19 ms·

Interviews with developers who became managers

546 points by siddhant 8y ago

kojeovo 8y ago
Interesting content. I'm at the IC vs. manager crossroads and this was some well timed perspective. FYI: You have a `margin-top: 1rem;` value in your `.navbar-custom` class causing text to be visible above the header when you scroll.
- siddhant 8y ago
  Thank you! Fixed. :)
ep103 8y ago
The moment I saw this link, I clicked it. I'm pretty lost for advice at the moment, and hoped this would help. But it looks like it is just a collection of interviews with people who became managers about what they've learned? One of the quotes on the page was: "Moving from dev to manager is NOT A PROMOTION. It's a CAREER CHANGE." This is what I'm having a problem with. I look at my team, and the entire office is happier than I've seen it in 5 years. I'm watching people train, and actively grow under my management. It is incredibly rewarding, and much, much better than before I moved to my current position. But I've also spent the last 9 weeks doing nothing but reading resumes, phone screens, and interviewing candidates. Staring at an excel spreadsheet mix of engineers I could out-code, great developers I can't afford, internal politics, and emailing recruiters all day, isn't what I went into engineering for. Being judged on my projected demeanor in meetings, ability to navigate politics, and clear bureaucratic hurdles for my team isn't itself enjoyable... its soul-sucking and stressful. I wake up every morning and don't want to get out of bed. I've started setting aside a (very) small portion of time for coding, just because I miss it so much. Ever wake up and realize you are going to spend the first two hours of the day rescheduling meetings... again? But most days, something will happen among the team, where, before I leave, I'll realize "That wouldn't have happened here before you rose up the ranks. You've made all of these people's lives better." and it'll bounce me back a bit. Your website says that the transition to management is difficult and nuanced, but things like the above are what I need help with.
- ghettoCoder 8y ago
  You are no longer an individual contributor (nor will you be evaluated as such) but are now considered part of the leadership cadre. That's now your life and sure, you might be able to set aside a bit of time to code and try to keep up but, and this is a big one, you won't be able to. It is a career change and not one everyone wants or is suited for. It's like an athlete becoming a coach or gm, it doesn't usually end up well. My personal experience is that I tried it for a couple of years and realized I wasn't cut out for management (various reasons). For me I find that team lead is were I'm happiest, bonus if the manager above you is someone who wants to be there and understands what a manager is / should do. Good luck edit: spelling
  - mrburkins 8y ago
    But won't you be required to demonstrate senior or better technical skill, the next time you go into the market to find a job? How do you keep both edges of the knife sharp?
    - ghettoCoder 8y ago
      That’s the question but there’s likely not enough hours in the day to do that if you want to have a life outside of work and trying to keep up. Eventually you gotta pick one.
- windowsworkstoo 8y ago
  I'm not sure what your issue with that quote is - because it's 100% accurate. IT sounds like you have enough reports that you now have a people job and not a tech job and that is where your conflict is coming from. You need to either wholeheartedly commit to that aspect and give up the tech (in a professional sense, have whatever hobby makes you happy) and find value and meaning in that, or go back to being "on the tools". This dichotomy isn't unique to tech - as alluded to above, the trades have the same conflict - and people do shift between being "on the tools" and not. But make no mistake - you can't do both. At least not for a sustainable period, effectively, if you are managing a decent number of people. So choose, and commit - at least for the period of that choice.
chauhonglinh 8y ago
From my personal experience from startups to medium companies to top tech companies in the U.S, most of the developers turn to be managers because they are too stupid to write code properly. ( I will not say all, because I have seen some very very few exceptions: great managers)
- EliRivers 8y ago
  If we're doing personal experience, the majority of coders I have met also cannot write code properly.
- argd678 8y ago
  It’s a common way to retain people who have knowledge and enough people skills that are useful when the dev’s code may not be as good as it once was or thought to be. Personally often the differences come down to who’s is more passionate about coding and people’s interest wanes over time as the facination wares off. So less experienced devs don’t always produce better code but are just more ambitious about fixing it. Also I don’t know why you got down voted, when much more flippant posts make it to the front page.
hartator 8y ago
