4 ms·

Not directed at author but I looked at his bio after reading the article. He spent his time mostly as an engineering manager and yet in his bio has: "I led eng

• m12k 7y ago
  I don't think it's uncommon to have a 'lead of team leads' called an engineering manager. They're typically the people who were good enough at being team leads that they advance to making sure all the team leads are good at it too.
• rpedela 7y ago
  Yes? Why would you think otherwise?
  • alex_sf 7y ago
    I think his (somewhat murky) point was the there is a frequently a distinction between 'managing' and 'leading' a team, particularly a technical one. Managing is generally considered a role that involves HR/scheduling/career development type tasks, i.e. soft skills. Leading, alternatively, is perceived as a harder technical role. Sometimes involving overall architecture and design depending on the role. More hard skills.
    • seibelj 7y ago
      It would be difficult to be an effective engineering manager if one was not technical. Otherwise any people manager could be an engineering manager. Engineering managers don't necessarily get their hands dirty, but they need to understand what's really going on with their teams and their progress in order to make informed decisions.
• sergiotapia 7y ago
  Do you qualify the person with the most merged PR's as the leader of the engineering team then? Someone has to have the vision and the strength to keep things outside of that vision out of the scope of work and know how to say `No`.
• jakear 7y ago
  In my (limited) experience, engineering managers manage engineers. Product managers do not, though some think they do.
  • edoceo 7y ago
    And when they (PM) think they manage the engineers - oh heck
• burlesona 7y ago
  Two reasons it shouldn’t sound crazy: 1. Just grammatically, managers need some verb to use. If he said “I managed Engineering,” it would be really difficult to argue that isn’t what an engineering manager does. But good managers lead, so they prefer the word lead over manage, even though the meaning in context is quite similar. 2. You seem to be implying that managers suck and don’t know anything about engineering, so how could they claim leadership? Speaking from my career path, most eng managers come out of engineering and are pretty technical. At Atlassian (where I’m a front-line Engineering Manager), you have to earn your way to Senior Engineer before you can join the management track, and the managers for several steps up the ladder are accountable for technical outcomes. It’s very common in our office for the front line managers (aka Team Leads) to lead whiteboarding and pair a lot during the early phases of a project to make sure it’s built on a sound design, and to be similarly involved throughout projects to ensure they’re tracking to completion on schedule and hitting our quality bar. My understanding is Stripe works very similarly. So, yeah, I buy that he “led” engineering teams there.
  • sbarre 7y ago
    > But good managers lead, so they prefer the word lead over manage, even though the meaning in context is quite similar. I would actually argue that good managers _support_ their teams, they don't lead them. A tech lead or architect should be leading the engineering team, and the manager should be supporting the team's efforts and clearing the path for them.
• wbronitsky 7y ago
  Mark led engineering teams at Stripe. That is a fact that your assumptions cannot disprove.