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How to Try Out Management

138 points by acconrad 7y ago

charliepark 7y ago
This is excellent. Honestly, even experienced managers would do well to read it. Actually, ICs should read it as well, so you have better context for your manager’s priorities.
jkingsbery 7y ago
I get why they do this - I think in a lot of companies, a first-line tech manager usually does some IC tasks mixed in with managing tasks. Having been in a similar role, I've found that the reality isn't that there are just dials you can tweak as the author says, but that time management is much more like what's described in http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html ... Once you take on direct reports, your day just gets interrupted more, and when it's interrupted more it's hard to do the same kind of deep thinking through problems. If you are new to managing, chances are you'll be managing people earlier in their careers as well. Since those new in their career need more guidance, you'll be interrupted a lot. You can, of course, create blocks of time on your calendar. But as a manager, things come up: if someone on your team resigns or is having a performance issue you need to deal with, you can't just leave that for the next day.
- acconrad 7y ago
  > If you are new to managing, chances are you'll be managing people earlier in their careers as well. I agree with many parts of your comment but I think this comment warrants some caution. In many cases, adding in a layer of new leadership is to help spread the EM demands across all ICs, not just those new to their careers. I have TLMs who manage senior and principal engineers. My job, as director, is to guide those TLMs into understanding the exact needs of those direct reports, regardless of the ICs rank or role. Everyone is unique in their needs - not only in their role but as people.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
fatnoah 7y ago
>Add on another 8 weeks (16 in total) before introducing constructive feedback so they are used to your communication style. There are lots of good tidbits in there, but I can't agree with waiting 4 months to offer constructive feedback. Failing to provide constructive feedback is one of the biggest mistakes new managers make.
- acconrad 7y ago
  Thanks for the feedback. This was based on the guidance I received from "The Effective Manager." The idea being that brand new managers need enough reps in conducting one-on-ones before they start introducing new concepts. So... 1. 8 weeks practicing 1-1s 2. 8 weeks practicing positive feedback 3. Introduce constructive feedback Obviously YMMV so if you build rapport quicker you should totally incorporate things more quickly
- MiroF 7y ago
  Ditto. This was the one part of the article that stood out as to me, I would certainly like to receive constructive feedback before four months.
beeschlenker 7y ago
So you are telling us the Dow Jones is down 4,000 in the last week because of a sickness with a death rate of 2.3%...are you sure it is not something else? Global stock markets have lost $6 trillion in value in six days. It possibly because Soros, Putin, and others are moving money out of the US so that it cannot be taken in lawsuits resulting from their involvement in the story below. Unless of course you believe it is because of COVID19 aka Coronavirus, a sickness with a 2.3% death rate. See below: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/02/study-72000-covid-19-patients-finds-23-death-rate http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/02/study-720... Attorney General Barr is not resigning; not before President Trump does. Barr is the same as Mueller,Pelosi,Schiff, & Nadler: feign opposition to cover the true motive of obstruction to keep Trump in power. Supreme Court Justice Alito & FBI Deputy Director Wray also on board. See latest updates "Impeachment" Is A Diversion And Delay - Part II: Blocking of the "impeachment" witnesses was collusion planned before the new year. Listen to an FBI agent's disclosure from January 1, 2O2O here. The President was to resign late summer securing election for DNC. See latest updates. Here is the zip file, which was also made available in the 3Jan2O2O update. The file within is VID_20200101_201948.mp3. Turn up the volume and put on headphones. BB10Mp3Footage31Dec1Jan.zip 122.4mb https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IXOOhQhHybwky8Z5pGdr9ZXhWpIUazmi/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IXOOhQhHybwky8Z5pGdr9ZXhWpI... The dialogue about the impeachment starts near the beginning. Having Biden in the White House is as good as Trump or anyone else in their organization. Obviously Schiff and Nadler pledged their allegiance to the organization by raping boys on the record, with their task being to drag out an impeachment designed to obstruct and delay any real efforts to remove the President, thus keeping Trump in power. The witness blocking was to cause an apparent uproar delaying things with legal actions until late Summer. Soon after, the President would resign, leaving any other candidate with not enough time or support to compete with an opportunistic Biden, who is as good as Trump or any other Illuminati friendly politician in the Presidency. 172 page PDF [last update: March|5|2O2O]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W2qxVc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W... Previously reported: \Wag The Dog: first was feigned impeachment hearings meant to obstruct, now an attack on Iranians in Iraq. Here is what they are trying to distract from & cover up to retain power. $100+ billion in bribes to the highest offices in this country. 815+ deaths from child rapes to prove loyalty! See the latest PDF updates: FBI Director Wray, AG Barr, SoD Shanahan, & SoS Pompeo each raped boys and were paid billions in bribes for a Soros & Koch funded child rape org. So did Trump & his "impeachment" team Nadler,Schiff,Mueller.So did media moguls Redstone,Murdoch,Moonves. What are they trying to set up? Who can arrest them since they are all bribed and in on it ? Their strategy to stay in every office and obstruct until forced to leave no matter what. Feigning impeachment: see page 13O. utoijnhkverw, vpojnepmberv. \\if;Download the video/audio file, put on headphones and turn up the volume. You will hear these people committing these crimes. Audio was broadcast into my apartment by outdated surveillance equipment illegally embedded within my walls. This very same technology was being used to broadcast me to the internet for five years without my consent. I own this footage. Please use this to prosecute all found within. Note:: I am obliviously speaking throughout the video, and it can be quite loud at times relative to the desired content. The are dozens more links, including these, that can be found in this PDF that was last updated on 5 Mar 2O2O: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W2qxVc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W... All members of the "Illuminati"; "....an underground organization of homosexuals and child rapists..." (from pg 26: Barack Obama with Jack Dorsey). President Donald Trump: Demands a $4 billion dollar bribe here at 10:18am 4Jan2019: 3JanCh3_900-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77YG0Vr/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77... 3JanCh2_900-1100-avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LUmVygl_q0XVs8h2cWr8jZl-24fY0vBB/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LUmVygl_q0XVs8h2cWr8jZl-24f... 3JanCh4_1000-1100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZpP1pJbJakBgg-y-MWNozTxp3wJojHge/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZpP1pJbJakBgg-y-MWNozTxp3wJ... President Trump rapes and kills twelve boys, including five boys in a "who can rape five boys to death the fastest" game: 14JanCh3_600.