Can't recommend enough "The One Minute Manager" by Kenneth H. Blanchard. Clean read. Easy to understand principles. From what I remember and learnt: Limit meetings, define responsibilities, trust your people, focus on what has been done, going to be done, and the obstacles. And, you are here to help not to micromanage.
bitL 8y ago
Why do we need managers? Seems to me like anachronism from authoritative past. I can't recall a single manager that wasn't getting in the way of doing things in my past working experience (top engineering companies everybody wanted to get into); more often they were just enforcers of shady things that companies kept in the dark. Ramping up education, practicing virtues, supporting transparent exchange of information, and people can self-organize without any managers. Having managers just keeps everybody weak, uninformed, ignorant and lazy. Anyone remotely competent doesn't want to be managed.
- jankyxenon 8y ago
  Let's say your company has 500 engineers. Who does what? What's the highest yielding activity/investment/product? Someone needs to make those decisions and others need to execute them.
  - bitL 8y ago
    I worked for a company with around 750 people, considered better than any FANG, that had no managers. Moreover, everybody thought they wanted to do cool stuff and not do a manager (synonymous with uselessness). Internally ran like a bunch of startups. Extremely profitable. Multiple FANGs wanted to acquire it/destroy it. Haven't worked in a better environment. Getting calls from recruiters from FB/Google about "exciting leadership opportunities" sounds like moving backwards and is as appealing as accepting a crappy job to survive. Half of the people who left to FB/Goog were back within a year. You have no idea how much better companies can be. Recently during my university admission interview (3rd master degree) I mentioned to an interviewer that I turned down FB twice in the past 6 months and seeing their brain spinning, unable to understand why, was pretty funny... Not sure why people desire to work in such soulless environments with opaque army-like hierarchy.
    - seattle_spring 8y ago
      What company is unilaterally considered better than FANG? I honestly can't think of one. I hope you're not referring to some banking or crypto startup because, well...
kbenson 8y ago
I have a good friend that went from Google Software Reliability Engineer (SRE) to manager of an SRE team, but for him it's less of a problem because he's always focused on helping others (and to hear him, he gets a good amount of time to help steer juniors towards solutions and around problems). I believe he does make sure to set aside a good amount of time every week to code on whatever side project is his current fancy (usually Perl 6 related). I don't think he would handle it nearly as well if he didn't have that to fall back on. So it sounds like maybe you've stumbled on something that might help (designated time for side projects). The question is whether the rest of the job is (or will become) gratifying enough to hit a good equilibrium. I assume you're being paid a salary at the position you're at. An important facet of salaried positions I've drawn upon is that unless outlined clearly otherwise in a contract, I'm judged on what I deliver. If that means to keep my sanity I take an hour out of the work day to read HN, or code a side project, or any other thing, so be it. That's a requirement for me keeping my sanity at the job I'm at, and if I'm not delivering, then I'll be judged on that by my superiors. My suggestion is to do whatever it takes to make the job palatable to you. If that means putting less than 100% in, then put less than 100% in. I assume they would rather have you at 80% indefinitely than 100% for another 3-6 months before you burn out. It sure sounds like your co-workers would.
- ep103 8y ago
  This is exactly where I am at. You summarized it perfectly. I'm happy to hear there are other people who are in my position, that devote time to code as well. I'm trying to find a way to make that remaining 80% more gratifying. And I'm nervous about committing to it permanently until it is. Similarly, I am hesitant to give up on the opportunity, or go back to IC / team lead status (with the career limitations that implies (how real a threat is ageism?)) if it might still be possible to make management more gratifying, given what an opportunity it represents.
brandall10 8y ago
Early in my career I worked at a large company where the average dev age was late 30s. Quite a few of these people had taken a stab at management and returned to development. Basically I was told this much - don't do it unless you're done with coding and desire to rise up the company ranks. 9 years ago I did such a bang-up job as the lead on a medium size product that I was offered a promotion to management. The first thing I asked was "can I still code?". No. I got my CS degree because I like doing that. Turned it down and accepted a promotion to a principal dev instead. Still, I was rather miserable in that environment. A year later I rebooted my career from .NET enterprise dev -> Rails consultant for early stage start-ups, best thing I ever did in my 20 years as a dev. You're hired by your company to perform a job for a certain comp package. You're not there for charity. If you're not happy change things up. Your reports will carry on without you, and if things are that bad in your absence, will also carry on to hopefully higher planes.
