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Every software engineer needs to read this. Managing people is it’s own skill all its own. Programming skills don’t translate. Business folks: please create pa

• enraged_camel 8y ago
  >>I see it daily:if your manager is programming, he’s not managing. Management does not have to be an “active” job. Great managers find out what obstacles are standing in the way of their team members, then figure out how to remove those obstacles. How much time this takes greatly depends on the company. IMO a senior dev is different than a manager. Senior devs mentor junior devs; that is where their team productivity multiplier comes from.
  • watwut 8y ago
    > Management does not have to be an “active” job. > Great managers find out what obstacles are standing in the way of their team members, then figure out how to remove those obstacles. Finding out obstacles and removing them is an active job. But also, the saying about merely "removing obstacles" is not really correct. I am not even sure it is so in the happy flow where every employee is super great and full of initiative and is at exactly the right position. Managers are expected to coordinate, set priorities, negotiate about deadlines and scope of project, plan and re-plan, explain why we are going to be late, handle communication outside of team, clean up tracker, make sure testers are available, collect reports about who worked on what. If all manager is focusing on is "finding out obstacles and removing them", you all have high chance of ending up in long term crunch and chaos.
    • enraged_camel 8y ago
      >>Managers are expected to coordinate, set priorities, negotiate about deadlines and scope of project, plan and re-plan, explain why we are going to be late You are describing a Project Manager. It’s a different role than a department manager.
      • sidlls 8y ago
        I (EM, coming on the end of my first year as such) have these negotiations with PMs and POs all the time. They'll ask for the world and need the technical guidance I provide to understand why they can't have it and to effectively communicate that to their leadership.
    • lmm 8y ago
      > Managers are expected to coordinate, set priorities, negotiate about deadlines and scope of project, plan and re-plan, explain why we are going to be late, handle communication outside of team, clean up tracker, make sure testers are available, collect reports about who worked on what. Much of that can and maybe should be done reactively. Set priorities when your employees need them. Negotiate deadlines and scope when they're needed for a decision. Communicate when it's needed. Etc. You may not be literally twiddling your thumbs - I'm sure there's always something to be improved even in the quietest periods - but IMO the most important part of the manager role is to be available to resolve issues that do come up, and I'd take a manager who can do that well over one who's great at planning but can't react. As a technical analogy it's more like sysadmin/ops than development.
      • watwut 8y ago
        Ideally, deadlines and scope are negotiated continuously as the pressure on typical team is constant and as there is constant flow of incoming requirements. Being unprepared means higher chance of crunch or buggy releases (as team cant cope with what becomes expectation). Same with priorities. Those are not just for employees, but also for people outside the team. When you are asked about priorities and future, it is best to have reasonable answer at that time - not two weeks later when you finally reactively done reading and thinking. Employees often dont really ask about priorities. They assume priorities based on their previous experience/opinions, everyone different which leads to misunderstandings and waste of time. You have to sync them before they ask. If the primary role of manager is to constantly react at suddenly appearing problems, then the company needs more planning and more organization. Those suddenly appearing problems are consequence of chaotic environment. Good manager reorganize so that they don't appear anymore or looks for them before they grow big and sudden.
• thanatropism 8y ago
  Here's a question. I've been performing tasks from "technical" and "business strategy" category for years now and feel really good about my (market|operations|product) strategy chops by now. But those management soft skills -- I'm so far behind I don't think I can meaningfully catch up to move to a business ladder if I need to do middle management first. (The best way to describe it is -- I've got a Linus' syndrome. You probably read his recent apology letter.) But I mean, I think I can manage managers, aggressive personalities who have a clearer, shallower career goal. It's easier than managing technical folks' squishier egos. Am I doomed?
  • alistairSH 8y ago
    I think I can manage managers, aggressive personalities who have a clearer, shallower career goal. It's easier than managing technical folks' squishier egos. You're probably wrong in thinking that. But, you aren't doomed either. The skills needed to manage can be learned and practiced, just like any others. Sure, some people are "born" managers and others will never be good at it, but most competent, well-rounded individuals can probably do at least team-level management. Does your employer have any management training/mentoring programs? If so, take advantage of them. Some of them might feel pretty "squishy" to a technical person, but that's part of managing people.
    • thanatropism 8y ago
      The larger org I work for is kind of strange. It's a think tank with cellular teams; team leads are usually big politically connected names (often with hard Ivy PhDs) and they directly manage their small fiefdoms. I'm changing my original question. I think I have a lot to contribute in a strategic advisor role and I would gladly switch away from a technical career track if I could do it. Analogy: it's the business equivalent of if I had plenty of experience consulting in software architecture but couldn't program because I can't type/match keys to onscreen letters. I think I'd be a great "business architect" and enjoy that work more than my technical work. But despite having quite some experience in an "architecture" role (something my team lead even encourages), for all visible purposes I'm a "rockstar technical person" type who's awesome at solving problems. My role in pointing out higher-order (market|operations|product) architectural/strategic stuff is much more understated, it comes as a corollary. I'm glad to have the "architectural" influence I have with my team lead, but would love to make it a main career, be able to change orgs and retain this role, etc.
• crispyambulance 8y ago
  There's a another twist in here when you have organizations that use "matrix" management, where you not only do you have line managers (like the role described in the medium article), but you _also_ have project managers (PMP's) and program managers. A good line manager will shield his folks from project-management bullshit mind-games. Giving PMP's direct access to your people is a recipe for stressing out everyone involved. Unfortunately, that is becoming more and more normal these days as the manager-to-contributor ratio converges to or exceeds one.
• a_imho 8y ago
  Business folks: please create parallel technical and managerial career paths. Technical people are pretty much second class as it is, the last thing needed is to cement the status quo.