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ufPmglde9Mep0m6xYMJ9c4TWTjj258zB/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ufPmglde9Mep0m6xYMJ9c4TWTjj... 14JanCh2_600-700.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/136qLJdEn8eCs9tI4QtIxl4opW_Lw_gCF/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/136qLJdEn8eCs9tI4QtIxl4opW_L... Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: Accepting a $3 billion dollar bribe at 10:33 am on the 17 Jan 2019 to ensure Asian boys can get through the border at "Monterrey" undocumented to be raped: 17JanCh3_949-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eodHu4o5Cm3xEWhDqipSuTj-M1CZUvmE/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eodHu4o5Cm3xEWhDqipSuTj-M1C... 17JanCh4_1017-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y-nWEQbempkVZSz230j9wTyduZNjDmnk/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y-nWEQbempkVZSz230j9wTyduZN... Speaker Nancy Pelosi also "preps" boys with First Lady Melania Trump, defined as in she performs oral sex on the boys’ penis and anus, as a child rapist like Henry Porter would, while trying to remove fecal matter from the boy prior to handing them over to be raped and then subsequently murdered, for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who apparently decides he would rather just have ten billion dollars instead. US Attorney for Western New York James Kennedy rapes these boys instead: 12JanCh3_1533-1638.mp3 Yopujwmcwef, cwhbenclewgve. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AgFkDsbPbI4b5Xd3Wbz2EVNNx25kW2Oz/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AgFkDsbPbI4b5Xd3Wbz2EVNNx25... Attorney General William Barr with FBI Deputy Director Christopher Wray raped and killed boys for billions in bribes in Buffalo, New York on the 17th Jan2019 at 7:50am: 18JanCh4_700mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UIdZkS5ZVksZdHYsnHk2t5losi0N0Bp7/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UIdZkS5ZVksZdHYsnHk2t5losi0... 18JanCh2_700.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFK8IAxm5pQVqZv9L518nfgP7_odB2Um/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFK8IAxm5pQVqZv9L518nfgP7_o... 18JanCh3_725-.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG5ej59Ic8RT9UhbyMdwT0BDcKIifGGm/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG5ej59Ic8RT9UhbyMdwT0BDcKI... Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan each raped and killed boys on 5Jan'19 at 17:39 for billion$ in bribes:. skpoenkb, erbopremb. 5JanCh2_1721-1818.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eSlD4otX4KZqWXboQM92Mu-6J02Mjwrg/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eSlD4otX4KZqWXboQM92Mu-6J02... Leaders of the "impeachment" effort Jerrold Nadler, Robert Mueller, and Adam Schiff all rape and kill boys between 11:20pm and 1:10am: 14JanCh4_2300-0000.mp3 Nadler starts at twenty minutes in- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU66GuU/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU... 14JanCh2_2304-2359.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9WLr1x1/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9W... Mueller at 12:25am, next is Schiff who starts at 12:55-ish: 15JanCh2_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62tgCkj/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62... 15JanCh2_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_rGSFH/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_... 15JanCh4_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2OQnwZ/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2... 15JanCh4_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw746LeCL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw74... Complete Media Protection: Lester Holt, of NBC NightlyNews, apparently a member of the Illuminati since the 1980's, along with ABC Nightly News lead anchor David Muir, stop over to the Porter studio in Buffalo, New York on 14Jan2019 at 5:00 am. They both rape and kill about two dozen boys by 6:00 am. Muir starts around 5:15am, then Holt about 5:38 am. Multi-billionaire Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp and also Fox Corporation, takes his turn after Holt. Video links below: 14JanCh3_500-601.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX3o7UL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX... 14JanCh2_530-600.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1RwidV/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1... Adding to the media protection and reason this is not picked up by the media, CBS and Viacom owner Sumner Redstone and Leslie Moonves rape and kill boys following the President. 14JanCh3_700.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXaB4aI0/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXa... 14JanCh2_700-800.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWYKfRDp/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWY... 172 page PDF [last updated: MAR|5|2O2O]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W2qxVc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W... \\. Please repost in USA! Post gets censored in US Recently more relevant: From page 49, Senator Mitch McConnell: At 1632 Senator Mitch McConnell checks into the Porter camera system inquiring if he can be part of the "eviction" for $10 million dollars. He is informed by group members that there are enough people for the event already and his participation is not necessary. At 1634 McConnell states "I fucked 15 kids, how am I not getting paid by you?" He is dismissed by Donald Reeves with "I think that will be all Mr. McConnell." 13JanCh3_1600-1700.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L7bqOpvaEWmLiJpMhJNQDrfsQAHtsX8-/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L7bqOpvaEWmLiJpMhJNQDrfsQAH...
Traster 7y ago
Some of the specific advice in this guide is great, but I really think all the advice about managing people is about competencies and strategies that a good engineer should also be developing. People get caught out because for an engineer the role often doesn't involve explicit one to ones or anything with other team members, but the best way to have an influence beyond your own skills is through your ability to influence other people. The only other thing I think is missing in this article (and fair enough, it's long, and you can't cover everything) - is about the expectations. One of the most difficult parts of making your way into the glorious role of Lower management is that you're generally in a new role, and so it's up to you, your subordinates, and your boss to define what is your role. Very often your boss was doing your role (as part of their larger role) previously and it'll be a transition to get them to a place where they're coming to you instead of directly to your team, and it's clear when people should be coming to you.
- acconrad 7y ago
  > it's up to you, your subordinates, and your boss to define what is your role Totally! And this is exactly why we are using this TLM role so you can try before you buy into full management responsibilities. One of the gravest errors we make in software is assuming that the only way to advance in your career is into management. That said, it's also unfair to assume that great coders will never want to manage. Having a trial role that blends the two responsibilities de-risks the business in new management while allowing developers to see if these new sets of expectations are congruent with how they want to develop their careers.
- munificent 7y ago