- fhbdukfrh 8y ago
  I'm a solid coder and have lots of experience in the non technical aspects of our business from consulting and running a startup, but I'm moving into management because it's the best way for me to apply a multiplier to my skills. Plus I've complained about poor managers long enough that its time for me to step up
- siddhant 8y ago
  > don't do it unless you're done with coding Kind of, yes. I guess it depends on the workplace. Some companies still allow managers to code for a certain percentage of their time, while some don't. But you're right - transitioning to management usually involves letting go of code.
  - brandall10 8y ago
    Yeah, I should definitely qualify that statement to larger orgs. Every company I've been in with < 100 people tech management usually coded, and typically in places < 20 people the CTO would be the most prolific coder.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
wellreally 8y ago
A lot of interviews about the motivation being some variant of teamwork or changing the world. Not many people admitting the financial motivation.
- siddhant 8y ago
  A lot of companies these days have parallel tracks for ICs and managers, so I'm not sure that the financial motivation holds at such places.
  - haseeb1431 8y ago
    agreed. Being an IC with less stress and getting similar compensation while enjoying the architectural work seems more lucrative
pdfernhout 8y ago
Here is a collection of related advice I put together useful for managers of software developers: https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations-Reading-List https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations... It includes, among other things, a link to the Khan Academy Engineering Management Reading List. See especially the first book on the list about a need for "slack" (free time, not the software) called "Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency" by Tom DeMarco". The summary: "There is a tradeoff between efficiency (meeting previous well-defined needs with minimal effort) versus effectiveness (meeting newly emerging needs with flexibility and responsiveness through organizational learning). If you optimize only for efficiency in meeting previous needs from past opportunities, you will by necessity eliminate your organizations's capacity to respond effectively to future needs from newly emerging opportunities. This ability to learn and grow as an organization requires "slack" time. Middle management has a vital role to play in organizational adaptability -- but only if they are not over-scheduled." Tom DeMarco also previously co-wrote "Peopleware: Productive Projects and Team", another excellent book on software management. Another informative and funny book in that area is by Michael Lopp: "Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager" Bottom line: you have essentially switched to a new field even if computers are still involved so you need time for self-education and practice and failures and recoveries. As in, ultimately, years to get really good at this new profession the same way it took years and thousands of mistakes to get good at software development as a programmer... (Although mistakes with people are often more personally painful than mistakes that just the compiler yells at you about.) Something else to be aware of (may not apply to you) is that many of the best software developers have some degree of Asperger's -- but people with Asperger's often have issues dealing with human relationships unless they consciously learn various skills for dealing with people that many other non-Aspies just seem to have intuitively. And even when they get good at those skills (sometimes better than non-Aspies because they make understanding all that a focus or obsession), an Aspie using the logical primary CPU part of your brain all day to do what many other people do essentially with an emotion co-processor can leave one feeling drained at the end of the day. So "promotion" from software developer to manager may often be a step backwards in career satisfaction for top developers. Anyway, that is just another complexity on top of all the other issues a new manager of any sort has to deal with. But as you point out, being a manager has its own satisfaction in helping others grow, so if you can get enough positive feedback from seeing your own leverage increase that way, the benefits of transitioning to becoming a manager may eventually outweigh the costs (especially once the people and organizational skills needed to excel become more routinized).
TheRealDunkirk 8y ago
IT'S TOO LATE FOR ME! SAVE YOURSELVES!
spenrose 8y ago
