5 ms·

Progressing from Tech to Leadership

202 points by dsr12 9y ago

everdev 9y ago
When I went from freelance developer to managing a team of 20, I went through many of these challenges, especially of feeling like you're handing off a project that won't be done as well as if you did it yourself. But when you find great people and the project is done as good or better than you could have done it it feels amazing as you're accomplishing more than you ever could have by yourself.
- jdoss 9y ago
  I too have had that uneasy feeling you are talking about. Letting go of total control over how things are being done as I went from just me hacking away, to leading a small team has been interesting. I tell myself (sometimes to my team directly) that we can just redo any choice that we make if it doesn't work out or we will work together to make the choice work. I want them to own problems and decisions. I want to empower them to as best I can. As a result, I have never had to totally redo any technical choice that my team has made. We have had to fix a few things together, and that has only brought us closer.
  - drakonka 9y ago
    I am in the same boat; I'm good at taking responsibility and doing "The Right Thing"(TM) when it comes to my own work. Having to be more directly invested in what other people are or are not doing makes me feel uneasy. I think it's going fine and I don't hate it or anything, it's just that worrying about other people's work isn't really my idea of a dream role.
  - Joeri 9y ago
    I took that approach for a while, but it ended up blowing up in my face one time too many. Now I try to block bad code from landing in the first place by requiring code reviews prior to merging into master. Sometimes a patch is thrown away entirely and usually it takes two or three tries before a patch is ready for merging, but the overall code base quality is higher.
    - afarrell 9y ago
      I think there is a fine but meaninful distinction to be made here: One can (and IMHO should) require code reviews for each change, but not be the person to actually do the code review. If every code review needs to go through you, then you become a bottleneck. This means that you need to trust members of the team to do solid reviews, and you focus on observing the team's processes and debugging problems like: - We don't have clarity on what our conventions look like. - People take too long to review others' code and it blocks the team. - People get interrupted by code reviews too frequently and it keeps them from focusing deeply. - We are missing some piece of build/test infrastructure and it isn't clear to any one person that she should take 3 days to do that longer-term investment work. - We don't have a clear way to onboard newer team members into our frontend toolchain and so it takes them a long time to get productive. - There is a process people are following which is just getting in the way and can be slimmed down or eliminated.
      - Joeri 9y ago
        I agree. I didn’t mean to indicate all code reviews should go through the tech lead. But the tech lead should have a circle of trusted lieutenants who act as gatekeepers. That’s how linus runs the kernel and it seems to work well.
- neltnerb 9y ago
  After practicing a lot, I find one of the greatest satisfactions in life to be the ability to let a project go and know it is good hands.
neduma 9y ago
Great insights. Can anyone point me related HN links related tech to leadership transitioning?
- hrpnk 9y ago
  Here a short write-up on on key lessons after having transitioned to leadership. Gives an overview of the challenges to cope with as a new leader: https://medium.com/@bocytko/management-your-next-career-step-38bd1f9fb742 https://medium.com/@bocytko/management-your-next-career-step...
JimboOmega 9y ago
As is the case every time I see an article like this... I agree with the points - but I want to know how one gets the position, not what to do when you get there. The fact that it's just sort of taken as granted is a frustrating thing for those of us who have wanted, but never been offered, such a position.
- neltnerb 9y ago
  I don't know what you're current level is, but: If you're brand new, offer to mentor a co-op. If you've been there for a while, take an active role in helping the newer people get up to speed. If you're enjoying doing that, tell your boss you'd like to have more opportunities to learn leadership skills.
- artellectual 9y ago
  From my experience you have to exhibit signs of leadership yourself before leadership position finds you. If you are already working in a company and when there is a problem, offer solutions, speak up, communicate your ideas. If your manager doesn’t listen because they think they have a better solution and you disagree speak up, challenge their idea. Being a leader isn’t easy it means sticking your neck out in the name of finding the best solution for the team. It also means when you offer solutions and it’s accepted you will become the go to guy / girl for everyone, that’s how people around you will see you as a leader. You took that risk to stick your neck out for them. You will also then have to learn to work with people learn how to motivate people because now they are coming to you. You can’t just shun them away you have to offer a solution to their problem. If you don’t have an answer empower your people to find a solution. Leadership is an art form in itself, it can be learned, like any other skill. It takes a shift in mindset from being a worker to a leader. Another key thing to remember you don’t have to have the “label” before you become a leader. If you act like one the label will come on its own. I suggest you read / watch “Great Leaders Eat Last” by Simon Sinek. Was an eye opener for me.