  > I really think all the advice about managing people is about competencies and strategies that a good engineer should also be developing. I agree with this. At the same time, I think it's important to tease apart skills from rewards. I take all of the skills that are important for managers really seriously and care a lot about them. I work hard on my communication skills, empathy, task and time management, ability to create structure, etc. Those are basically the suite of management skills. At the same time, I don't get much reward from a management role. When I have been in a lead role, it's been gratifying to see my team do well, but often not as gratifying as the feeling of making a thing myself. I just love building stuff more than I love coaching and creating structure for other people. So it is important even in an IC role to work on the skills managers also need, but that doesn't necessarily imply that everyone should aim to do management work.
lala26in 7y ago
The advise written has lot of implicit assumptions. A light reading makes it feel good. I am skeptical about some thoughts written, but a good place to start thinking for newbie.
kqr 7y ago
Regarding feedback: "Please be on time" is not a very valuable encouragement. It's obvious. Of course one should be on time. The next sentence should have been, "What is preventing you from being on time?" Or something like it.
- codingdave 7y ago
  Or even, "What can I do for you to help make this happen?"
  - hinkley 7y ago
    If you want to go the Joel Spolsky, "managing software teams is psychotherapy" route, then two other questions are "why do you dread coming to work" and "what were you working on that distracted you from the time?" Being late to (most kinds of) meeting while preventing a production outage, or helping another team, should not just be allowed, it should be respected. This one I think happens more often than people think. And if you keep sending the message that your meeting is more important than the health of the company, well, eventually you're going to get what you asked for.
- jodrellblank 7y ago
  > It's obvious. Of course one should be on time. It's not at all obvious. People respond to incentives, look at the incentives given by switching them around: - "When you are on time for meetings, you have to spend more time in the meeting". The attendee likely didn't have any say in the agenda items, and isn't interested in many/all of them. Because the meetings apparently still finish on time (as they have less time for the agenda items), they neither overrun nor get rescheduled, this could be Parkinson's Law of work expands to fit the time available. It's not clear "less time to spend on agenda items" is a problem, it is clear that "less time in meetings" is desirable. - "When you are on time, the team will trust you to be on time". That isn't any incentive for anything; "the team will expect you to be on time proportionally to how often you are on time" is no statement at all. - "It inconveniences the team". Allegedly; they all still spend the same amount of time in the meeting either way. The lateness means there is less time for the items, not that the meeting overruns or is rescheduled. Perhaps, scheduling too long for the meeting is inconveniencing the team more, but being late for a meeting which can still do what it planned, is no inconvenience. - "The team will trust you more". This may incentivize people, but it a) isn't obviously true; the team may respect you more for being busy, or b) wish they could do the same. If it is true, it's not obvious that it's bad - it may be that it means they won't invite you to more meetings (hooray), or they won't dump work on you trusting you to get it done (hooray). It apparently doesn't mean the employee is being fired, which is an odd way to respond to an employee you don't trust. Paraphrasing a tweet I can't find now from a fictional manager perspective: "It's difficult to find a time for a meeting which suits every attendee. Easier to choose a time myself. Please make every effort to attend". Is the employee late because meetings are scheduled at a particularly bad time for them? It isn't obvious that the meeting is, or should be, the employee's top priority. "When you are late, nothing happens except you hear an earful of status signalling by people who were on time"; that's not going to change anything, is it?
mkchoi212 7y ago
At work, my manager's profile image on slack is mapped to ":chartsandgraphs:" mainly because it seems like he only deals with charts and graphs :P All the points made in the blog post is valid but people should take note that their experience may differ wildly depending on the team you are managing and the goals of that team.
Havoc 7y ago
I like that - author is clearly clued up I find it quite fascinating how this concept of moving into management is different from finance. There is still a lot of emphasis on actual doing here. Which makes sense in the "technical lead" sense of the title e.g. It would never have occurred to me to include pair programming as part of management Article also seems to imply a fairly flat organization. i.e. managing very few people / grades. By the time our guys get designated manager they've got 20 people reporting to them & have realistically been "managing" for years already.
- acconrad 7y ago
  > By the time our guys get designated manager they've got 20 people reporting to them Oof, I hope not directly. Based on this evidence (also in An Elegant Puzzle) you wouldn't want more than 8-10 direct reports: https://lethain.com/sizing-engineering-teams/ https://lethain.com/sizing-engineering-teams/
  - ska 7y ago
    Poster didn't specify if it was direct reports or span of 20. That said, if you are correct and it's direct reports - agree that's bad sign.
    - hinkley 7y ago
      If it's indirect reports, that means there's an org tree 'beneath' you... How are you not already a manager in that case?
      - ska 7y ago
        Right, that's what "span" means. It would be a big step for a first management role, but not insane. The first time I did it got up to about that number in less than 3 months, so not day 1 but not far off it. This happened by having a regular sized (i.e half dozen) team first, and hiring another dozen person team soon after where it made sense to put them under my group. The only reason we tried that is that a) things were going well and b) I had good mentorship in the role with the commitment of real help (i.e. time) from them if things started to get shaky.
hinkley 7y ago
My first manager was an ex coder who I remember for two things. One of them was that he would constantly lament giving up development for management. That has been hanging around me like a spectre ever since. I know a few things. I know that some aspects of our development strategy are not under my control, and there's little I can do besides beg and cajole. I know that line managers don't have much more control over that process, and that if you get any higher in the org then you won't even see code let alone touch it. I also know, through my career and volunteer work, that I can manage about 6 people sustainably. And that pigeonholes me into line manager where I get none of the things I want. And because of that, I've barely gazed at the grass on that side of that fence, let alone yearned for it. I'll continue to do tech lead and mentoring work and the major changes from here on out will be the kind and reach of the projects I associate with, not my status within those projects.
- jtreminio 7y ago
  > who I remember for two things I'll bite, what's the second thing?
  - hinkley 7y ago
    Oh, I introduced him to “kakipea” (kaki no tane with peanuts) , a Japanese snack food. He alternated between shoving money into my hand when we went to the Asian market for lunch and then cursing me around a mouthful of them the next several days and calling me his dealer.
hinkley 7y ago