Highest recommendation for The Manager's Path: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/the-managers-path/9781491973882/ https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/the-managers-path/97814... Also excellent but require some translation to a tech setting: Becoming a Manager (Hill) and Managing (Mintzberg)
acl777 8y ago
I just became a manager of my team and was introduced to the https://www.manager-tools.com/podcasts https://www.manager-tools.com/podcasts Single best resource I have used for management. It taught me how to manage, even after getting my MBA and serving as president of a Toastmasters club. I attended the Manager Tools conference and did a conference debrief of it: http://redgreenrepeat.com/2019/03/08/conference-debrief-manager-tools/ http://redgreenrepeat.com/2019/03/08/conference-debrief-mana... If you have any questions, please ask!
Kbye 8y ago
Here is my advice. NEVER EVER take advice from Indian managers. Almost all are terrible and have zero personality whatsoever. Almost all hire their own kind. South Indians are expert with this mindset (long and ugly names) Indians have obsequious mindset and are driven by jealousy, envy, and resentment. I know this comment won't last long or is not framed to be politically correct. But, that's the truth. There are good Indian managers, but those are far and few within. Don't believe me? Look at any online forum and see comments posted. This site features two Indian managers. 9 out 10 chance both are terrible. Also, if you want to work for woman managers, work for ones above 45-50 at least. They are more mature and won't jeopardize your career. Asian woman managers (Indians too) are big no-no. You are welcome!
Kbye 8y ago
Here is my advice. NEVER EVER take advice from Indian managers. Almost all are terrible and have zero personality whatsoever. Almost all hire their own kind. South Indians are expert with this mindset (long and ugly names) Indians have obsequious mindset and are driven by jealousy, envy, and resentment. I know this comment won't last long or is not framed to be politically correct. But, that's the truth. There are good Indian managers, but those are far and few within. Don't believe me? Look at any online forum and see comments posted. This site features two Indian managers. 9 out 10 chance both are terrible. Also, if you want to work for woman managers, work for ones above 45-50 at least. They are more mature and won't jeopardize your career. Asian woman managers (Indians too) are big no-no. You are welcome!
haseeb1431 8y ago
For me, the most challenging part was doing performance evaluations among different engineers where some was doing really amazing stuff but they weren't good at selling while others weren't doing anything impressive but selling it very smartly. Being manager, doing code reviews, going through ticket managers and other tools you can see this who is what and how much but you can barely influence 360 reviews. On another occasion, it really got out of hands, when I was working on totally independent team and my people working on so many different teams. Being the guys, you gotta know ins/outs of all these projects going on while not loosing track of yours
eazystock 8y ago
"A good developer can't a good manager, similarly a good manager can't be a good developer" combination of both is a rare case
dagaci 8y ago
So many times i have seen coders "promoted" to managing roles. It actually seems to be normal practice to do this because: the coder is intelligent, the coder knows whats going on technically, plus the idea that general experience is somehow related to management skill. However the truth is if your not regularly training as a manager and consciously applying well known good management techniques then your probably not doing so well... as a manager. As a coder you train a lot! then as a manager you should also train => proactively get training please!! However management is a soft-skill, and coding is a hard -skill. Mistakes in management are not seen clearly to actually matter too much. Mistakes in coding clearly matter. When bad management techniques are applied (such as frequently requesting changes, imposing bad deadlines, not actually planning ....) then the outcome: bad or wrong code, missing deadlines will be seen as an issue with the coder and not the management. How many coders are being turned over before.... an anecdote: When the emperor napoleon marched back to Paris after his 5 month sprint through the Russian winter, he was able to return as Emperor and remain as Emperor without too much trouble when considering the scale of the disaster, he was then able to then raise another Army and start a new series of campaigns. :) https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/posters https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/posters
srouhaewaehy 8y ago
The Problem with this Kind of interview is that a lot of These Manager types won't do interviews About their Jobs. So you will only get interviews with ~20% of them who are probably neither at the top nor at the Bottom of the Manager sphere.
333c 8y ago
> FIND YOU CAREER PATH shouldn't that be your*?

