[HN Gopher] Growing from engineer to manager
___________________________________________________________________
Growing from engineer to manager
Author : gregorojstersek
Score : 127 points
Date : 2023-06-11 08:13 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (newsletter.eng-leadership.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (newsletter.eng-leadership.com)
| FpUser wrote:
| It is not "growing". It is changing the work which can be good or
| bad. I "grew" to a manager (CTO in this particular case) in 100
| person company some 20+ years ago and this got me to the point
| that I said fuck it, went on my own and am still happily doing
| creative work designing and implementing (including programming)
| products for clients and for my own company.
| moneywoes wrote:
| Are managers also stack ranked and pipped like engineers at many
| companies?
| photonbeam wrote:
| Im curious about this too
| master_crab wrote:
| They definitely are. But the metrics looks different. For
| example, if managers start losing a significant amount of
| people (because they can't do a good job retaining and
| developing talent) it will be obvious to higher ups that the
| person has to go.
| lightbendover wrote:
| I've seen FAANG managers with atrocious 360 reviews have
| their entire teams quit (the company) and hit director 5
| years later. It usually takes breaking a law or total
| role/team/project/program/org elimination to oust a manager.
| g051051 wrote:
| Engineer to manager isn't "growth", it's a complete career shift.
| Fine if you want it, torture if you don't.
|
| "Dear Engineer, you are so good at your job we've decided to have
| you stop doing it and do a different job with an almost
| completely disjoint skill set. You get to do something that you
| will most likely hate and be bad at. Plus you can never go back
| to your old life."
| gpgn wrote:
| Sounds a lot like the Peter principle
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle
| skhm wrote:
| I mean, you can definitely go back, there's just friction to
| doing so and it won't happen unless you are intentional about
| it. Might be more accurate to say you can go back, but it will
| never be the same now that you've had the veil pulled back on
| how things are being coordinated behind the scenes.
| gregorojstersek wrote:
| Your success is now determined more by the success of your team
| than by your individual contributions.
| mattchamb wrote:
| I have one week left as a manager before I start a new job as an
| IC. I am so excited to change back to being responsible for only
| my own output.
| grumpyprole wrote:
| If it were only that simple. Often one needs to be at least a
| team lead to set the technical direction. As an IC, I sometimes
| found myself being asked to implement a solution in a form that
| I did not agree with.
| mattchamb wrote:
| I don't think that changes much. To oversimplify; by telling
| you how to do it, the team lead is taking responsibility for
| the outcome of your output. You are just responsible for
| doing it how they said.
| [deleted]
| ralphstodomingo wrote:
| With the right team/leader, there'd be room for your inputs
| on the matter. Even if you find yourself in a not-so-good
| team setup, I'd argue there's still merit in letting your
| opinion be known, regardless of whether you end up
| implementing said solution in the way you were told or not.
| Aeolun wrote:
| You can only have that shot down so many times before you
| give up.
| Dextro wrote:
| Very much this. And when people give up it can take one
| of two forms:
|
| Either the person quits.
|
| Or the person resigns to giving mediocre output and
| coasts.
|
| Neither is good for the business and yet people keep
| pushing workers (not even just in tech) into that
| position to the point it's now a cliche.
| taway1874 wrote:
| Good for you! Just like software engineering, people management
| is not for everyone. Hope you build kick-ass software in your
| next role.
| KnobbleMcKnees wrote:
| I'm on the journey back too and can't wait to find a role where
| I actually have some creative input and decision making again.
|
| This obviously varies from role to role but I was told I would
| be highly involved in deciding what the team does and how they
| go about it. The reality is that I am responsible for
| arbitrating the delivery of decisions from more senior managers
| to the teams and the decisions from the teams on how they
| execute on those decisions back to the managers.
|
| Facilitating the growth of other engineers is wonderful but,
| frankly, I can do that (and was doing that) as an IC.
|
| If I'm honest I don't think the exact role I want exists out
| there but I think I'll make a far better "lieutenant" to a
| manager who actually likes the job than I make a manager who is
| becoming increasingly unengaged with their own role.
| steelframe wrote:
| > The reality is that I am responsible for arbitrating the
| delivery of decisions from more senior managers to the teams
| and the decisions from the teams on how they execute on those
| decisions back to the managers.
|
| "What would you say... you _do_ here? "
| mattchamb wrote:
| I experienced the exact same things. I have never before felt
| so accountable for decisions that I have such little input
| on.
| thunkshift1 wrote:
| This article was a nothing burger.. so id say it was a successful
| EM type message
| [deleted]
| ddmichael wrote:
| Apparently this is a junior person's blog promotion and hence the
| controversial (or plain wrong for me) title which has raised
| several discussions here.
|
| Since we are talking about it though, let's apply the 5 whys: 1.
| Why do companies need managers? Because they need they're
| employees to be managed 2. Why do companies need their employees
| to be managed? Because they are not certain that they will follow
| the company's short/long-term strategy and vision 3. Why are they
| not certain? Because they're having trust issues 4. Why are they
| having trust issues? Because they are not investing in proper
| hiring 5. Why are they not investing in proper hiring? Because
| it's expensive and requires tremendous multidisciplinary skills,
| time and effort
|
| We are dealing with one night stands masked as serious dates
| ladies and gentlemen. Managers are just pawns which patch the
| original issue. Solving hiring would make them redundant.
| Macha wrote:
| Alternatively, when an organisation reaches a certain size,
| there becomes enough high level coordination needs for it to be
| a full time job, and also some HR-type functions work better
| when distributed to the edges rather than the central org.
| djohnston wrote:
| That's a pretty remarkable leap you've made from 2-3.
| Coordinating activities across large organisations is hard.
| ddmichael wrote:
| I see what you mean and you're not wrong. However given that
| you hire good senior engineers and that you trust them, most
| companies can resolve these issues. Coordinating activities
| is a project manager's thing which should have to do with
| gantt diagrams and not with micro-managing engineers. Very
| few companies are having complex software similar to OS,
| therefore being in need of the management that you're
| referring to. It's astonishing how managers responsible for
| building a button are reading the mythical man month and
| think they are the same.
| nickpeterson wrote:
| One issue is that people can agree on a general vision but
| differ completely on what problems exist, how they could be
| resolved, and what series of decisions support each other. It
| becomes overwhelming for people to think about.
|
| Focus on writing down your thoughts and supporting them. Build
| a case for something and then make decisions and execute. If
| you can put together a cogent argument, even people who
| disagree can often stomach working hard on it as long as you
| acknowledge their criticism and occasionally reevaluate past
| decisions.
| ttyyzz wrote:
| Managing people is the last thing I want to do professionally as
| a software developer. If I wanted to manage people, I would've
| gone that route a long time ago. Now sadly this is also the only
| way for me to "rank up" further in the company I've been working
| for the last 10 years. I guess I'm either stuck for now or I'll
| need to leave.
| epups wrote:
| The subject of seniority and progression to management pops up
| from time to time here in HN, and we usually see the same tired
| arguments. Managers are useless, it's not real work, seniority is
| an illusion, etc etc.
