentCo go find a darling SV company, unicorn, or a FAANG+Microsoft and switch to an IC role at one of those companies and get paid better.

Going into management for money is a terrible reason to become a manager...

Unless of course your goal is executive management... but that's very different from engineering management.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#95

Post by yaml-ops-guy »

gfodor wrote: post #65

1. Become an engineering manager 2. Stop coding 3. Do well for a few years until you become out of touch 4. Watch your team stop respecting you on technical subjects because you’re behind the times and too rusty but don’t know it so look foolish and are ignored when you give suggestions, which radically undermines your relationships with them as well as your ability to lead 5. Watch as your role morphs from a manager…

2b) Start coding again because your superiors promote you to management but treat you like you’re still an IC and ask why you haven’t contributed any points to the latest sprint while actively shutting you out of the kinds of discussions and decisions an EM would be making in most other orgs—-while somehow simultaneously asking you to also be the bearer of frequently changing and poorly communicated business priorities for your subordinates

Yes it’s happened to me, yes I’m a bit bitter about it, yes I’m looking for a new job because of it

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#96

Post by poorman »

iandanforth wrote: post #53

I will disagree with one point. Neither eng managers nor tech leads should be doing project management. It is a unique skill and worth having someone explicitly in charge. They should own the structure of requirements docs, story breaktown, ticketing, jira processes, etc. While they may be somewhat technical they are more ensuring consistency and quality of process without burdening devs. The best team composition I…

The most successful teams I've ever worked on or led were structured like this. Both at the startup level (3-4 engineers) and big co level.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#97

Post by pbronez »

dominotw wrote: post #88
Koshkin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the other universe: 1. Do not become an engineering manager. 2. If pushed (e.g. by not getting raises), move on.

> move on. move on to where? managers get paid more than IC on average everywhere. Sure, if you are staff level stellar IC you might get paid on par with management but most ppl aren't.

My intuition for this is leverage. As a people manager, the team's output is your output. When you manage a large team, small changes in IC output can quickly exceed 1 FTE. These multiplicative productivity improvements are why Managers get paid more.

There's tons of ink spilled on the idea of the 10x engineer. Let's assume that exists. Even if an extraordinary single person can deliver 10x output (call that 10FTE), a good manager can deliver a similar productivity boost by merely 2x'ing the output of a 10-person team of average ICs (10FTE output -> 20FTE output for a delta of 10FTE, same as hiring a 10x engineer, which is hard to do.)

If you have a 10 person team of 10x engineers, a good manager can deliver that 10FTE bump by increasing team performance by just 0.1x (10x 10FTE/person = 100FTE -> 10 x 11FTE/person = 110FTE team output, for a 10FTE boost). THAT is why good managers are worth paying.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#98

Post by poorman »

Something I think that's often overlooked is your relationship with your peers after the transition from "peer" to "manager".

It's tough because you want to continue to treat your direct reports as peers, but that only makes it extremely awkward for them since the relationship dynamic has changed.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#99

Post by andorxor »

lentil wrote: post #32

I've been an engineering manager for a couple of years. I'm still expected to do 50% engineering and 50% people management. As the article describes, it is a struggle to do both well. I don't see this responsibility split changing in my current role. I do often wonder what it would be like to be 100% people focused, and whether or not I would miss engineering too much. When my role first changed, I was very intimidat…

Regarding the advice in your link, how can an employee trust their manager when they're trying to get them to open up like a therapist, while at the same time gathering notes to use as "evidence" in an annual review? This is an inherent conflict of interests, and I've always regretted revealing any difficulties to managers. It usually comes back to bite me, as in "doesn't work well with others," or getting passed over for tech lead because I expressed doubts about my leadership abilities.

Re: Common Mistakes of New Engineering Managers

#100

Post by bulek »

bzzt wrote: post #93
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unless you happen to have been born with natural leadership skills (you probably haven’t) Leadership skills are important, but I disagree that leadership is something you’re either born with or not. Leadership can be taught, learned, and practiced. The real issue is that a lot of people who are pushed or drawn into management roles don’t actually like managing or leading. Some are pushed into management because the…

I don't get it, doesn't everyone dislike/struggle with these things? Who likes context switching, office politics, sitting in meetings and having difficult conversations

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
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