546 points by siddhant 8y ago

Interesting content. I'm at the IC vs. manager crossroads and this was some well timed perspective. FYI: You have a `margin-top: 1rem;` value in your `.navbar-custom` class causing text to be visible above the header when you scroll.

siddhant 8y ago
Thank you! Fixed. :)

ep103 8y ago

The moment I saw this link, I clicked it. I'm pretty lost for advice at the moment, and hoped this would help. But it looks like it is just a collection of interviews with people who became managers about what they've learned? One of the quotes on the page was: "Moving from dev to manager is NOT A PROMOTION. It's a CAREER CHANGE." This is what I'm having a problem with. I look at my team, and the entire office is happier than I've seen it in 5 years. I'm watching people train, and actively grow under my management. It is incredibly rewarding, and much, much better than before I moved to my current position. But I've also spent the last 9 weeks doing nothing but reading resumes, phone screens, and interviewing candidates. Staring at an excel spreadsheet mix of engineers I could out-code, great developers I can't afford, internal politics, and emailing recruiters all day, isn't what I went into engineering for. Being judged on my projected demeanor in meetings, ability to navigate politics, and clear bureaucratic hurdles for my team isn't itself enjoyable... its soul-sucking and stressful. I wake up every morning and don't want to get out of bed. I've started setting aside a (very) small portion of time for coding, just because I miss it so much. Ever wake up and realize you are going to spend the first two hours of the day rescheduling meetings... again? But most days, something will happen among the team, where, before I leave, I'll realize "That wouldn't have happened here before you rose up the ranks. You've made all of these people's lives better." and it'll bounce me back a bit. Your website says that the transition to management is difficult and nuanced, but things like the above are what I need help with.

ghettoCoder 8y ago
You are no longer an individual contributor (nor will you be evaluated as such) but are now considered part of the leadership cadre. That's now your life and sure, you might be able to set aside a bit of time to code and try to keep up but, and this is a big one, you won't be able to. It is a career change and not one everyone wants or is suited for. It's like an athlete becoming a coach or gm, it doesn't usually end up well. My personal experience is that I tried it for a couple of years and realized I wasn't cut out for management (various reasons). For me I find that team lead is were I'm happiest, bonus if the manager above you is someone who wants to be there and understands what a manager is / should do. Good luck edit: spelling
- mrburkins 8y ago
  But won't you be required to demonstrate senior or better technical skill, the next time you go into the market to find a job? How do you keep both edges of the knife sharp?
  - ghettoCoder 8y ago
    That’s the question but there’s likely not enough hours in the day to do that if you want to have a life outside of work and trying to keep up. Eventually you gotta pick one.
windowsworkstoo 8y ago
I'm not sure what your issue with that quote is - because it's 100% accurate. IT sounds like you have enough reports that you now have a people job and not a tech job and that is where your conflict is coming from. You need to either wholeheartedly commit to that aspect and give up the tech (in a professional sense, have whatever hobby makes you happy) and find value and meaning in that, or go back to being "on the tools". This dichotomy isn't unique to tech - as alluded to above, the trades have the same conflict - and people do shift between being "on the tools" and not. But make no mistake - you can't do both. At least not for a sustainable period, effectively, if you are managing a decent number of people. So choose, and commit - at least for the period of that choice.

chauhonglinh 8y ago

From my personal experience from startups to medium companies to top tech companies in the U.S, most of the developers turn to be managers because they are too stupid to write code properly. ( I will not say all, because I have seen some very very few exceptions: great managers)