|
| There's nothing wrong with being good at your job and not wanting
| to change your role. But it's obvious that in most situations,
| progressing to other roles is necessary if you want to have more
| influence and control over your product - and usually higher
| compensation as well. In a professional kitchen, obviously the
| person actually cooking has to be really good. That doesn't mean
| this person gets to choose the menu of the restaurant, and their
| name also won't be displayed outside. They are more easily
| replaceable than a chef, even if they are very competent
| technically. As most things in life, it's all about trade-offs, I
| just think that ignoring what the actual pros and cons are will
| lead you to bad decisions down the line.
| austin-cheney wrote:
| There is a massive difference in maturity crossing from
| individual contributor to manager between the military and
| corporate world. Never in the corporate world have I seen a
| junior manager tell their boss _"no"_ and pushback as I have in
| the military.
|
| In the corporate world it's all about hiring/firing versus the
| military where it's all about developing people and liability at
| all levels. The key consequence of that is that in the corporate
| world people are eager to play it safe and follow trends versus
| the military where its generally considered a safe environment
| for learning more tolerant of controlled failure. Tolerance of
| controlled failure is how I learned to become a developer while
| working at Travelocity a billion years ago and I have not seen
| that since (in the corporate world).
| pgorczak wrote:
| Another possibly related difference is the training managers
| get. There are military careers where you know on day one which
| leadership responsibilities you will take several years down
| the line. That's a stark contrast to starting out as an
| engineer and then transitioning as described in the blog post.
| arnvald wrote:
| This. The state of leadership training in our industry is
| abysmal. Most managers I've met get little to no training
| when they transition to leadership roles. It's slightly
| better in larger companies, but as you say - a stark contract
| with military
| vsareto wrote:
| FWIW IC training is also bad. You can have a career just
| winging it (having done so myself) and any standards of
| competency are left to individual teams/companies or simply
| who you chose to imitate
| Arcanum-XIII wrote:
| There's the little issue that most formation are cargo cult
| crap. They're teaching you some kind of method or canvas,
| but not much more - and cost a lot.
|
| Good formations exists, somewhere. But they're well hidden.
| matt_s wrote:
| I disagree, however I never served in the military. There are
| companies which provide a safe environment for mistakes to be
| learning opportunities, its the culture that defines that.
| Rarely will an actual mistake lead to someone being fired where
| I work, usually if it does its because of attitude and someone
| believing they can do no wrong.
|
| If you bring down the production system with a change that is a
| learning opportunity and your team should be supportive (i.e.
| help you recover it) when these things occur. Thats why its
| important to be constantly deploying code and knowing how to
| roll back, etc.
|
| I've worked at a company that did releases months apart and
| everything was supposed to be perfect, it never was. In that
| culture it was all about posturing, covering up mistakes and
| blame-game which is utterly frustrating to work in.
| tflinton wrote:
| Managers have to manage up, down and outward. Most ICs will
| generally see downward management, but not the hours put in
| reporting up to executives, aligning and planning initiatives,
| resource/ allocations/PI's, budgeting, procurement, audits,
| client/product demos/presentations, hiring and sometimes firing.
|
| Managing down tends to be the easy part, career planning, 1:1's,
| performance/development and running rituals is a cake walk. The
| only real hard part of managing down is when you have an employee
| that's poisoning the well or is on a PIP.
|
| Oh, and some managers also have to still pick up cards and push
| code in some orgs.
| taway1874 wrote:
| Nailed it!
|
| Most posts here are from those who have never walked in a
| manager's shoes so only know what they see (or hear/read).
|
| Think about it, minus a few exceptions, most managers are paid
| better than the engineers they manage. Now why would exec/sr
| mgmt. do pay more unless they are getting their money's value?
| jsonking wrote:
| To put it politely I have a distaste for being referred to as an
| 'individual contributor' (or even worse a 'resource'). I also
| don't like being 'managed' and have gained little from 'line
| management' over 20+ years developing software systems.
|
| I do however find it extremely motivating to help a true leader
| solve their problems in a self-organising team of collaborative
| peers.
|
| I can't fathom why so many software organisations are still
| structured for hierarchical command and control, with the trend
| of good engineers being 'promoted' to management?
|
| Yes I think we need more leadership: with organisations
| cultivating a culture of leadership, communication, openness and
| trust. Everyone can display leadership skills depending on the
| context/task within a team. It is not something reserved for the
| 'manager' (appointed leader).
|
| Do we really need more 'management'? I don't think so. Management
| != Leadership.
|
| Would be keen to see some more articles along the lines of
| 'Growing leadership skills for engineers'.
| coldcode wrote:
| At my last job (lead) we were referred to as "onshore
| resources" despite being employees.
| jbmsf wrote:
| I can fathom it: the larger the organization, the more
| important it is to the people with power to treat everything
| else as abstraction.
|
| I'm told Seeing Like a State shares this insight.
|
| I also hate it. But it's unfortunately "left as exercise for
| the reader" to come up with an alternative that concentrates
| power differently.
| grumpy_coder wrote:
| You forgot how great it is to be called 'Talent'
|
| The professional managerial class have completely taken over
| most tech companies now. 'Technologists' trading buzz words,
| peddling 'influence' and crowding out the people that actually
| build things.
| usrnm wrote:
| This trope of "growing" from an engineer to a manager needs to
| die. I grow as an engineer when I learn new stuff or become
| better at building things. Becoming a manager is changing jobs,
| not growth in any meaningful way. Not even in salary in many
| places
| bjhgvkk wrote:
| Nobody goes from engineer to CEO with a million dollar golden
| parachute for doing a terrible job. As an engineer you work
| your ass off for someone else to take all the credit and leave
| you homeless.
|
| It's growing - hell it's escaping Getting as far away from
| working constantly for no reward and more goddam leatcode
| Interviews where 25yo who know nothing gatekeep your career -
| maybe you live in a different reality than I do, but I can
| always just build for myself at home.
| watwut wrote:
| People do not go from an engineer to CEO full stop. And also,
| plenty of CEOs with a million dollar golden parachutes do
| terrible jobs. So does large parts of management.
| YZF wrote:
| I have seen this happen. software engineer -> president of
| a billion dollar company -> CEO of another >billion dollar
| company.
| coldcode wrote:
| The CEO of SABRE (biggest airline res company) went in 15
| years from Software Engineer to CEO. He was then forced out
| when he objected to the company becoming public again
| (owned by Hedge Fund). I am sure its not common though.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > I grow as an engineer when I learn new stuff or become better
| at building things. Becoming a manager is changing jobs, not
| growth in any meaningful way.
|
| That's a very linear outlook. One can also grow be expanding
| the base of skills one has, and that often comes by shifted to
| adjacent jobs where you can capitalize on your first skill.
| There's some benefit in engineers who want to grow by
| transitioning to manager: nobody wants a non-engineer as your
| manager/leader - how would they understand your work or attract
| fantastic talent?
|
| Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not saying for an engineer to grow
| one has to become a manager, but it is a legitimate strategy.
| mindvirus wrote:
| Even in FAANG it's a promotion. If not immediately, the cap for
| ICs is much lower.