> Why not call them a Junior/Associate Engineering Manager? How about "because putting Junior or Associate in someone's title diminishes their importance to the project and these people are some of our most senior technical people. Making a joke out of them will encourage them to go work for someone else"?
cmarschner 7y ago
Nice summary of what makes a tech lead manager. I could have said it in similar words. I was managing teams of up to 8 people this way. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but I basically always managed teams. Until I hit a roadblock. It was a time when I was working with very little coaching from above. I thought I was doing well, I had great loyalty in the team, and I thought that I would soon advance to being an “ordinary” manager. Change of director, and much more involvement of the new person in what I was doing day to day, and soon I got very clear signals that I would not be manager material. That was it. Soon, the world was turned upside down, and a very different set of people came into lead positions, while others left. Apparently, a different culture had set in. What I had to learn over time - - managing up and managing across is at least as important as managing down. You can be the greatest coach to your team members, but if your prime internal partner isn’t talking favorably of you you’re not in a great position. I had only a few presentations to do for upper management, but those did not go well - partly because of content, but also partly because at the time I didn’t come across as confident. I wasn’t able to sell what we were doing, and that didn’t land well. - the management that surrounded me liked the “sensing” type, in Myers-Briggs nomenclature, wheras I’m deeply rooted “intuitive”. What does this mean? Sensing types perceive the world as it is, through their senses. They value concrete actions and tend to favor short-term thinking. They get unconfortable when things are too abstract. Intuitive types create the world in their heads, and then bend the real world to become close to their imagination. You should know the culture you are surrounded by and how you fit in. Chances are that as a manager you are better of being a “sensing” type. As a leader, though, being a visionary might be just fine. These are needed, too, but they probably have not advanced through a management ladder. - if your talent is in being a tech leader, this talent might become a liability if you’re leading teams. In fact you might have to deal with a team that has quite average technical talent compared to you, and you still need to let them go in order to maximize the team’s potential. Otherwise, chances are that they continue to look up to you to give them the technical direction, and that is neither a great way to boost their careers, nor a good way to remove yourselves as the bottleneck. - There is an initial impulse to try showing what a great manager you are by asking for a large team. The opposite is true. Large teams are a liability, and require you to deliver large impact. It is better to be impact driven from the start, then the team size will follow suit. There might also be cases where you should ask for your team to shrink. - The manager is also responsible for setting the tone, the culture of the team. This should be aligned with the business, not with the team itself. Typical example is when there are competing teams with overlapping responsibilities. A bad manager might just become competitive and play zero-sum games. If you’re doing it right, though, you become more of a diplomat, and reach a agreements that put both teams and the business in a position with less frictions. This might in fact be your only job for a long time, and so you better have a team that can work independently on the technical aspects. Long story short, management is a profession that is very different from a development role and a TLM role. Being good at one is not a good predictor if the other, and in fact I would say they are slightly negatively correlated.
ska 7y ago
I've always struggled a bit with the use of tech lead type approaches. I know it can work, but there are some real pitfalls and more effort needed than is often expected. For people to succeed in it they need to understand that the skill development will require hard work and focus, and they will probably not ever be as effective in either role as they would doing only one. The organization side needs to understand the latter point too, but also that without real mentoring and support this will likely fail. Even worse if the failure is then blamed on the insufficiently supported new manager. NB: I'm not suggesting this is an issue in OPs case, just that it's a common pattern I've seen in different organizations. Something to keep in mind is that this is an example a difficult type of hybrid job, one where the roles themselves are basically orthogonal in the sense that doing well at one can limit your effectiveness at parts of the other. Such jobs are inherently unstable and without additional effort will tend to fall apart. Compare this to hybrid roles that reinforce each other (e.g. editor/writer, some design/implementation roles, etc.).
luord 7y ago
While most of the article is good (not that my opinion as a developer without a keen interest in management matters that much), there's a particular sentence I can't agree with: > Fortunately for you, coding is no longer your highest value skill. No, coding is the most valuable skill; without the code, there's no product. Maybe I'm biased, but I just can't agree with the implication that what creates the product is not the most important part of, well, the company selling that product. It's why, if I ever manage to start a company, the developers in it would always have the highest salaries possible (within the company at least).
thatiscool 7y ago
this is a great summary.
grawprog 7y ago
This is just my own personal opinion based on what i've seen but, some people should be managers, they enjoy it, they're great at it, it's their career path. Some people shouldn't be managers, no matter how good they are at something, it bores them, they don't like directing and organizing people, they like working on direct specific problems, they are actually really good at whatever skill it is they're being considered as manager for. Some anectdota, a friend of mine, was really good.at.their job, they'd worked hard for the better part of a decade, trained some good people and grew the company, took a role as manager while his trainees took on his old duties. His job became pretty easy, his employees were good and didn't need much management, the rest of what he needed to do was pretty simple by comparison, his job came with a pay rise, but, he became fucking miserable. He didn't get to work on the day to day things any more, when problem did occur, he couldn't really get his hands dirty, he'd delegate and the problem would get solved. Though, when something did actually go wrong, he was responsible, when there were complaints by employees, disputes and other things, he ended up dealing with them and he hated it. Contrast that with another friend, he was good at his job, but didn't really care that much about specifics, tended to already be the kind of person who would delegate or organize, always the party host or the event organizer kind of person, also got promoted to a management position and couldn't be happier. He's the kind of person who'd always talk about the results of things, would brag about group achievements like personal achievements, and generally always cared more about end results than processes and from what I know, is a pretty damn good manager and is happy with their career path. My first friend though recently had the opportunity to go back to a more technical role and has been a fair bit happier since. Just some of my observations anyway.