EliRivers 8y ago
If we're doing personal experience, the majority of coders I have met also cannot write code properly.
argd678 8y ago
It’s a common way to retain people who have knowledge and enough people skills that are useful when the dev’s code may not be as good as it once was or thought to be. Personally often the differences come down to who’s is more passionate about coding and people’s interest wanes over time as the facination wares off. So less experienced devs don’t always produce better code but are just more ambitious about fixing it. Also I don’t know why you got down voted, when much more flippant posts make it to the front page.

hartator 8y ago

Can't recommend enough "The One Minute Manager" by Kenneth H. Blanchard. Clean read. Easy to understand principles. From what I remember and learnt: Limit meetings, define responsibilities, trust your people, focus on what has been done, going to be done, and the obstacles. And, you are here to help not to micromanage.

bitL 8y ago

Why do we need managers? Seems to me like anachronism from authoritative past. I can't recall a single manager that wasn't getting in the way of doing things in my past working experience (top engineering companies everybody wanted to get into); more often they were just enforcers of shady things that companies kept in the dark. Ramping up education, practicing virtues, supporting transparent exchange of information, and people can self-organize without any managers. Having managers just keeps everybody weak, uninformed, ignorant and lazy. Anyone remotely competent doesn't want to be managed.

jankyxenon 8y ago
Let's say your company has 500 engineers. Who does what? What's the highest yielding activity/investment/product? Someone needs to make those decisions and others need to execute them.
- bitL 8y ago
  I worked for a company with around 750 people, considered better than any FANG, that had no managers. Moreover, everybody thought they wanted to do cool stuff and not do a manager (synonymous with uselessness). Internally ran like a bunch of startups. Extremely profitable. Multiple FANGs wanted to acquire it/destroy it. Haven't worked in a better environment. Getting calls from recruiters from FB/Google about "exciting leadership opportunities" sounds like moving backwards and is as appealing as accepting a crappy job to survive. Half of the people who left to FB/Goog were back within a year. You have no idea how much better companies can be. Recently during my university admission interview (3rd master degree) I mentioned to an interviewer that I turned down FB twice in the past 6 months and seeing their brain spinning, unable to understand why, was pretty funny... Not sure why people desire to work in such soulless environments with opaque army-like hierarchy.
  - seattle_spring 8y ago
    What company is unilaterally considered better than FANG? I honestly can't think of one. I hope you're not referring to some banking or crypto startup because, well...

kbenson 8y ago

I have a good friend that went from Google Software Reliability Engineer (SRE) to manager of an SRE team, but for him it's less of a problem because he's always focused on helping others (and to hear him, he gets a good amount of time to help steer juniors towards solutions and around problems). I believe he does make sure to set aside a good amount of time every week to code on whatever side project is his current fancy (usually Perl 6 related). I don't think he would handle it nearly as well if he didn't have that to fall back on. So it sounds like maybe you've stumbled on something that might help (designated time for side projects). The question is whether the rest of the job is (or will become) gratifying enough to hit a good equilibrium. I assume you're being paid a salary at the position you're at. An important facet of salaried positions I've drawn upon is that unless outlined clearly otherwise in a contract, I'm judged on what I deliver. If that means to keep my sanity I take an hour out of the work day to read HN, or code a side project, or any other thing, so be it. That's a requirement for me keeping my sanity at the job I'm at, and if I'm not delivering, then I'll be judged on that by my superiors. My suggestion is to do whatever it takes to make the job palatable to you. If that means putting less than 100% in, then put less than 100% in. I assume they would rather have you at 80% indefinitely than 100% for another 3-6 months before you burn out. It sure sounds like your co-workers would.

ep103 8y ago
This is exactly where I am at. You summarized it perfectly. I'm happy to hear there are other people who are in my position, that devote time to code as well. I'm trying to find a way to make that remaining 80% more gratifying. And I'm nervous about committing to it permanently until it is. Similarly, I am hesitant to give up on the opportunity, or go back to IC / team lead status (with the career limitations that implies (how real a threat is ageism?)) if it might still be possible to make management more gratifying, given what an opportunity it represents.