  - namelezz 9y ago
    > If your manager doesn’t listen because they think they have a better solution and you disagree speak up, challenge their idea What do you do if they then steal your idea?
secabeen 9y ago
The words I most commonly try to say when a project I have passed off comes back to me are: "I trust your judgment." By explicitly saying them, it reminds me that I employ them to make those judgments, and my role is to step back and let them do it.
- rabidrat 9y ago
  Does that work for code reviews too?
  - mseebach 9y ago
    "Happy to help, are there any of the technical details you specifically need my eyes on? Otherwise, I trust your judgement." Are you being approached because you are the only only around who actually remember working on the Foo Widget and the team wants to make sure they're not breaking something subtle, or are they implicitly coming to you for permission to trespass on your territory? Former situation, you do the code review as a techie (and remember to commend the team for finally getting around to tackling the badness in the Foo Widget), for the latter situation you trust their judgement.
smueller1234 9y ago
I've had the luxury of working for a quickly growing company, which meant that they were always short on managers, so virtually anybody with the interest would get a shot at running a small team. Fast forward a few years and I'm running an organization of about 200 engineers. At least for me, there was a big right-place-right-time component. In my experience, the transition from an individual contributor to an entry level manager is awkward, but not exceedingly hard. If you're a good engineer and work reasonably hard, you can (albeit shouldn't) stay involved in detail in everything happening in the team. To be clear: that's not recommended, it's a trap. On the upside, performance evaluations are still relatively easy. (Maybe awkward to communicate, but at least you will KNOW intuitively how well people are doing and you'll get a trust bonus.) It's when you take the next step that things get much more challenging. You get to coach people and manage indirectly. You can't keep everything in your head that's going on and you have to learn right now to let go enough. The step after that becomes easier again. Strategy gets added to the mix and that's not everyone's cup of tea. There's more representation challenges and more politics. But you get to work with more senior people yourself, so people management gets a lot easier at that stage. In short, every step along the way has unique challenges which keeps things interesting. People don't get boring!
- smueller1234 9y ago
  Addendum since I ran out of time earlier. People tend to ask how they get a shot at managing others regularly here. Somebody else already said that it's highly context dependent. So you may have to change jobs to get a shot. At the very least though, gently make your interest known before you pull the trigger on that. You might be surprised. I think more interesting than the question "how can I?" is "should I?". If your primary motivation is career advancement, then you might find that you're not cut out for the job. (You might also discover that it was your calling all along, of course.) IMNSHO, the best managers tend to be at least a tiny bit reluctant because they recognize the burden of responsibility for others. They realize it's not about them, but everyone else. Without their team, they are nothing, but without them, their team might still be okay. Their impact is that of a force multiplier, and they'll rarely get to go home thinking "that was a mighty brutal bug I singlehandedly fixed today" or something similarly directly gratifying. They accept that sometimes doing the right thing by someone does not involve bring their best friend and do the job anyway. They are constantly in a tension between representing their employees' interests to the company as well as the company's matters to their employees. They accept that there's no more black and white in their professional life ever, and that it's compromises all the way down. (Except for some matters of ethics, eg. sexism, where there must not be compromises.) But above all, they have to care. About what the company does, about how it does it, and about the people that make up the company. They will find a way to be themselves within that envelope. People will know that they care and repay in trust and commitment. I've had a lot more success with growing managers by looking for people with the right attitude and convincing people to try than with people why stick out mostly due to eagerness. Edit: spelling.
HellDunkel 9y ago
There is a big difference between management and leadership. Are we really talking leadership here or is this about climbing the company ladder?
rybosome 9y ago
I wonder how much the author considers this applicable to lower levels of management, such as team leads? I’m transitioning into a TL role currently, and the “giving up control” aspect is the one which is the least clear to me. A TL is more responsible for technical details around project execution than a manager, so more control is required...but certainly less than working individually. Finding where to draw the line, particularly given that different people working with me have different levels of desire and readiness for autonomy, is challenging. Even as a TL, the realization that my mistakes can negatively impact my peers is daunting. I have a lot more respect for the pressure that further leadership brings.