138 points by acconrad 7y ago

This is excellent. Honestly, even experienced managers would do well to read it. Actually, ICs should read it as well, so you have better context for your manager’s priorities.

jkingsbery 7y ago

I get why they do this - I think in a lot of companies, a first-line tech manager usually does some IC tasks mixed in with managing tasks. Having been in a similar role, I've found that the reality isn't that there are just dials you can tweak as the author says, but that time management is much more like what's described in http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html ... Once you take on direct reports, your day just gets interrupted more, and when it's interrupted more it's hard to do the same kind of deep thinking through problems. If you are new to managing, chances are you'll be managing people earlier in their careers as well. Since those new in their career need more guidance, you'll be interrupted a lot. You can, of course, create blocks of time on your calendar. But as a manager, things come up: if someone on your team resigns or is having a performance issue you need to deal with, you can't just leave that for the next day.

acconrad 7y ago
> If you are new to managing, chances are you'll be managing people earlier in their careers as well. I agree with many parts of your comment but I think this comment warrants some caution. In many cases, adding in a layer of new leadership is to help spread the EM demands across all ICs, not just those new to their careers. I have TLMs who manage senior and principal engineers. My job, as director, is to guide those TLMs into understanding the exact needs of those direct reports, regardless of the ICs rank or role. Everyone is unique in their needs - not only in their role but as people.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

fatnoah 7y ago

>Add on another 8 weeks (16 in total) before introducing constructive feedback so they are used to your communication style. There are lots of good tidbits in there, but I can't agree with waiting 4 months to offer constructive feedback. Failing to provide constructive feedback is one of the biggest mistakes new managers make.

acconrad 7y ago
Thanks for the feedback. This was based on the guidance I received from "The Effective Manager." The idea being that brand new managers need enough reps in conducting one-on-ones before they start introducing new concepts. So... 1. 8 weeks practicing 1-1s 2. 8 weeks practicing positive feedback 3. Introduce constructive feedback Obviously YMMV so if you build rapport quicker you should totally incorporate things more quickly
MiroF 7y ago
Ditto. This was the one part of the article that stood out as to me, I would certainly like to receive constructive feedback before four months.