brandall10 8y ago

Early in my career I worked at a large company where the average dev age was late 30s. Quite a few of these people had taken a stab at management and returned to development. Basically I was told this much - don't do it unless you're done with coding and desire to rise up the company ranks. 9 years ago I did such a bang-up job as the lead on a medium size product that I was offered a promotion to management. The first thing I asked was "can I still code?". No. I got my CS degree because I like doing that. Turned it down and accepted a promotion to a principal dev instead. Still, I was rather miserable in that environment. A year later I rebooted my career from .NET enterprise dev -> Rails consultant for early stage start-ups, best thing I ever did in my 20 years as a dev. You're hired by your company to perform a job for a certain comp package. You're not there for charity. If you're not happy change things up. Your reports will carry on without you, and if things are that bad in your absence, will also carry on to hopefully higher planes.

fhbdukfrh 8y ago
I'm a solid coder and have lots of experience in the non technical aspects of our business from consulting and running a startup, but I'm moving into management because it's the best way for me to apply a multiplier to my skills. Plus I've complained about poor managers long enough that its time for me to step up
siddhant 8y ago
> don't do it unless you're done with coding Kind of, yes. I guess it depends on the workplace. Some companies still allow managers to code for a certain percentage of their time, while some don't. But you're right - transitioning to management usually involves letting go of code.
- brandall10 8y ago
  Yeah, I should definitely qualify that statement to larger orgs. Every company I've been in with < 100 people tech management usually coded, and typically in places < 20 people the CTO would be the most prolific coder.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

wellreally 8y ago

A lot of interviews about the motivation being some variant of teamwork or changing the world. Not many people admitting the financial motivation.

siddhant 8y ago
A lot of companies these days have parallel tracks for ICs and managers, so I'm not sure that the financial motivation holds at such places.
- haseeb1431 8y ago
  agreed. Being an IC with less stress and getting similar compensation while enjoying the architectural work seems more lucrative

pdfernhout 8y ago

Here is a collection of related advice I put together useful for managers of software developers: https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations-Reading-List https://github.com/pdfernhout/High-Performance-Organizations... It includes, among other things, a link to the Khan Academy Engineering Management Reading List. See especially the first book on the list about a need for "slack" (free time, not the software) called "Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency" by Tom DeMarco". The summary: "There is a tradeoff between efficiency (meeting previous well-defined needs with minimal effort) versus effectiveness (meeting newly emerging needs with flexibility and responsiveness through organizational learning). If you optimize only for efficiency in meeting previous needs from past opportunities, you will by necessity eliminate your organizations's capacity to respond effectively to future needs from newly emerging opportunities. This ability to learn and grow as an organization requires "slack" time. Middle management has a vital role to play in organizational adaptability -- but only if they are not over-scheduled." Tom DeMarco also previously co-wrote "Peopleware: Productive Projects and Team", another excellent book on software management. Another informative and funny book in that area is by Michael Lopp: "Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager" Bottom line: you have essentially switched to a new field even if computers are still involved so you need time for self-education and practice and failures and recoveries. As in, ultimately, years to get really good at this new profession the same way it took years and thousands of mistakes to get good at software development as a programmer... (Although mistakes with people are often more personally painful than mistakes that just the compiler yells at you about.) Something else to be aware of (may not apply to you) is that many of the best software developers have some degree of Asperger's -- but people with Asperger's often have issues dealing with human relationships unless they consciously learn various skills for dealing with people that many other non-Aspies just seem to have intuitively. And even when they get good at those skills (sometimes better than non-Aspies because they make understanding all that a focus or obsession), an Aspie using the logical primary CPU part of your brain all day to do what many other people do essentially with an emotion co-processor can leave one feeling drained at the end of the day. So "promotion" from software developer to manager may often be a step backwards in career satisfaction for top developers. Anyway, that is just another complexity on top of all the other issues a new manager of any sort has to deal with. But as you point out, being a manager has its own satisfaction in helping others grow, so if you can get enough positive feedback from seeing your own leverage increase that way, the benefits of transitioning to becoming a manager may eventually outweigh the costs (especially once the people and organizational skills needed to excel become more routinized).

