4 ms·
“Leading” is such a terrible word to describe the job of most software engineering managers(at least the ones I have met in my career). If it’s done correctly,
by noncoml 6y ago
“Leading” is such a terrible word to describe the job of most software engineering managers(at least the ones I have met in my career).
If it’s done correctly, in most cases it’s just firewall/interface between the rest of the company and the engineers of the team.
Dealing with upper management is not really “leading” imho. You are not leading the team unless you architect, design and code your team’s product.
Are you leading a team of surgeons if you haven’t seen the inside of a surgery room since you left school?
- amelius 6y agoSuggestions for a better word?
- gabereiser 6y agoServing your team - is a better phrase for this interference running.
- cortesoft 6y agoManager?
- sharadov 6y agoYou got me thinking.. "manager" truly means someone who should be managing resources and process, smoothing out the kinks and letting his team work like a well oiled machine. Unfortunately most managers are rarely this, they thrive on micro-management and road-blocking initiatives.
- cortesoft 6y agoWhat are you basing the idea that most managers aren’t like this from? All of my managers in my 15 year career have been about managing resources and process. I have yet to have a micro-managing manager.
- pmontra 6y agoMaking things easier for the team, solving problems before they become really problems, finding the resources. These sort of things.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- quadrifoliate 6y ago"Co-ordinator" describes the work that a lot of these managers do much better. A lot of my manager's work in spent in having meetings and such with other teams to find out things that would otherwise take the same amount of time out of 5 people's calendars.
- frongpik 6y agoSecretary? Some high level execs have such a secretary for scheduling stuff. In this case the team is that exec.
- ACow_Adonis 6y agobeauracracy/politics shield?
- Guest42 6y agoMy best managers were experts at that. Didn’t realize how good they were until they got poached. It helped that they were able to push back on things above them they knew to be harmful.
- jawns 6y agoThe description of the job in OP's post sounds like it's largely a project management role. I ended up in a similar role during my first job out of college, with a fancy title, managing people who all had more experience than me. I was chosen for the role because I was very detail-oriented and was willing to do the organizational work to make sure everything was running smoothly and on schedule. Not everybody enjoys that work; sometimes it can feel like secretarial work. But if you can do it well, it's a good way to start out your career.
- mlthoughts2018 6y agoAnyone writing code is not leading. That largely goes for Staff Engineers and up, not just managers. Architecture review, product strategy, ensuring knowledge transfer and robustness to turnover, developing hiring plans, and ensuring your people are set up for success and are set up for career growth - that is leading. Leading by implementing is a nasty anti-pattern, like a player-coach. It just means you’re doing a poor job of both by not focusing.
- noncoml 6y agoThe team leader/captain is a player not the coach. At least in “soccer”. Not sure about American Football.
- mlthoughts2018 6y agoCorrect, the captain is not a managerial or decision-making leader at levels higher than pure implementation. The soccer captain might influence who takes the penalty shot, but they don’t choose the lineups, tactics, player recruitment, training workflows, etc. The “lead” in “team lead” is not referring to leadership in the same sense of this discussion, only in a much narrower implementation-only sense.
- throwaway201103 6y agoThe coach is the leader of the team overall. The captain is the player on the field who leads the team on the field. The captain is not the one deciding the strategy for offense and defense; he/she is more responsible for exemplifying character, work ethic, motivating others and keeping up team morale.
- jariel 6y agoNot sure about that. In coding, leadership by example and mentorship are one of the most fundamental aspects of true leadership. In fact, if you have junior devs, the most rapid way to make them more productive, is by putting them with senior devs with good habits they can lead from. The article is also misguided: someone with 6 months experience can literally not 'lead' someone with 20 years experience in the hierachical sense. It's completely illegitimate. They can however, manage staffers with senior abilities, in the same way you can hire contractors to build a house. The 'contracting' relationship implies a lot of trust across the boundary, which is what will have to be the case in a 'junior leadership' role. In fact, they probably should avoid calling it 'leadership' in any sense of the word. He is probably the 'team bus driver / manager / stock guy' compared to the senior devs, who are like the 'players on the field'.
- alexgartrell 6y agoI think the reality is that a manager’s job is alignment. Sometimes that is resetting the expectations of the organization, and sometimes that is redirecting the team or team members. Realigning without pissing people off is what leadership is. Managers who only ever “interface” or act as a “shit umbrella” end up screwing the team over in the long run. Your surgeon metaphor only stands up in a situation where 100+ Surgeons are operating on the same person.
- suyash 6y agoMiddle management is the worst, leading happens at the very top level.