|
| Principal engineer at FAANG (L8): likely one of the best
| engineers in the world.
|
| Engineering director at FAANG (L8): manager who's been there
| for a while and is good at acquiring more reports.
|
| As a ratio, there are far more eng directors to managers than
| principal engineers to engineers.
|
| All that said, know what you want in your career. If you love
| building, build. If you want money, do management.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| There's no money in the world that will want me attend
| meetings all day.
| jayroh wrote:
| > If you want money, do management.
|
| If you make it to my comment, please - do not go into
| management for the money. If you want to build, then remain
| an IC. If you want to grow other engineers, further THEIR
| career, make THEM better - go into management.
|
| The friends of mine who ended up in management for the money
| and complain about their reports make me so angry.
| saalweachter wrote:
| I mean, this has a certain truth to it... but this isn't
| really a situation unique to management.
|
| A lot of engineers, of all flavors, are at least partially
| in the field for the money. Maybe they enjoy their work,
| maybe they're good at it, but for a lot of people it was
| more of a plan C or D after the things they _really_ wanted
| to do turned out to be something they couldn 't make money
| at.
|
| Some of them would rather be authors or musicians, some of
| them chemists or physicists, a number of them are just
| waiting to buy a goat farm upstate. If you include them
| people who would rather be engineering _something else_ ,
| but that something else doesn't pay the bills, it may be a
| majority of engineers who are in it for the money.
| klabb3 wrote:
| > please - do not go into management for the money
|
| Please won't do much, even if I agree. Incentives and all
| that.
| jayroh wrote:
| Point well made.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| If you go into any activity for the money, you'll ruin the
| activity.
| MathMonkeyMan wrote:
| Guys, everybody goes into management for the money.
| andruby wrote:
| I disagree.
|
| Plenty of people I know do it for other reasons: power,
| control, purpose, leverage, ...
| jayroh wrote:
| I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that many people
| get into management for the money. My thought is that the
| motivation, the incentive, is wrong.
|
| I've had too many shitty managers in my career to think
| I'd put other people through similar experiences. So, my
| switch into management was motivated by, hopefully,
| making the experiences on my team positive ones
| yinzer-solomon wrote:
| Sometimes, people are asked to become managers because
| their managers think that they have the right combination
| of skills and attributes to be good at the job.
|
| And sometimes, the people who were asked, due to a
| combination of stubbornness and a desire not to "sell
| out", deny the request for 7-8 years. Eventually, a
| person might realize that the original requesters may
| have been correct and that's how they become a manager.
|
| Or so I've heard.
| roland35 wrote:
| I don't think what you described is a promotion? M1 = IC6, M2
| = IC7, etc as you said. As far as the number of directors and
| VPs, sure there are probably more but I would describe that
| more as "it is easier to get promoted as a manager than as an
| individual contributer past IC6"
|
| However... This is starting to change. We now have engineers
| reporting to higher levels, so basically each manager has an
| equivalent IC reporting directly to them. In theory this
| means the numbers are more equivalent.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| It's true but for most people in practice they won't make it
| to L8 either as IC or manager so it's really more a question
| or do you want to finish your career as an L6 IC or manager.
| surajrmal wrote:
| Most people can get to L7 by mid 40s if not sooner. People
| who don't progress seem to do it based on choice (want less
| responsibility, unwilling to change teams to find more
| opportunities, etc). Careers don't end in people's 30s.
| lightbendover wrote:
| I'm sorry, but that comment is absurd. MOST people can
| make it to L7 in their mid 40s? Most people can't even
| get in the door at entry-level trying their very hardest,
| hard-stop-period.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| "Most people"?
|
| So if you start with a population of 100,000 employees at
| entry level, after a few years "most" of them will end up
| as L7?
|
| That does not make any sense. Senior is the terminal band
| for "most".
| lanstin wrote:
| If there is any random variability in promotion
| guidelines or policies or even process, then the
| probability of advancing from level N to level N+1
| approaches one over time. For many typical corporations,
| the policies change often enough that you will get
| promoted quite a bit higher than you intended, assuming
| of course you do your job, ensure that your work is
| useful, and get along with people reasonably well.
| GreedClarifies wrote:
| You nailed it. The requirements spelled out in the career
| ladder for IC vs. manager at FANG is ludicrous.
|
| During calibration the ladder generally isn't consulted but
| it could be weaponized at any time. It is quite intimidating.
| User23 wrote:
| It's pretty obvious that if you want to climb the career
| ladder you're most likely to succeed as a member of the
| group that defines the career ladder.
| gloryjulio wrote:
| It really depends. Our company (FAANG equivalent) has a lots
| of high ICs. There are lots of high level ICs because there
| are far fewer Techlead Managers who covers both sides. But tl
| managers are way too hard so most ppl pick one track to stick
| with.
|
| High level ICs have LOTs of weights on the technical
| directions. They are not replaceable by the managers.
| fnfjfk wrote:
| > Even in FAANG it's a promotion.
|
| No, it is not. You switch from L6 IC to L1 M (FB/Google
| scale). Compensation remains exactly the same.
|
| > If not immediately, the cap for ICs is much lower.
|
| This is different from management being a promotion...
| dukoid wrote:
| Converting from manager to engineer at the same level
| requires a special test in at least one FAANG company.
| Doesn't that mean going from manager to IC is a promotion?
| And then obviously the other way around must be a demotion?
| dasil003 wrote:
| Your point is that managers are more upwardly mobile, which
| is fair, but that doesn't mean when you make the switch it is
| a promotion. G9 IC -> M0 will not increase your salary. It
| does grant you more power, but that is not a promotion per
| se.
|
| The other thing to watch out for is manager growth over the
| last 10-15 years was a result of the structural needs of an
| unprecedented tech bull run. Now that the industry has moved
| into belt-tightening mode, the heaviest scrutiny is falling
| on managers. The type of political games a typical 35 year-
| old EM (5 years coding, 10 years EM) may not be as effective
| as they were in the previous environment. There are a LOT of
| EMs getting pipped or knocked back to IC these days, whereas
| ICs with a bit of product/UX sense, ability to think a bit
| beyond their silo, and willing to work on "boring" business
| applications will continue to be highly valued, especially
| given the amount of dead weight that has found its way in by
| grinding leetcode.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| Changing job from being cleaner to programmer is also
| interesting wage but is not "growing into".
| bbcc90 wrote:
| I would also say that being an engineer at L8 is a
| meaningfully different set of skills than L7. The whole 'what
| got you here won't get you there idea' starts at L7 for
| either track...
| taway1874 wrote:
| Well ... maybe it's not a "trope"?
| thumbuddy wrote:
| in a lot of places they refuse to let engineers become
| managers. Technical experts, distinguished engineers, CTOs,
| etc, but management is distinctly different then writing code.
| Human beings are not computer programs. Being good at one
| doesn't mean you'd be good at the other whatsoever.
| guggle wrote:
| I was about to write the exact same comment. I wish engineering
| experience was more recognized, especially in software fields.
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| Congratulations, you've been working as a baker for 10 years
| and have perfected the art of making bread. You have now been
| promoted to butcher.