TheRealDunkirk 8y ago

IT'S TOO LATE FOR ME! SAVE YOURSELVES!

spenrose 8y ago

Highest recommendation for The Manager's Path: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/the-managers-path/9781491973882/ https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/the-managers-path/97814... Also excellent but require some translation to a tech setting: Becoming a Manager (Hill) and Managing (Mintzberg)

acl777 8y ago

I just became a manager of my team and was introduced to the https://www.manager-tools.com/podcasts https://www.manager-tools.com/podcasts Single best resource I have used for management. It taught me how to manage, even after getting my MBA and serving as president of a Toastmasters club. I attended the Manager Tools conference and did a conference debrief of it: http://redgreenrepeat.com/2019/03/08/conference-debrief-manager-tools/ http://redgreenrepeat.com/2019/03/08/conference-debrief-mana... If you have any questions, please ask!

Kbye 8y ago

Here is my advice. NEVER EVER take advice from Indian managers. Almost all are terrible and have zero personality whatsoever. Almost all hire their own kind. South Indians are expert with this mindset (long and ugly names) Indians have obsequious mindset and are driven by jealousy, envy, and resentment. I know this comment won't last long or is not framed to be politically correct. But, that's the truth. There are good Indian managers, but those are far and few within. Don't believe me? Look at any online forum and see comments posted. This site features two Indian managers. 9 out 10 chance both are terrible. Also, if you want to work for woman managers, work for ones above 45-50 at least. They are more mature and won't jeopardize your career. Asian woman managers (Indians too) are big no-no. You are welcome!

Kbye 8y ago

haseeb1431 8y ago

For me, the most challenging part was doing performance evaluations among different engineers where some was doing really amazing stuff but they weren't good at selling while others weren't doing anything impressive but selling it very smartly. Being manager, doing code reviews, going through ticket managers and other tools you can see this who is what and how much but you can barely influence 360 reviews. On another occasion, it really got out of hands, when I was working on totally independent team and my people working on so many different teams. Being the guys, you gotta know ins/outs of all these projects going on while not loosing track of yours

eazystock 8y ago

"A good developer can't a good manager, similarly a good manager can't be a good developer" combination of both is a rare case

dagaci 8y ago

So many times i have seen coders "promoted" to managing roles. It actually seems to be normal practice to do this because: the coder is intelligent, the coder knows whats going on technically, plus the idea that general experience is somehow related to management skill. However the truth is if your not regularly training as a manager and consciously applying well known good management techniques then your probably not doing so well... as a manager. As a coder you train a lot! then as a manager you should also train => proactively get training please!! However management is a soft-skill, and coding is a hard -skill. Mistakes in management are not seen clearly to actually matter too much. Mistakes in coding clearly matter. When bad management techniques are applied (such as frequently requesting changes, imposing bad deadlines, not actually planning ....) then the outcome: bad or wrong code, missing deadlines will be seen as an issue with the coder and not the management. How many coders are being turned over before.... an anecdote: When the emperor napoleon marched back to Paris after his 5 month sprint through the Russian winter, he was able to return as Emperor and remain as Emperor without too much trouble when considering the scale of the disaster, he was then able to then raise another Army and start a new series of campaigns. :) https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/posters https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/posters

srouhaewaehy 8y ago

The Problem with this Kind of interview is that a lot of These Manager types won't do interviews About their Jobs. So you will only get interviews with ~20% of them who are probably neither at the top nor at the Bottom of the Manager sphere.

333c 8y ago

> FIND YOU CAREER PATH shouldn't that be your*?