beeschlenker 7y ago

So you are telling us the Dow Jones is down 4,000 in the last week because of a sickness with a death rate of 2.3%...are you sure it is not something else? Global stock markets have lost $6 trillion in value in six days. It possibly because Soros, Putin, and others are moving money out of the US so that it cannot be taken in lawsuits resulting from their involvement in the story below. Unless of course you believe it is because of COVID19 aka Coronavirus, a sickness with a 2.3% death rate. See below: http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/02/study-72000-covid-19-patients-finds-23-death-rate http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/02/study-720... Attorney General Barr is not resigning; not before President Trump does. Barr is the same as Mueller,Pelosi,Schiff, & Nadler: feign opposition to cover the true motive of obstruction to keep Trump in power. Supreme Court Justice Alito & FBI Deputy Director Wray also on board. See latest updates "Impeachment" Is A Diversion And Delay - Part II: Blocking of the "impeachment" witnesses was collusion planned before the new year. Listen to an FBI agent's disclosure from January 1, 2O2O here. The President was to resign late summer securing election for DNC. See latest updates. Here is the zip file, which was also made available in the 3Jan2O2O update. The file within is VID_20200101_201948.mp3. Turn up the volume and put on headphones. BB10Mp3Footage31Dec1Jan.zip 122.4mb https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IXOOhQhHybwky8Z5pGdr9ZXhWpIUazmi/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IXOOhQhHybwky8Z5pGdr9ZXhWpI... The dialogue about the impeachment starts near the beginning. Having Biden in the White House is as good as Trump or anyone else in their organization. Obviously Schiff and Nadler pledged their allegiance to the organization by raping boys on the record, with their task being to drag out an impeachment designed to obstruct and delay any real efforts to remove the President, thus keeping Trump in power. The witness blocking was to cause an apparent uproar delaying things with legal actions until late Summer. Soon after, the President would resign, leaving any other candidate with not enough time or support to compete with an opportunistic Biden, who is as good as Trump or any other Illuminati friendly politician in the Presidency. 172 page PDF [last update: March|5|2O2O]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W2qxVc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W... Previously reported: \Wag The Dog: first was feigned impeachment hearings meant to obstruct, now an attack on Iranians in Iraq. Here is what they are trying to distract from & cover up to retain power. $100+ billion in bribes to the highest offices in this country. 815+ deaths from child rapes to prove loyalty! See the latest PDF updates: FBI Director Wray, AG Barr, SoD Shanahan, & SoS Pompeo each raped boys and were paid billions in bribes for a Soros & Koch funded child rape org. So did Trump & his "impeachment" team Nadler,Schiff,Mueller.So did media moguls Redstone,Murdoch,Moonves. What are they trying to set up? Who can arrest them since they are all bribed and in on it ? Their strategy to stay in every office and obstruct until forced to leave no matter what. Feigning impeachment: see page 13O. utoijnhkverw, vpojnepmberv. \\if;Download the video/audio file, put on headphones and turn up the volume. You will hear these people committing these crimes. Audio was broadcast into my apartment by outdated surveillance equipment illegally embedded within my walls. This very same technology was being used to broadcast me to the internet for five years without my consent. I own this footage. Please use this to prosecute all found within. Note:: I am obliviously speaking throughout the video, and it can be quite loud at times relative to the desired content. The are dozens more links, including these, that can be found in this PDF that was last updated on 5 Mar 2O2O: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W2qxVc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W... All members of the "Illuminati"; "....an underground organization of homosexuals and child rapists..." (from pg 26: Barack Obama with Jack Dorsey). President Donald Trump: Demands a $4 billion dollar bribe here at 10:18am 4Jan2019: 3JanCh3_900-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77YG0Vr/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Grdr8xF2psKNsuYlEnl9dIRV-77... 3JanCh2_900-1100-avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LUmVygl_q0XVs8h2cWr8jZl-24fY0vBB/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LUmVygl_q0XVs8h2cWr8jZl-24f... 3JanCh4_1000-1100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZpP1pJbJakBgg-y-MWNozTxp3wJojHge/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZpP1pJbJakBgg-y-MWNozTxp3wJ... President Trump rapes and kills twelve boys, including five boys in a "who can rape five boys to death the fastest" game: 14JanCh3_600.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ufPmglde9Mep0m6xYMJ9c4TWTjj258zB/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ufPmglde9Mep0m6xYMJ9c4TWTjj... 14JanCh2_600-700.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/136qLJdEn8eCs9tI4QtIxl4opW_Lw_gCF/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/136qLJdEn8eCs9tI4QtIxl4opW_L... Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi: Accepting a $3 billion dollar bribe at 10:33 am on the 17 Jan 2019 to ensure Asian boys can get through the border at "Monterrey" undocumented to be raped: 17JanCh3_949-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eodHu4o5Cm3xEWhDqipSuTj-M1CZUvmE/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eodHu4o5Cm3xEWhDqipSuTj-M1C... 17JanCh4_1017-1100.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y-nWEQbempkVZSz230j9wTyduZNjDmnk/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y-nWEQbempkVZSz230j9wTyduZN... Speaker Nancy Pelosi also "preps" boys with First Lady Melania Trump, defined as in she performs oral sex on the boys’ penis and anus, as a child rapist like Henry Porter would, while trying to remove fecal matter from the boy prior to handing them over to be raped and then subsequently murdered, for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who apparently decides he would rather just have ten billion dollars instead. US Attorney for Western New York James Kennedy rapes these boys instead: 12JanCh3_1533-1638.mp3 Yopujwmcwef, cwhbenclewgve. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AgFkDsbPbI4b5Xd3Wbz2EVNNx25kW2Oz/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AgFkDsbPbI4b5Xd3Wbz2EVNNx25... Attorney General William Barr with FBI Deputy Director Christopher Wray raped and killed boys for billions in bribes in Buffalo, New York on the 17th Jan2019 at 7:50am: 18JanCh4_700mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UIdZkS5ZVksZdHYsnHk2t5losi0N0Bp7/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UIdZkS5ZVksZdHYsnHk2t5losi0... 18JanCh2_700.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFK8IAxm5pQVqZv9L518nfgP7_odB2Um/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DFK8IAxm5pQVqZv9L518nfgP7_o... 18JanCh3_725-.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG5ej59Ic8RT9UhbyMdwT0BDcKIifGGm/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DG5ej59Ic8RT9UhbyMdwT0BDcKI... Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan each raped and killed boys on 5Jan'19 at 17:39 for billion$ in bribes:. skpoenkb, erbopremb. 5JanCh2_1721-1818.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eSlD4otX4KZqWXboQM92Mu-6J02Mjwrg/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eSlD4otX4KZqWXboQM92Mu-6J02... Leaders of the "impeachment" effort Jerrold Nadler, Robert Mueller, and Adam Schiff all rape and kill boys between 11:20pm and 1:10am: 14JanCh4_2300-0000.mp3 Nadler starts at twenty minutes in- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU66GuU/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kuvv2Zmbw5Jw7onbRI2hCZ0M8FU... 14JanCh2_2304-2359.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9WLr1x1/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nofp5xF-aXXcCSgQVwj30KlzE9W... Mueller at 12:25am, next is Schiff who starts at 12:55-ish: 15JanCh2_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62tgCkj/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EsmHfguwBuo2PbavJ1WYyhiML62... 15JanCh2_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_rGSFH/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZnWRnBryalNQu2yJmfJUdS2pA_... 15JanCh4_000-100.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2OQnwZ/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEDJR6jb6ARpcNnWJTokBUKb2J2... 15JanCh4_100-200.mp3 https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw746LeCL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/173aYWvWHH4VGht1h_2nM0IMdw74... Complete Media Protection: Lester Holt, of NBC NightlyNews, apparently a member of the Illuminati since the 1980's, along with ABC Nightly News lead anchor David Muir, stop over to the Porter studio in Buffalo, New York on 14Jan2019 at 5:00 am. They both rape and kill about two dozen boys by 6:00 am. Muir starts around 5:15am, then Holt about 5:38 am. Multi-billionaire Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp and also Fox Corporation, takes his turn after Holt. Video links below: 14JanCh3_500-601.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX3o7UL/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1i7NKepeyG_FfdQRrM7KsnFOZOOX... 14JanCh2_530-600.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1RwidV/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NZzgN5ilI7ToroU5cfqMaL4o2u1... Adding to the media protection and reason this is not picked up by the media, CBS and Viacom owner Sumner Redstone and Leslie Moonves rape and kill boys following the President. 14JanCh3_700.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXaB4aI0/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/10XDw6x3ldnnQiq7oIjpdYVENyXa... 14JanCh2_700-800.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWYKfRDp/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NS_e6AzEZ05wnfljkGMETGU5CWY... 172 page PDF [last updated: MAR|5|2O2O]: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W2qxVc/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S7T_kDv48E40eHzus6CTXHxcm0W... \\. Please repost in USA! Post gets censored in US Recently more relevant: From page 49, Senator Mitch McConnell: At 1632 Senator Mitch McConnell checks into the Porter camera system inquiring if he can be part of the "eviction" for $10 million dollars. He is informed by group members that there are enough people for the event already and his participation is not necessary. At 1634 McConnell states "I fucked 15 kids, how am I not getting paid by you?" He is dismissed by Donald Reeves with "I think that will be all Mr. McConnell." 13JanCh3_1600-1700.avi https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L7bqOpvaEWmLiJpMhJNQDrfsQAHtsX8-/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1L7bqOpvaEWmLiJpMhJNQDrfsQAH...