202 points by dsr12 9y ago

When I went from freelance developer to managing a team of 20, I went through many of these challenges, especially of feeling like you're handing off a project that won't be done as well as if you did it yourself. But when you find great people and the project is done as good or better than you could have done it it feels amazing as you're accomplishing more than you ever could have by yourself.

jdoss 9y ago
I too have had that uneasy feeling you are talking about. Letting go of total control over how things are being done as I went from just me hacking away, to leading a small team has been interesting. I tell myself (sometimes to my team directly) that we can just redo any choice that we make if it doesn't work out or we will work together to make the choice work. I want them to own problems and decisions. I want to empower them to as best I can. As a result, I have never had to totally redo any technical choice that my team has made. We have had to fix a few things together, and that has only brought us closer.
- drakonka 9y ago
  I am in the same boat; I'm good at taking responsibility and doing "The Right Thing"(TM) when it comes to my own work. Having to be more directly invested in what other people are or are not doing makes me feel uneasy. I think it's going fine and I don't hate it or anything, it's just that worrying about other people's work isn't really my idea of a dream role.
- Joeri 9y ago
  I took that approach for a while, but it ended up blowing up in my face one time too many. Now I try to block bad code from landing in the first place by requiring code reviews prior to merging into master. Sometimes a patch is thrown away entirely and usually it takes two or three tries before a patch is ready for merging, but the overall code base quality is higher.
  - afarrell 9y ago
    I think there is a fine but meaninful distinction to be made here: One can (and IMHO should) require code reviews for each change, but not be the person to actually do the code review. If every code review needs to go through you, then you become a bottleneck. This means that you need to trust members of the team to do solid reviews, and you focus on observing the team's processes and debugging problems like: - We don't have clarity on what our conventions look like. - People take too long to review others' code and it blocks the team. - People get interrupted by code reviews too frequently and it keeps them from focusing deeply. - We are missing some piece of build/test infrastructure and it isn't clear to any one person that she should take 3 days to do that longer-term investment work. - We don't have a clear way to onboard newer team members into our frontend toolchain and so it takes them a long time to get productive. - There is a process people are following which is just getting in the way and can be slimmed down or eliminated.
    - Joeri 9y ago
      I agree. I didn’t mean to indicate all code reviews should go through the tech lead. But the tech lead should have a circle of trusted lieutenants who act as gatekeepers. That’s how linus runs the kernel and it seems to work well.
neltnerb 9y ago
After practicing a lot, I find one of the greatest satisfactions in life to be the ability to let a project go and know it is good hands.

neduma 9y ago

Great insights. Can anyone point me related HN links related tech to leadership transitioning?

hrpnk 9y ago
Here a short write-up on on key lessons after having transitioned to leadership. Gives an overview of the challenges to cope with as a new leader: https://medium.com/@bocytko/management-your-next-career-step-38bd1f9fb742 https://medium.com/@bocytko/management-your-next-career-step...

JimboOmega 9y ago

As is the case every time I see an article like this... I agree with the points - but I want to know how one gets the position, not what to do when you get there. The fact that it's just sort of taken as granted is a frustrating thing for those of us who have wanted, but never been offered, such a position.

neltnerb 9y ago
I don't know what you're current level is, but: If you're brand new, offer to mentor a co-op. If you've been there for a while, take an active role in helping the newer people get up to speed. If you're enjoying doing that, tell your boss you'd like to have more opportunities to learn leadership skills.
artellectual 9y ago
From my experience you have to exhibit signs of leadership yourself before leadership position finds you. If you are already working in a company and when there is a problem, offer solutions, speak up, communicate your ideas. If your manager doesn’t listen because they think they have a better solution and you disagree speak up, challenge their idea. Being a leader isn’t easy it means sticking your neck out in the name of finding the best solution for the team. It also means when you offer solutions and it’s accepted you will become the go to guy / girl for everyone, that’s how people around you will see you as a leader. You took that risk to stick your neck out for them. You will also then have to learn to work with people learn how to motivate people because now they are coming to you. You can’t just shun them away you have to offer a solution to their problem. If you don’t have an answer empower your people to find a solution. Leadership is an art form in itself, it can be learned, like any other skill. It takes a shift in mindset from being a worker to a leader. Another key thing to remember you don’t have to have the “label” before you become a leader. If you act like one the label will come on its own. I suggest you read / watch “Great Leaders Eat Last” by Simon Sinek. Was an eye opener for me.
- namelezz 9y ago
  > If your manager doesn’t listen because they think they have a better solution and you disagree speak up, challenge their idea What do you do if they then steal your idea?

