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> Engineering managers at CircleCI are now dedicated to people management: focused on development of a set of engineers, tech leads, and team leads. They hold r

by vecter 8y ago

> Engineering managers at CircleCI are now dedicated to people management: focused on development of a set of engineers, tech leads, and team leads. They hold regular 1:1s and career growth conversations with the engineers who report to them, and are responsible for goal setting, feedback, coaching, and mentoring for them. They also work across a set of teams to ensure team health, knowledge sharing, business value delivery and alignment across teams. This means that our engineers have managers who have great interest and investment in their personal and professional growth, and teams have someone to coach them through the product delivery process. Was this not the case before? What were EMs doing then? This is the only definition of EM that I've ever known.

Moto7451 8y ago
I've worked at companies, and know others who work at companies, where being an Engineering Managers means you're 90% developer and 10% manager. You're expected to do one on ones, assign work, but mostly code.
- bradleyjg 8y ago
  I would expect that to be called tech lead. Though probably closer to 80/20 (or lower) than 90/10 by the time you include all the extra work and meetings he or she has to go to by dint of being in that role (vs say the next most senior engineer).
  - Moto7451 8y ago
    I completely agree and that's been my argument the whole time as well.
otachack 8y ago
I am assuming they did actual work alongside management responsibilities, which isn't really sustainable.
bb88 8y ago
So usually the EM is either "Technical" or "Non-Technical". The Technical EM is more about design, architecture and progress, and sometimes helping the team to get code out the door. The Non Technical EM is more about this. The technical EM would communicate through a PR, say instead of having 1-on-1's. Edit: They said in the article they used to give coding problems to engineering manager candidates, and then in the onsite interview, they found their managing ability is so far off of what they were expecting. So they're making a shift from a Technical Managers to Non Technical Managers.
- KKKKkkkk1 8y ago
  My experience is that a manager who is sharp and knowledgeable will be able to perform the non-technical tasks with confidence and ease, while the non-technical manager will be consumed with politics and divide-and-conquering his own team and its perceived adversaries.
- twright0 8y ago
  This isn't the nomenclature I'd use. What you describe as a "Technical EM" is what I'd call a "Tech Lead", who doesn't have people management responsibilities (things like 1:1s, recruiting, growth and success of the team, etc) and focuses solely on the technical execution of a team. In my book an EM is always responsible for those people management things, and I'd use "Technical EM" to describe an EM who secondarily takes on some or all Tech Lead responsibilities, directly contributes code, etc.
  - kartickv 8y ago
    I've reported for years to EMs who didn't code, and they were just pointy-haired bosses: coming up with ways to manipulate people to make progress quicker, writing performance reviews mostly based on other people's input (why, then, couldn't those people write the reviews themselves?), not understanding engineering realities like some tasks being unknown, demanding ironclad estimates, judging based on appearance rather than substance (or a mix of substance and appearance), and so on. They were just overhead. The managers I respected were all TLs who were the most important engineer on the project. Going back to your point, the TL would be the best person to evaluate the engineers who work under them. 1:1s, growth discussions, etc should all be conducted with someone who knows your work intimately, which means the TL. Which means the TL is a manager. There's still room for EMs to be more technical or more people/coordination-oriented. A technical EM would take responsibility for a smaller area (backend) and go deep technically into it, having the most impact as an individual contributor, knowing all the code, being able to debug any part of the system, being the go to person for everything in that area. Everyone in the backend would report to him. An EM can also decide to be focused more on people/coordination. They'd take responsibility for a bigger area (backend, frontend, iOS and Android) and go wide rather than deep. If you ask them how to debug an iOS app that crashes in the background, they may not be the best person for that. But in both cases, they're managers, not TLs.
chrisseaton 8y ago
You can be managing the engineers (your definition) or managing the engineering (another definition). You could describe both as an ‘engineering manager.’
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
fijiaarone 8y ago
Notice how every one of these tasks are things required of the engineer to satisfy the manager. None of it contributes to the productivity of the worker. And only a small portion of it has any relevance to the productive of the company as a whole. In other words, the engineers would not notice if the engineering manager was not there (except they’d spend less time in meetings and reporting). And the company wouldn’t notice either — unless the engineers chose to use that extra time productively without being “managed” to.
- itsnevereasy 8y ago
  I think that's a very cynical view to take. Have you had experiences with good and bad managers? In my professional life I've had both, and I can tell you that the difference is night and day. I'm in a "bad management" spell right now (yay, academia) and I would love to have regular 1:1s and get feedback that I could actually act on.
- Rapzid 8y ago
  Circle CI also supposedly only hires the "best engineers".. I didn't realize the best engineers needed so much focused management.
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    This is totally consistent. The best athletes receive the most focused coaching. This makes perfect sense. They need experts because they're at the leading edge. The slightest of annoyances is costing you major productivity. It is precisely the best that you need the best coaches for.
    - Rapzid 8y ago
      Before I write out a long response on how I, as somebody who played sports and received coaching, believe that non-technical managers of software engineers and sports coaches contrast more than they compare I have to ask.. I'm guessing your being sarcastic? :D
- 8y ago

by vecter 8y ago

Moto7451 8y ago

I've worked at companies, and know others who work at companies, where being an Engineering Managers means you're 90% developer and 10% manager. You're expected to do one on ones, assign work, but mostly code.