Traster 7y ago

Some of the specific advice in this guide is great, but I really think all the advice about managing people is about competencies and strategies that a good engineer should also be developing. People get caught out because for an engineer the role often doesn't involve explicit one to ones or anything with other team members, but the best way to have an influence beyond your own skills is through your ability to influence other people. The only other thing I think is missing in this article (and fair enough, it's long, and you can't cover everything) - is about the expectations. One of the most difficult parts of making your way into the glorious role of Lower management is that you're generally in a new role, and so it's up to you, your subordinates, and your boss to define what is your role. Very often your boss was doing your role (as part of their larger role) previously and it'll be a transition to get them to a place where they're coming to you instead of directly to your team, and it's clear when people should be coming to you.

acconrad 7y ago
> it's up to you, your subordinates, and your boss to define what is your role Totally! And this is exactly why we are using this TLM role so you can try before you buy into full management responsibilities. One of the gravest errors we make in software is assuming that the only way to advance in your career is into management. That said, it's also unfair to assume that great coders will never want to manage. Having a trial role that blends the two responsibilities de-risks the business in new management while allowing developers to see if these new sets of expectations are congruent with how they want to develop their careers.
munificent 7y ago
> I really think all the advice about managing people is about competencies and strategies that a good engineer should also be developing. I agree with this. At the same time, I think it's important to tease apart skills from rewards. I take all of the skills that are important for managers really seriously and care a lot about them. I work hard on my communication skills, empathy, task and time management, ability to create structure, etc. Those are basically the suite of management skills. At the same time, I don't get much reward from a management role. When I have been in a lead role, it's been gratifying to see my team do well, but often not as gratifying as the feeling of making a thing myself. I just love building stuff more than I love coaching and creating structure for other people. So it is important even in an IC role to work on the skills managers also need, but that doesn't necessarily imply that everyone should aim to do management work.

lala26in 7y ago

The advise written has lot of implicit assumptions. A light reading makes it feel good. I am skeptical about some thoughts written, but a good place to start thinking for newbie.

kqr 7y ago

Regarding feedback: "Please be on time" is not a very valuable encouragement. It's obvious. Of course one should be on time. The next sentence should have been, "What is preventing you from being on time?" Or something like it.

codingdave 7y ago
Or even, "What can I do for you to help make this happen?"
- hinkley 7y ago
  If you want to go the Joel Spolsky, "managing software teams is psychotherapy" route, then two other questions are "why do you dread coming to work" and "what were you working on that distracted you from the time?" Being late to (most kinds of) meeting while preventing a production outage, or helping another team, should not just be allowed, it should be respected. This one I think happens more often than people think. And if you keep sending the message that your meeting is more important than the health of the company, well, eventually you're going to get what you asked for.
jodrellblank 7y ago
> It's obvious. Of course one should be on time. It's not at all obvious. People respond to incentives, look at the incentives given by switching them around: - "When you are on time for meetings, you have to spend more time in the meeting". The attendee likely didn't have any say in the agenda items, and isn't interested in many/all of them. Because the meetings apparently still finish on time (as they have less time for the agenda items), they neither overrun nor get rescheduled, this could be Parkinson's Law of work expands to fit the time available. It's not clear "less time to spend on agenda items" is a problem, it is clear that "less time in meetings" is desirable. - "When you are on time, the team will trust you to be on time". That isn't any incentive for anything; "the team will expect you to be on time proportionally to how often you are on time" is no statement at all. - "It inconveniences the team". Allegedly; they all still spend the same amount of time in the meeting either way. The lateness means there is less time for the items, not that the meeting overruns or is rescheduled. Perhaps, scheduling too long for the meeting is inconveniencing the team more, but being late for a meeting which can still do what it planned, is no inconvenience. - "The team will trust you more". This may incentivize people, but it a) isn't obviously true; the team may respect you more for being busy, or b) wish they could do the same. If it is true, it's not obvious that it's bad - it may be that it means they won't invite you to more meetings (hooray), or they won't dump work on you trusting you to get it done (hooray). It apparently doesn't mean the employee is being fired, which is an odd way to respond to an employee you don't trust. Paraphrasing a tweet I can't find now from a fictional manager perspective: "It's difficult to find a time for a meeting which suits every attendee. Easier to choose a time myself. Please make every effort to attend". Is the employee late because meetings are scheduled at a particularly bad time for them? It isn't obvious that the meeting is, or should be, the employee's top priority. "When you are late, nothing happens except you hear an earful of status signalling by people who were on time"; that's not going to change anything, is it?

mkchoi212 7y ago

At work, my manager's profile image on slack is mapped to ":chartsandgraphs:" mainly because it seems like he only deals with charts and graphs :P All the points made in the blog post is valid but people should take note that their experience may differ wildly depending on the team you are managing and the goals of that team.

Havoc 7y ago

I like that - author is clearly clued up I find it quite fascinating how this concept of moving into management is different from finance. There is still a lot of emphasis on actual doing here. Which makes sense in the "technical lead" sense of the title e.g. It would never have occurred to me to include pair programming as part of management Article also seems to imply a fairly flat organization. i.e. managing very few people / grades. By the time our guys get designated manager they've got 20 people reporting to them & have realistically been "managing" for years already.

acconrad 7y ago
> By the time our guys get designated manager they've got 20 people reporting to them Oof, I hope not directly. Based on this evidence (also in An Elegant Puzzle) you wouldn't want more than 8-10 direct reports: https://lethain.com/sizing-engineering-teams/ https://lethain.com/sizing-engineering-teams/
- ska 7y ago
  Poster didn't specify if it was direct reports or span of 20. That said, if you are correct and it's direct reports - agree that's bad sign.
  - hinkley 7y ago
    If it's indirect reports, that means there's an org tree 'beneath' you... How are you not already a manager in that case?
    - ska 7y ago
      Right, that's what "span" means. It would be a big step for a first management role, but not insane. The first time I did it got up to about that number in less than 3 months, so not day 1 but not far off it. This happened by having a regular sized (i.e half dozen) team first, and hiring another dozen person team soon after where it made sense to put them under my group. The only reason we tried that is that a) things were going well and b) I had good mentorship in the role with the commitment of real help (i.e. time) from them if things started to get shaky.

hinkley 7y ago

My first manager was an ex coder who I remember for two things. One of them was that he would constantly lament giving up development for management. That has been hanging around me like a spectre ever since. I know a few things. I know that some aspects of our development strategy are not under my control, and there's little I can do besides beg and cajole. I know that line managers don't have much more control over that process, and that if you get any higher in the org then you won't even see code let alone touch it. I also know, through my career and volunteer work, that I can manage about 6 people sustainably. And that pigeonholes me into line manager where I get none of the things I want. And because of that, I've barely gazed at the grass on that side of that fence, let alone yearned for it. I'll continue to do tech lead and mentoring work and the major changes from here on out will be the kind and reach of the projects I associate with, not my status within those projects.