secabeen 9y ago

The words I most commonly try to say when a project I have passed off comes back to me are: "I trust your judgment." By explicitly saying them, it reminds me that I employ them to make those judgments, and my role is to step back and let them do it.

rabidrat 9y ago
Does that work for code reviews too?
- mseebach 9y ago
  "Happy to help, are there any of the technical details you specifically need my eyes on? Otherwise, I trust your judgement." Are you being approached because you are the only only around who actually remember working on the Foo Widget and the team wants to make sure they're not breaking something subtle, or are they implicitly coming to you for permission to trespass on your territory? Former situation, you do the code review as a techie (and remember to commend the team for finally getting around to tackling the badness in the Foo Widget), for the latter situation you trust their judgement.

smueller1234 9y ago

I've had the luxury of working for a quickly growing company, which meant that they were always short on managers, so virtually anybody with the interest would get a shot at running a small team. Fast forward a few years and I'm running an organization of about 200 engineers. At least for me, there was a big right-place-right-time component. In my experience, the transition from an individual contributor to an entry level manager is awkward, but not exceedingly hard. If you're a good engineer and work reasonably hard, you can (albeit shouldn't) stay involved in detail in everything happening in the team. To be clear: that's not recommended, it's a trap. On the upside, performance evaluations are still relatively easy. (Maybe awkward to communicate, but at least you will KNOW intuitively how well people are doing and you'll get a trust bonus.) It's when you take the next step that things get much more challenging. You get to coach people and manage indirectly. You can't keep everything in your head that's going on and you have to learn right now to let go enough. The step after that becomes easier again. Strategy gets added to the mix and that's not everyone's cup of tea. There's more representation challenges and more politics. But you get to work with more senior people yourself, so people management gets a lot easier at that stage. In short, every step along the way has unique challenges which keeps things interesting. People don't get boring!

smueller1234 9y ago
Addendum since I ran out of time earlier. People tend to ask how they get a shot at managing others regularly here. Somebody else already said that it's highly context dependent. So you may have to change jobs to get a shot. At the very least though, gently make your interest known before you pull the trigger on that. You might be surprised. I think more interesting than the question "how can I?" is "should I?". If your primary motivation is career advancement, then you might find that you're not cut out for the job. (You might also discover that it was your calling all along, of course.) IMNSHO, the best managers tend to be at least a tiny bit reluctant because they recognize the burden of responsibility for others. They realize it's not about them, but everyone else. Without their team, they are nothing, but without them, their team might still be okay. Their impact is that of a force multiplier, and they'll rarely get to go home thinking "that was a mighty brutal bug I singlehandedly fixed today" or something similarly directly gratifying. They accept that sometimes doing the right thing by someone does not involve bring their best friend and do the job anyway. They are constantly in a tension between representing their employees' interests to the company as well as the company's matters to their employees. They accept that there's no more black and white in their professional life ever, and that it's compromises all the way down. (Except for some matters of ethics, eg. sexism, where there must not be compromises.) But above all, they have to care. About what the company does, about how it does it, and about the people that make up the company. They will find a way to be themselves within that envelope. People will know that they care and repay in trust and commitment. I've had a lot more success with growing managers by looking for people with the right attitude and convincing people to try than with people why stick out mostly due to eagerness. Edit: spelling.

HellDunkel 9y ago

There is a big difference between management and leadership. Are we really talking leadership here or is this about climbing the company ladder?

rybosome 9y ago

I wonder how much the author considers this applicable to lower levels of management, such as team leads? I’m transitioning into a TL role currently, and the “giving up control” aspect is the one which is the least clear to me. A TL is more responsible for technical details around project execution than a manager, so more control is required...but certainly less than working individually. Finding where to draw the line, particularly given that different people working with me have different levels of desire and readiness for autonomy, is challenging. Even as a TL, the realization that my mistakes can negatively impact my peers is daunting. I have a lot more respect for the pressure that further leadership brings.