3 ms·

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

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.

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.