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| Dammit. I was hoping for candlestick-maker.
| xbryanx wrote:
| Umm, haven't you just been promoted to bakery manager?
| irrational wrote:
| The point is that the jobs are completely different. They
| require different skill sets.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| ... same as bakery manager? And in both cases it helps
| understanding underlying work, unless you don't just fill
| forms, organize meetings and chase/yell at people (then
| you can be easily cut&pasted elsewhere with same great
| results)
| User23 wrote:
| At every bakery I've been to the "manager" is still
| actually baking as part of their daily duties.
| dasil003 wrote:
| It's not a good point though, because one of the
| important traits of a good engineering manager is that
| they understand the work of the ICs they are managing (at
| least to a reasonable depth).
| irrational wrote:
| I've had many good engineering managers over the decades.
| None were technical. But they were good because they did
| have skills in things like running interference for us.
| In my experience, people skills are far more important
| than technical skills for good engineering managers.
| ranguna wrote:
| Hmmmm a butcher would be like a business analyst in the
| software development world maybe?
|
| Both still put they hands on the product, but in completely
| different perspectives.
|
| Maybe a store manager would be more applicable?
| stodor89 wrote:
| I have a friend who got promoted from QA to HR.
| drewcoo wrote:
| They say to get a promotion you need to already be acting
| at the level of your new role.
|
| How the heck did that one work?
| rzzzt wrote:
| Perhaps a car analogy would clear things up?
| ddmichael wrote:
| Instead of having been "promoted" to a shepherd?
| slouc wrote:
| If it makes you feel any better, in many big companies that's
| already the case. Talking about modern Big Tech, not dinosaurs
| like Oracle or IBM.
| slouc wrote:
| At my company (which I feel more comfortable not disclosing),
| the scale looks like this:
|
| senior engineer == engineering manager.
|
| staff engineer == senior engineering manager.
|
| senior staff engineer == director / VP
|
| This is in terms of scope, responsibility, salary, whom you
| report to and on which level... everything.
| ddmichael wrote:
| I think this makes a lot of sense.
| the-smug-one wrote:
| >not dinosaurs like Oracle
|
| I doubt Mark Reinhold, Brian Goetz or John Rose are
| undervalued at Oracle because of them not being managers.
| murderberry wrote:
| Yes and no. It's a common trope at many tech companies that
| these are two completely separate tracks, with no special
| upside to either.
|
| But then, here's the reality: any large company will have a new
| for an army of directors and VPs, compared to only a handful of
| ultra-senior, visionary engineers. Take Google and compare the
| ratio of Jeff Dean-type folks to senior managerial staff
| collecting similar paychecks.
|
| So yeah, if your goal is to retire early without depending too
| much on luck or on being exceptional, management is your career
| growth path. For better or worse.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| Changing and growing aren't mutually exclusive.
|
| While you can absolutely be a manager without extensive IC
| experience, most people will benefit greatly from having deep
| IC experience before becoming a manager.
| benreesman wrote:
| Agreed. I've done both, and while a good Engineering Manager
| has to be a good engineer (how is one supposed to supervise
| something they don't understand), mastering one skill set more
| or adding a second one isn't more or less "growth".
| draw_down wrote:
| [dead]
| greesil wrote:
| It's a different set of tasks and skulls but having a
| background in the relevant domain is in my opinion required.
| Working in ML, having a manager that doesn't understand
| statistical significance, or even key metrics like precision
| and recall is a recipe for unhappy employees and bad decisions.
| GreedClarifies wrote:
| I think that this has been somewhat nullified by the changes
| over the last few years where managers are supposed to be
| people managers exclusively, while high level ICs supposed to
| create direction and evaluate technical merit.
|
| It is a difficult balance.
| arnvald wrote:
| > Not even in salary in many places
|
| What needs to die is this trope. Few places cut salaries when
| people move to EM role. This might be true for some big tech
| companies, but even then it's only in the beginning. If you
| look at companies that have unified levels for SDEs and EMs
| (Google, Amazon), you can see that on the same level EMs have
| slightly higher TC.
|
| Not to mention that there's a whole world outside of big tech
| where moving to management is considered a promotion (and often
| the only way to grow, because dual career ladder is not
| implemented everywhere). The cases where EMs make more than
| SDEs are really way more common than the reverse situation.
| vpastore wrote:
| [dead]
| irrational wrote:
| I think of it as horizontal vs vertical. An IC grows
| horizontally over their career as they learn new technical
| things. A manager grows vertically as they move up the chain
| and are managing more and more people.
| SergeAx wrote:
| When I gradually became a manager, I continued to be better at
| building things, not only with my hands, but also by aligning
| and enabling other engineers and entire teams. So in a grand
| scheme of things it is the same way, with greater impact and
| responsibility.
| ravenstine wrote:
| I just don't like how often it's implied that management is the
| inevitable next rung on the ladder after staff or lead
| engineer. As if I'm not ambitious enough because I just want to
| be a good engineer. Employers sometimes dangle the management
| carrot in front of me, and some people have been outright
| confused when I tell them I don't covet a management role.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I think it is _growth_ or at least growth opportunity.
|
| Acquiring incremental engineering skills is great and we should
| all do it. But let's admit that it's just that - incremental.
| You go from being a good engineer to slightly better engineer-
| something you already are.
|
| When you pivot to management or something else that's more
| different to you - you are taking on a bigger challenge and
| there's no guarantee of success. In order to succeed you need
| to hone a whole different set of skills - and if you manage to
| do that, you will certainly have _grown_ in a real way.
|
| I totally get the sentiment that going into management isn't
| the only way to advance a career and I agree. I am just saying
| that those who take that path indeed open themselves up to a
| challenge and evolution.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| You are taking on a _different_ challenge, not a bigger
| challenge. Almost all of your comment could equally describe
| going from being an engineer to being a dog walker, or a sous
| chef, or a roofer. Entirely different, and in your new career
| your prior skills will rapidly atrophy and become marginal.
|
| In my closing on 30-year career in this industry, "managers"
| have been the least important part of any team, and had the
| least impact on success or failure. I'm not anti-manager at
| all (although I have spent my entire career trying to stop
| people who think they are rewarding me or giving me a
| promotion by giving me more "manager" duties. I have zero
| interest in deciding compensation or going to more meetings),
| it just truly is a position that is the closest to fungible.
| Everyone fear mongers about AI replacing engineers, but in
| the real world it could far more easily replace manager level
| resources.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| > "managers" have been the least important part of any
| team, and had the least impact on success or failure
|
| I'd disagree...I think it can be difficult to see what the
| manager brings in when a team is good and runs well enough.
| It's a lot more obvious when you get a bad manager: the
| team stagnates, loses focus, valuable members will quit
| (there's the saying "employees don't quit their jobs, they
| quit their bosses"), recruiting also becomes harder.
|
| There's too much to discuss in one comment, but managers
| that don't seem to be doing much while the team members are
| killing it are a precious breed and worth their weight in
| gold. An alternative way to look at it: they don't need to
| brag about being important, and have at least enough grasp
| of what their team does to not be standing in the way.
