Good perspective. In my experience an engineering manager must be flexible. An engineering manager can really help the team excel by building productivity tools

Good perspective. In my experience an engineering manager must be flexible. An engineering manager can really help the team excel by building productivity tools, prototyping new concepts documenting, or even fixing small bugs. With that, a manager should not let technical tasks get in the way of managerial duties. I like the author's advice about not taking on work that may block your team. That is truly risky and can backfire. I've seen this firsthand -- But a manager absolutely must keep their head in the game technically. They need to be able to interface with other engineers and managers on a deeply technical level. They should have an awareness of their project's codebase that is best gained through being in it. An engineering manager without technical ability is a more like project manager. In my org, I have seen the expectations of what a manager does shift quite a bit. With the addition of a tech lead role, it seems managers are silo'd into less technical, and less hands-on work. I feel that any sort of hard expectation or assigning percentages to management vs engineering time is ignoring the nuances of team dynamics, and individual personalities. A manager who can also effectively contribute code should do that. Likewise, an engineer who can boost team morale, mentor, help recruit/staff the team should. Take a look at the team dynamics and determine what mix works.