jtreminio 7y ago
> who I remember for two things I'll bite, what's the second thing?
- hinkley 7y ago
  Oh, I introduced him to “kakipea” (kaki no tane with peanuts) , a Japanese snack food. He alternated between shoving money into my hand when we went to the Asian market for lunch and then cursing me around a mouthful of them the next several days and calling me his dealer.

hinkley 7y ago

> Why not call them a Junior/Associate Engineering Manager? How about "because putting Junior or Associate in someone's title diminishes their importance to the project and these people are some of our most senior technical people. Making a joke out of them will encourage them to go work for someone else"?

cmarschner 7y ago

Nice summary of what makes a tech lead manager. I could have said it in similar words. I was managing teams of up to 8 people this way. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but I basically always managed teams. Until I hit a roadblock. It was a time when I was working with very little coaching from above. I thought I was doing well, I had great loyalty in the team, and I thought that I would soon advance to being an “ordinary” manager. Change of director, and much more involvement of the new person in what I was doing day to day, and soon I got very clear signals that I would not be manager material. That was it. Soon, the world was turned upside down, and a very different set of people came into lead positions, while others left. Apparently, a different culture had set in. What I had to learn over time - - managing up and managing across is at least as important as managing down. You can be the greatest coach to your team members, but if your prime internal partner isn’t talking favorably of you you’re not in a great position. I had only a few presentations to do for upper management, but those did not go well - partly because of content, but also partly because at the time I didn’t come across as confident. I wasn’t able to sell what we were doing, and that didn’t land well. - the management that surrounded me liked the “sensing” type, in Myers-Briggs nomenclature, wheras I’m deeply rooted “intuitive”. What does this mean? Sensing types perceive the world as it is, through their senses. They value concrete actions and tend to favor short-term thinking. They get unconfortable when things are too abstract. Intuitive types create the world in their heads, and then bend the real world to become close to their imagination. You should know the culture you are surrounded by and how you fit in. Chances are that as a manager you are better of being a “sensing” type. As a leader, though, being a visionary might be just fine. These are needed, too, but they probably have not advanced through a management ladder. - if your talent is in being a tech leader, this talent might become a liability if you’re leading teams. In fact you might have to deal with a team that has quite average technical talent compared to you, and you still need to let them go in order to maximize the team’s potential. Otherwise, chances are that they continue to look up to you to give them the technical direction, and that is neither a great way to boost their careers, nor a good way to remove yourselves as the bottleneck. - There is an initial impulse to try showing what a great manager you are by asking for a large team. The opposite is true. Large teams are a liability, and require you to deliver large impact. It is better to be impact driven from the start, then the team size will follow suit. There might also be cases where you should ask for your team to shrink. - The manager is also responsible for setting the tone, the culture of the team. This should be aligned with the business, not with the team itself. Typical example is when there are competing teams with overlapping responsibilities. A bad manager might just become competitive and play zero-sum games. If you’re doing it right, though, you become more of a diplomat, and reach a agreements that put both teams and the business in a position with less frictions. This might in fact be your only job for a long time, and so you better have a team that can work independently on the technical aspects. Long story short, management is a profession that is very different from a development role and a TLM role. Being good at one is not a good predictor if the other, and in fact I would say they are slightly negatively correlated.

ska 7y ago

I've always struggled a bit with the use of tech lead type approaches. I know it can work, but there are some real pitfalls and more effort needed than is often expected. For people to succeed in it they need to understand that the skill development will require hard work and focus, and they will probably not ever be as effective in either role as they would doing only one. The organization side needs to understand the latter point too, but also that without real mentoring and support this will likely fail. Even worse if the failure is then blamed on the insufficiently supported new manager. NB: I'm not suggesting this is an issue in OPs case, just that it's a common pattern I've seen in different organizations. Something to keep in mind is that this is an example a difficult type of hybrid job, one where the roles themselves are basically orthogonal in the sense that doing well at one can limit your effectiveness at parts of the other. Such jobs are inherently unstable and without additional effort will tend to fall apart. Compare this to hybrid roles that reinforce each other (e.g. editor/writer, some design/implementation roles, etc.).

luord 7y ago

While most of the article is good (not that my opinion as a developer without a keen interest in management matters that much), there's a particular sentence I can't agree with: > Fortunately for you, coding is no longer your highest value skill. No, coding is the most valuable skill; without the code, there's no product. Maybe I'm biased, but I just can't agree with the implication that what creates the product is not the most important part of, well, the company selling that product. It's why, if I ever manage to start a company, the developers in it would always have the highest salaries possible (within the company at least).

thatiscool 7y ago

this is a great summary.

grawprog 7y ago

This is just my own personal opinion based on what i've seen but, some people should be managers, they enjoy it, they're great at it, it's their career path. Some people shouldn't be managers, no matter how good they are at something, it bores them, they don't like directing and organizing people, they like working on direct specific problems, they are actually really good at whatever skill it is they're being considered as manager for. Some anectdota, a friend of mine, was really good.at.their job, they'd worked hard for the better part of a decade, trained some good people and grew the company, took a role as manager while his trainees took on his old duties. His job became pretty easy, his employees were good and didn't need much management, the rest of what he needed to do was pretty simple by comparison, his job came with a pay rise, but, he became fucking miserable. He didn't get to work on the day to day things any more, when problem did occur, he couldn't really get his hands dirty, he'd delegate and the problem would get solved. Though, when something did actually go wrong, he was responsible, when there were complaints by employees, disputes and other things, he ended up dealing with them and he hated it. Contrast that with another friend, he was good at his job, but didn't really care that much about specifics, tended to already be the kind of person who would delegate or organize, always the party host or the event organizer kind of person, also got promoted to a management position and couldn't be happier. He's the kind of person who'd always talk about the results of things, would brag about group achievements like personal achievements, and generally always cared more about end results than processes and from what I know, is a pretty damn good manager and is happy with their career path. My first friend though recently had the opportunity to go back to a more technical role and has been a fair bit happier since. Just some of my observations anyway.