| ptr wrote:
| Great teams self-manage. Managers and management
| generally exist to ensure a baseline, but they can't
| really do much more. In a strong team, everyone displays
| leadership properties, and they typically don't listen to
| non-technical management.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Great teams manage their productiviry themselves, but
| don't work in a vacuum. Whether their output is properly
| evaluated and rewarded entirely depends on their manager.
|
| If they increased their product KPI by 150% but their
| manager had the goal at 200%, your team's suddenly
| underperforming. If they need 2 more engineers to fill
| specific spots, the manager will be the one pitching it
| to HR and convincing upper management to green light the
| expense. Same for the team budget in general, same for
| company-wise deadlines, resource allocations, what growth
| opportunity the memebers get. And so on, and so on.
|
| There's a myriad of super critical things that members
| take for granted but go through their mamager and get
| screwed when the manager is bad at its job.
| YZF wrote:
| Those teams seem pretty rare though. It also requires an
| org that lets the team not listen. Also what exactly is
| non-technical management? In most tech companies most
| managers are with a technical background. The problem is
| that they naturally drift further away from technology
| when not practicing it.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| I'm with you here.
|
| I spent ten years in my 20s grinding to become great at
| engineering. I don't regret it at all. And then when I did
| get those skills, many people in my life around me didn't
| give a fuck, because I was leaving money on the table by
| not chasing status and management promotions.
|
| It's allowed me to get to a really good position at an
| advanced R&D company.
|
| But I still hear the acclaim afforded to those who continue
| to ascend the ladder, and it stings a bit.
|
| I suppose that is just people needing to believe in those
| things, and I should let it go.
|
| It's complicated.
| igiveup wrote:
| You could say the same about a manager becoming an engineer
| fatfingerd wrote:
| Isn't that a growth removal?
| xyzelement wrote:
| No. If I somehow start as someone who can "only" be a
| manager (say, mba route) and then learn engineering, I've
| stretched my capacity more than double.
|
| Because I am not then gonna go down to a junior eng role,
| but I may flex into eng when it makes sense.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I am the person you are replying to and I totally agree.
| newswasboring wrote:
| I don't get this comment. I guess because I think we are not
| aligned on what a manager is or maybe our engineering styles
| are very different. For me a manager is someone who leads
| through influence, in engineering managers lead towards an
| engineering solution. To me it just feels like a different way
| to solve the same class of problems, just bigger. I absolutely
| feel like I am doing engineer, the difference being solving
| bigger problems and a lot fewer problems are being directly
| solved by me. How do you see a management position?
| nudgeee wrote:
| IMHO engineers should also (and should be expected to) lead
| through influence. In my mind, as engineers grow they should
| be expected to tackle problems and influence solutions of
| increased scope, complexity and ambiguity.
|
| Junior engineers should be able to drive smaller, well scoped
| projects.
|
| Senior+ engineers should be expected to tackle complex,
| cross-org, ill-defined technical challenges, examples include
| technical mergers of company acquisitions, large scale
| migrations of business critical systems, technical design of
| big bets (also analysis on which big bets to take), evaluate
| new technologies/platforms, dev tooling to multiply
| productivity, etc
|
| A lot of this requires buy-in and stakeholder management to
| succeed.
| [deleted]
| newswasboring wrote:
| Right, and in my company that is a manager. An engineer who
| is good at leading through influence. I am confused as to
| what other kind of management there is. I guess there is
| people management, hiring and firing kind of things, but I
| think that is not what we are talking about on HN.
| nudgeee wrote:
| Things off the top of my head:
|
| - Alignment / priority management / keeping team focused
|
| - Saying yes/no to projects
|
| - Medium term planning, resource balancing
|
| - Helping to set team vision and mission
|
| - Reporting to upper management (up)
|
| - Keep up to date and abreast with what's happening in
| the org, filtering info to the team (down)
|
| - People management (career, performance,
| strengths/weaknesses etc)
|
| - Spotting and creating opportunities for the team
|
| - Often acting as a tie breaker for decisions (including
| technical)
|
| - Often involved in steering technical design and
| solutions
|
| - Help keep the team productive and happy
|
| - Probably a ton more I'm forgetting
|
| Tons of finesse and strong communication skills required
| for this as well as strong technical experience.
|
| And then there's project management which I haven't
| touched on -- either can be done directly by engineers
| (personally I enjoy it, some don't which is fine),
| engineering managers or dedicated technical
| project/program managers.
| newswasboring wrote:
| The difference from project management I understand, but
| a lot of what you described regarding keeping the
| progress going seems to be a SCRUM master's job. Would
| you say that is also management? Its all a bit fuzzy to
| me, because for example these are still engineering tasks
| for me:
|
| >- Saying yes/no to projects
|
| >- Medium term planning, resource balancing
|
| >- Helping to set team vision and mission
|
| >- Keep up to date and abreast with what's happening in
| the org, filtering info to the team (down)
|
| >- Often acting as a tie breaker for decisions (including
| technical)
|
| >- Often involved in steering technical design and
| solutions
|
| I think it should be done by senior engineers organically
| as engineering is a social activity. No one person can
| achieve greatness and to me an engineer becomes a senior
| engineer not by being a brilliant coder (for example) but
| by understanding that the job is to solve problems.
| nudgeee wrote:
| > The difference from project management I understand,
| but a lot of what you described regarding keeping the
| progress going seems to be a SCRUM master's job. Would
| you say that is also management?
|
| These are my rough notes on project management (from an
| engineer's lens):
|
| https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XFdBUfi3MvQuh9NTFBJMQ
| FA0...
|
| Lots of blanks to fill still, but I am a proponent of
| engineers owning their own project management.
|
| > I think it should be done by senior engineers
| organically as engineering is a social activity. No one
| person can achieve greatness and to me an engineer
| becomes a senior engineer not by being a brilliant coder
| (for example) but by understanding that the job is to
| solve problems.
|
| 100% agree, lots of overlap between responsibilities and
| often a good thing! Roles from all parts of the org
| coming together to solve problems is the ideal situation.
|
| My first approximation is that engineering managers are
| responsible for the team health, whereas engineers are
| responsible for project health, or at least raising
| issues when things aren't so healthy.
| treprinum wrote:
| > An engineer who is good at leading through influence.
|
| That's rare. In most companies managers aren't engineers,
| don't understand the craft and are picked by their
| buddies. They also have completely different incentives
| which allows them to throw engineers who spent ages to
| master the craft under the bus without any
| regards/regrets.
| newswasboring wrote:
| My hot take on this is craft is not the most important
| thing in engineering. Especially if you are making
| anything remotely significant in size. As soon as more
| than one person is involved in the work, ability to
| actually collaborate becomes more important than how
| brilliant each individual contributor is. The myth of
| genius asshole is my biggest pet peeve, if you are an
| asshole on purpose (like because you dont care how the
| other person feels) your genius is not useful and doesn't
| belong in any decently sized organization.
| treprinum wrote:
| The point of my comment was that in most companies the
| managers are the jerks, not engineers. As a VP I had to
| shield individual developers from some insane managers
| that got kicks from the tiny power they had.