bradleyjg 8y ago
I would expect that to be called tech lead. Though probably closer to 80/20 (or lower) than 90/10 by the time you include all the extra work and meetings he or she has to go to by dint of being in that role (vs say the next most senior engineer).
- Moto7451 8y ago
  I completely agree and that's been my argument the whole time as well.

otachack 8y ago

I am assuming they did actual work alongside management responsibilities, which isn't really sustainable.

bb88 8y ago

So usually the EM is either "Technical" or "Non-Technical". The Technical EM is more about design, architecture and progress, and sometimes helping the team to get code out the door. The Non Technical EM is more about this. The technical EM would communicate through a PR, say instead of having 1-on-1's. Edit: They said in the article they used to give coding problems to engineering manager candidates, and then in the onsite interview, they found their managing ability is so far off of what they were expecting. So they're making a shift from a Technical Managers to Non Technical Managers.

KKKKkkkk1 8y ago
My experience is that a manager who is sharp and knowledgeable will be able to perform the non-technical tasks with confidence and ease, while the non-technical manager will be consumed with politics and divide-and-conquering his own team and its perceived adversaries.
twright0 8y ago
This isn't the nomenclature I'd use. What you describe as a "Technical EM" is what I'd call a "Tech Lead", who doesn't have people management responsibilities (things like 1:1s, recruiting, growth and success of the team, etc) and focuses solely on the technical execution of a team. In my book an EM is always responsible for those people management things, and I'd use "Technical EM" to describe an EM who secondarily takes on some or all Tech Lead responsibilities, directly contributes code, etc.
- kartickv 8y ago
  I've reported for years to EMs who didn't code, and they were just pointy-haired bosses: coming up with ways to manipulate people to make progress quicker, writing performance reviews mostly based on other people's input (why, then, couldn't those people write the reviews themselves?), not understanding engineering realities like some tasks being unknown, demanding ironclad estimates, judging based on appearance rather than substance (or a mix of substance and appearance), and so on. They were just overhead. The managers I respected were all TLs who were the most important engineer on the project. Going back to your point, the TL would be the best person to evaluate the engineers who work under them. 1:1s, growth discussions, etc should all be conducted with someone who knows your work intimately, which means the TL. Which means the TL is a manager. There's still room for EMs to be more technical or more people/coordination-oriented. A technical EM would take responsibility for a smaller area (backend) and go deep technically into it, having the most impact as an individual contributor, knowing all the code, being able to debug any part of the system, being the go to person for everything in that area. Everyone in the backend would report to him. An EM can also decide to be focused more on people/coordination. They'd take responsibility for a bigger area (backend, frontend, iOS and Android) and go wide rather than deep. If you ask them how to debug an iOS app that crashes in the background, they may not be the best person for that. But in both cases, they're managers, not TLs.

chrisseaton 8y ago

You can be managing the engineers (your definition) or managing the engineering (another definition). You could describe both as an ‘engineering manager.’

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

fijiaarone 8y ago

Notice how every one of these tasks are things required of the engineer to satisfy the manager. None of it contributes to the productivity of the worker. And only a small portion of it has any relevance to the productive of the company as a whole. In other words, the engineers would not notice if the engineering manager was not there (except they’d spend less time in meetings and reporting). And the company wouldn’t notice either — unless the engineers chose to use that extra time productively without being “managed” to.

itsnevereasy 8y ago
I think that's a very cynical view to take. Have you had experiences with good and bad managers? In my professional life I've had both, and I can tell you that the difference is night and day. I'm in a "bad management" spell right now (yay, academia) and I would love to have regular 1:1s and get feedback that I could actually act on.
Rapzid 8y ago
Circle CI also supposedly only hires the "best engineers".. I didn't realize the best engineers needed so much focused management.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  This is totally consistent. The best athletes receive the most focused coaching. This makes perfect sense. They need experts because they're at the leading edge. The slightest of annoyances is costing you major productivity. It is precisely the best that you need the best coaches for.
  - Rapzid 8y ago
    Before I write out a long response on how I, as somebody who played sports and received coaching, believe that non-technical managers of software engineers and sports coaches contrast more than they compare I have to ask.. I'm guessing your being sarcastic? :D
8y ago