| fjiowf wrote:
| Overall I agree, but it's important to realize how easily
| the impact metrics are gamed. Sometimes the hard parts are
| in the technical details of programming a specific problem,
| and doing large scale cross-org collaboration is far more
| well defined. Or even worse, cross-org collab can just be
| pure noise by people with no technical understanding
| defining goals and projects and promoting each other.
|
| So much damage is done by the wrong people being constantly
| rewarded and promoted for creating noise by "leading" large
| pointless projects instead of doing the real work.
| Sometimes I've seen the new hire engineer solving the
| critical issues like problems in a data pipeline by
| collaborating across teams is actually having more impact
| that any of the senior engineers or management bsers.
| JaumeGreen wrote:
| It may depend on the company.
|
| On some it might be an architect level engineer who also
| manages the team. In others it'll be nothing more than a
| middle manager that only will see code on their spare time.
| And it can be everything in between.
|
| So depending on the kind of move it will not have anything to
| do with engineering and everything to do with managing. And
| that's HARD. Changing your whole set of skills for another
| overnight it's not pleasant.
| newswasboring wrote:
| I am beginning to think all the management posts are
| bullshit to some degree. Management is nor an easily
| definable skillset, and neither is it a well-defined role.
| stavros wrote:
| As others here have said, you don't grow from engineer to
| manager, you grow from engineer to lead engineer, or architect,
| or another similarly technical role.
|
| I was recently promoted from Principal Engineer to Director of
| Technology in $JOB, and the difference has been striking, mostly
| in the ability to influence things so we can build the right
| technology before we start. That feels like a much more natural
| step for an engineer than throwing away their entire skillset and
| moving them to a position that requires an entirely different
| one.
|
| If you want to grow your engineers, give them more (and higher-
| level, higher-impact technical stuff to do. If they want to
| become managers, great, but there's not as much overlap between
| engineering and engineering management as most people seem to
| think.
|
| A coworker and friend is both an engineer and a manager, and he
| happens to be great at both of those. Instead of losing one of
| the skillsets, he has a role where he both manages his team and
| sets the technical direction for them. This means he manages a
| much smaller team than he would otherwise, but he loves doing
| both, so this a natural fit for him.
|
| All this is to say, build your roles according to your people,
| don't shoehorn them into labels that other companies have told
| you is "how to do things".
| Aeolun wrote:
| Are you trying to say the Director of Technology is not a
| management role? Because that doesn't align with what I've
| seen.
| stavros wrote:
| I'm trying to say _my_ Director of Technology role isn 't a
| management role (our Director of Engineering is). I'm
| responsible for the technologies that we use, develop,
| maintain, etc, but not the people or teams that do it, and it
| works very well for us.
| dudul wrote:
| Director of technology is usually not. There is no direct
| reports. What I've seen is this role existing alongside a
| director of engineering role which does deal with management.
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| Management is where engineers stop growing. Managers aren't
| regularly cultivating new skills as engineers are.
| arnvald wrote:
| I think there's a difference in how visible these skills are.
|
| As an engineer it's easy to practice many new skills and also
| to see improvement. I might be interested in orchestration, I
| pick up Kubernetes course. I want to build iOS app, I start
| learning Swift. After a month or two I can see a difference in
| my skills. Others can see it too - I contributed to iOS app at
| work which I haven't done before, it's a new skill I learned.
|
| As a manager, I need to be better at negotiating with
| stakeholders, or recognizing underperformance, or interviewing
| candidates. I can read books, take courses, but I can only see
| my improvement over longer period of time. What's more, most of
| people around me won't see that I'm a better interviewer now,
| or that I'm better at helping to improve individual
| performance. It doesn't mean I stopped growing, it doesn't mean
| I don't cultivate new skills. They're just different skills.
| refurb wrote:
| I don't understand this view point that is so common on HN. I
| can only assume that most engineers on here are quite junior.
|
| Of course you grow as a manager. But you're right you're not
| growing as a technical expert - that's not the goal of
| managing. Managing becomes more about the business and less
| about the technical details.
|
| It's a very different job and an important one if you know
| anything about running a larger company. The technical work you
| do as a IC is one part of _many_ that drives the business
| forward.
| say_it_as_it_is wrote:
| Management doesn't drive a business forward. Leadership does.
| Managers are not leaders but some leaders are managers.
| cosmiccatnap wrote:
| I don't see managers who grow and the reason is because they
| often weren't growing as engineers...
|
| The most common reason I see people become managers is because
| they weren't cut out for engineering work or it burnt them out
| over time. Many couldn't keep up with the ocean of new
| technologies and philosophies software has gained in the last few
| decades and so they are relegated to being a machine that checks
| email for twice a starting engineers salary.
|
| Some managers really have done so to steward a company or team
| through a problem but so many more of them just want to "check
| out" essentially and in just a few short years loose most of the
| engineering context value they had and become some degree of
| roadblock to progress because sadly they want their cake and they
| want to engineer it too...they often create tasks and
| conversations they don't make sense or deliverables that are
| missing the point because they are no longer engineers no matter
| how badly they still want to identify as one after leaving a
| organic growing codebase.
|
| I get it they have families and they are getting older and the
| kids coming out of college are honestly intimidating sometimes
| but that's a problem with the absolute lack of upward mobility
| within engineering and they unhealthy standards of modern
| corporate culture.
|
| It's sad really. Very intelligent opinionated people slowly go
| from talking about solutions in concrete terms to a mix of
| language about deliverables, burn charts, agile, circling wagons,
| getting on the same page, and determining a funnel for Q4 while
| the software they are talking about has no unit tests and they
| themselves have determined that it's not part of the MVP...
|
| If they could go back 10 years and hear themselves I wonder what
| they would think of the people they've become...
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Good timing: I have a post all ready for tonight on things a
| first-level manager can learn from a famous jazz leader, Art
| Blakey.
|
| I'm not going to say it's _better_ than this, but let 's just say
| it's _different_.
| treprinum wrote:
| Can't wait for "how to automate away engineering manager"
| articles in a few years.
| taway1874 wrote:
| You can't wait to report to a bot?
| snowman647 wrote:
| I'm building a game about engineering management at FAANG that
| shows the spectrum of managerial role. Might be good to stop
| reading about managers but try it out, not sure everyone has
| opportunity to try it at work -
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/2436030?utm_campaign=hn1
| KnobbleMcKnees wrote:
| This is a fun idea. When do you expect to release?
| gillesjacobs wrote:
| Got the advice from several senior architects / managers to never
| "grow" to manager of you deeply enjoy engineering. The skills for
| management and engineering are orthogonal it seems.
| osigurdson wrote:
| The problem with management roles today is they are watered down
| to the point of being basically pointless. Product people
| determine the shape of things and priorities. Tech leads
| determine how things should be done.
|
| The manager is supposed to shepherd career growth and decide how
| much people should get paid. In my view this is a really part
| time job at best.
|
| I think we need to go back to coupling more of these roles
| together, similar to what would happen in a startup. A strong
| leader should be able to fill product, tech lead and management
| roles.
| qprofyeh wrote:
| Like a team ceo. I strongly believe this person should be
| responsible for a teams success or failure. Grant this person
| the right to hire/fire members of various disciplines. Tell
| this person to chase certain revenue numbers or another
| mission. Give this person the bonus money/product dividends to
| share with the team. I believe all this will drive this person
| to really build a team, instead of just managing it.
|
| But demote them to smaller projects when they fail to deliver.
| And allow team members to apply to work for a different team if
| they trust the team ceo there more. Like an internal startup
| environment but teams. This is how I would try relentlessly to
| structure my company.
| jen20 wrote:
| This should only be the case if the _team_ can fire a failing
| manager.
| jahewson wrote:
| The problem is that it's 10x harder to find someone who's good
| at two things vs two people who are good at one thing.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| You don't "grow" into a manager, you just delegate problems to
| other people. The manager is a meta problem solver, the
| individual contributor are the real problem solvers.
|
| Understanding the meta problem is not the same as understanding
| the problem and vice-versa.
|
| Michael Jordan's supervisor is not Michael Jordan. They're people
| with valuable, non trivial skills that take time and effort to
| cultivate, but people don't buy tickets to go see a manager, just
| like customers don't buy manager deliverables, they buy
| individual contributor deliverables.
|
| The customer doesn't buy issue tracker tickets, or speeches, or
| gantt charts, or burndown charts, or diagrams, or whatever
| manager deliverable of your choosing. They buy working software
| that is stable, performant and that has an ergonomic and polished
| interface. The manager's job is to facilitate an environment
| where that can happen. They are not the neurons of the team,
| they're more like the glia of the team.
|
| That is, if you build a team consisting solely of managers and
| ask them to solve a problem, and designate one of them as the
| manager, they won't be an effective team. Did they really "grow"?
| Or they pursued a different track?
| taway1874 wrote:
| MJ was a great player but there is no way the Bulls would've
| won all those championships without his team mates (who
| themselves were of great caliber). It takes a great coach to
| harness talent and manage it in a team.
|
| Software engineering is a team sport in that same regard. If
| we're lucky we have a MJ on the team but still needs to be
| managed for their own (and the team's) good.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| More often than not I've seen engineers moving to manager roles
| because they weren't great at engineering.
| revskill wrote:
| We don't need manager at all. An automation tooling with AI can
| do that job better than any human.
|
| We need real engineer.
| smcleod wrote:
| That use of "growing" seems... backwards.
|
| I usually see managers as being far less competent (in general)
| or valuable than engineers and leaders.
| taway1874 wrote:
| Classic example of "you don't know what you don't know" :-)
|
| Maybe get a job as a manager, manage a few software engineers
| for a couple years and then see if your original (bold)
| statement holds true.
| smcleod wrote:
| Effective teams don't "manage" people.
| Euphorbium wrote:
| *Regressing
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| As someone who has done both, they're very different skill sets.
| You do NOT grow from one to the other.
|
| Just stop this nonsense.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| One should be very wary of any blanket assumptions of management
| roles implying any kind of more seniority than engineering roles.
| They are different activities, different jobs. That's it. Not
| every engineer must be made a manager at some point to grow. An
| engineer can grow in engineering, becoming more specialist in
| various areas. I wish people stopped to conflate these things.
|
| I know engineering manager can be loads of work. I wouldn't want
| to do the job my engineering manager is currently doing. I would
| probably die of boredom in meetings or completely fail, as my
| brain shuts off during the meetings or something. I want to build
| things. With code. That does not make me any less of a senior.
| fweimer wrote:
| Some companies just don't have a full career track outside of
| people management. It's not really a matter of company size or
| age. I suspect most developers are okay with stunted career
| tracks for office management, system administration, or
| customer support. In some companies (including organizations
| that view themselves as software companies), the same attitude
| simply extends to software development as well.
|
| I wish these different organizational choices would be more
| widely known. My current employer nowadays has these non-
| management career tracks, but I'm not sure if we communicate
| them clearly as one of the reasons to join the company.
| didgeoridoo wrote:
| In my experience, IC tracks in general tend to cap out based
| on the complexity and value of the skillset/domain to the
| business.
|
| A major accounting firm may have some senior engineers,
| marketers, etc. but since their work isn't "core" to the
| business, the top tiers of the technology and marketing
| tracks will tend to be exclusively management roles --
| whereas accountants will be allowed to... account... up to a
| much higher seniority level before they get forced into
| management.
| mouzogu wrote:
| Interested in moving from Engineer to Manager because I hope to
| do less work. Happy to do a few meetings, send a few emails,
| rather than actually having to build stuff that i don't care
| about.
|
| It's even better if as you say the success is determined by the
| team, because then also the failure can be pushed on the team.
|
| Edit: FWIW not that I want to be a bad manager. The environment
| is what shapes your incentives and behaviours.
| sideway wrote:
| That's an extremely myopic and immature view of what management
| is. You have probably only worked with incompetent managers and
| your experiences reduce a role that can be both stressful and
| complex to nothingness.
| unicornmama wrote:
| Ironically, competent managers also make it look easy.
| Because they must understand that their mood, behavior and
| what they say can really impact the morale of their reports
| and their relationships in the organization, many display a
| calm and professional demeanor. To the untrained, this
| outward apperance obscures the fact that they work very hard
| to position their team for success; and navigate, mitigate or
| repel shitstorms.
| ralphstodomingo wrote:
| Exactly, what merit is there to putting a manager that pushes
| failure onto the team? Might as well have the team itself
| report to senior management if one is too eager to get out of
| the way.
| moffkalast wrote:
| In a similar boat and have tried this recently, but I can't say
| it worked. The only real solution seems to be to go elsewhere.
|
| There is something supremely disgusting in being forced to work
| on projects ("hey client X needs this Y thing done asap") that
| you don't care about, know they have a close to zero chance of
| working to an acceptable degree and also know you'll be blamed
| for their failure. Over and over and over.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| I've done both and I can assure you that management is not less
| work.
|
| In fact, you are more likely to work longer hours, and attend
| meetings at stupid times because that's the only slot you can
| get the more senior managers to meet at.
|
| However, you sound disillusioned with your work, and maybe you
| do need to transition into something else. A new challenge can
| revitalise you, and it doesn't have to be forever.
|
| I've met plenty of engineers who seem to believe that everyone
| else's non technical role is easy. Keep an open mind, and don't
| approach new opportunities with a negative attitude, or you
| will probably remain discontented.
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| > I've met plenty of engineers who seem to believe that
| everyone else's non technical role is easy.
|
| In my experience it's like that (I'm talking about engineers
| vs eng. managers). Another significant difference is the
| amount of work, I believe: as an engineer I work 4h/day but
| those 4h are "hard" hours (fully focused) and my brain ends
| up a bit exhausted after. But that's all I do in the day for
| work. On the other hand, eng. managers do more lightweight
| work, but work longer hours.
|
| I have to say that in my experience, what my eng. managers
| were doing all day was: 1:1s, meetings with other managers to
| decide how to shift around people, interviews, being present
| at some sprint plannings without saying much, being present
| at some daily meetings without saying much.
| bpicolo wrote:
| Meetings over video conference are as mentally exhausting
| as coding, honestly. Especially if you actually pay
| attention
| Aeolun wrote:
| People always say that managers work more hours, but I feel
| like it'd be quite possible to do the job in the time I
| spend doing my work now. We don't think it's normal if
| programmers work extra hours to get their work done. Why
| should we for managers?
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| Quite right! In my experience, it is a combination of
| people who are ambitious to climb the hierarchy, the
| difficulty of scheduling meetings when people are
| actually available, and just quite a lot of fire
| fighting, where urgent issues have to be resolved
| quickly.
|
| Obviously, it depends on the organisation you work at.
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| I think the problem is that eng. managers have not much
| control regarding how many meetings they have (and at
| what time they are scheduled). Being meetings the big
| chunk if their day to day work, that restricts the amount
| of freedom eng. managers usually have.
|
| For engineers it's different: we have complete control
| regarding when to work, and we don't have as many
| meetings as eng. managers have. So there's more freedom
| in my opinion.
|
| I think it's not very realistic for a manager to say:
| I'll work extra today so tomorrow I'll work only 1h
| (because you probably have meetings to attend that you
| cannot postpone). As engineer, I work whenever I want and
| rest whenever I need it (as long as I meet deadlines and
| the like)
| Aeolun wrote:
| Nah, but this 'meetings to attend that you cannot
| postpone' is almost always bullshit. I see a lot of
| managers in meetings where their presence is more
| hindrance than help. If they drop those they suddenly
| have 50% of their day free.
|
| Of course I won't actually know until I am one myself,
| but it certainly feels doable if I'm willing to sort of
| trust my team.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| It's not typically the meetings with the team that are
| the ones you cannot postpone. It's the ones with key
| people from the business, senior managers, partners,
| vendors...
|
| If you do become one and find you can control your
| schedule, please write it up and share!
| moffkalast wrote:
| > In fact, you are more likely to work longer hours, and
| attend meetings at stupid times because that's the only slot
| you can get the more senior managers to meet at.
|
| Unless you work with someone internationally and the only
| time both teams are awake is at ungodly hours for both, so
| you never get any meetings at normal times.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| Yep, like my current place split between US and UK. US
| people have to get up early and we end up working late.
| mouzogu wrote:
| > I've met plenty of engineers who seem to believe that
| everyone else's non technical role is easy.
|
| Not easy. But it's the difference between being the one who
| is approving and the one who is doing the work.
|
| The one who has some autonomy and the one who doesn't. The
| one who is valued and the one who isn't.
|
| Having to attend OOH meeting is less stress for me, then
| having to build something OOH and make it work. One requires
| communication, politics, the other one actual tangible
| deliverables.
|
| > you sound disillusioned with your work
|
| yes, you're right.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| Many years ago I did some great courses on team building
| and management. Also some negotiation skills and
| assertiveness training. They were really useful to me.
| Maybe that is something which might help you move into a
| role with more autonomy.
| mouzogu wrote:
| thanks, i will look into it
| photonbeam wrote:
| Being glue, like building internal tools and processes,
| often has a lot of autonomy compared to working on a
| product
| sokoloff wrote:
| That's what's difficult about leadership: success and
| observable, effusive credit flows down the org chart through
| the manager to the team. Failure is intercepted and sticks more
| with the leader.
|
| Neither is 100%, but if you try to push failure 100% onto the
| team, you're going to have a really bad time personally and be
| rightly reviled as a weak leader by your team, your peers, and
| your senior leaders.
| mouzogu wrote:
| > effusive credit flows down the org chart through the
| manager to the team
|
| not in my experience tbh.
|
| i worked 16 years as an Engineer across 6 orgs including
| Fang. What I saw is that the closer you are to management the
| more valued and rewarded you are.
|
| Simply because you are doing the management's dirty work
| (your influence is direct) and you have more insight into
| finances, so it's more difficult for them to underpay you.
|
| Credit very rarely flows down and when it does, in very
| generalistic way "thanks to X and Y and also _the team_ for
| their efforts ".
| djohnston wrote:
| I transitioned to EM and I assure you it's a lot more work. If
| you don't want to fight with your company's trash IDE, then
| maybe. But if you think you'll have less on your plate as an EM
| then either
|
| 1. You're wrong and you'll find yourself working more 2. You're
| right and you are screwing over your team.
| taway1874 wrote:
| Ha! Love the honesty.
|
| You must have some very good managers who make their work seem
| effortless. Perhaps get them to be a mentor when you make the
| shift so when reality strikes you won't have to deal with it by
| yourself.
| stcroixx wrote:
| Not how it works. You now are responsible for making other
| people complete work you don't care about. If they fail, you
| also fail. Way more risk, way less control over the outcome.
| Plus your tech skills atrophy the whole time, making you less
| valuable outside your org leading to a kind of employer lock
| in.
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| In my experience engineers have more "free time" than eng.
| managers. As a senior engineer I have not many meetings per
| week, and the tasks I need to accomplish I can arrange time for
| them the best way that fits me. So, on Monday I could work
| fully focused, let's say, 4h, and call it a day. On Tuesday
| spend 2h in meetings and another 2h to do PR reviewing... I
| have almost absolute control over my day, and that feeling is
| great.
|
| On the other hand, even though eng. managers mostly do
| meetings, their calendars are usually packed with them. Even
| worse, they may have one meeting at 8am, another at 12, and
| another at 4pm... that kills your day completely since you have
| to stay available during the whole day. Definitely something I
| would hate.
| taneq wrote:
| Meetings filled with endless bike shedding about
| trivialities, bickering about specs, push and shove over
| changes in scope and delivery dates... and then every waking
| moment outside of those meetings, you're either following up
| the above from previous meetings or scheduling new ones. Not
| a fun time.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| The flip side is if it's "crunch time" it's not the manager
| that needs to work 12 hours or weekends to get something
| shipped.
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| Maybe it's just that I'm no longer in my 20s (or that I
| have only worked for european companies) but I do not work
| extra hours. If the project is going to "fail" because we
| are not willing to do crunch time (spoiler: the project is
| not going to fail because of that) then let it be.
| Mismanagement of time is on managers not on engineers. I
| can help sure in a punctual situation, but I've never done
| it so far.
| AQuantized wrote:
| That should never happen at any 'good' company imo, and I
| haven't personally experienced it.
| kubb wrote:
| Same here, I just need to work on my sophistry skills, and
| learn to make loyal friends in the right places.
| roenxi wrote:
| Success and failure are determined by the team. You as a
| manager would be responsible for the outcome.
|
| The thing being managed is the performance of the team. Bad
| performance == Bad management.
| jsonking wrote:
| Test
| igiveup wrote:
| Fail
| vpastore wrote:
| [dead]
| rmrfchik wrote:
| It's downshifting from Engineer to manager.
| taway1874 wrote:
| You also downshift gear(s) in an automobile to go faster :-)
| melvinmelih wrote:
| I always like to think of EMs as engineers who rely on other
| people to write code, instead of writing code directly
| themselves. As anyone who has played a game of telephone can
| attest, writing code through people is a lot harder than writing
| it yourself.
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