9 ms·

Writing the Roadmap from Engineer to Manager

94 points by 0x54MUR41 5y ago

giantg2 5y ago
Is it wrong that these sorts of books demotivate me? I've read plenty of them years ago, but never got any real opportunities to utilize the skills. Management is so many steps away that it doesn't matter (I work at a large company). On top of that, even if I get promoted into "management", it would only be a 7% raise and at least 40% of my time would still be dev work (thanks development chapter lead model...). What's the point if there's not a clear and reasonable path to the real money ($200k+)?
- sbarre 5y ago
  If money is what you're after, then changing companies is the way to go.. especially right now while the market is so hot. But if the idea of real people management, so supporting others and helping them grow and advance their careers (not just "being the boss"), is interesting to you, then these kinds of resources are great. Good people management is harder than it looks. I've been on a 2-year journey to learn the skills required to do it well because I am no longer interested in day-to-day coding, but I like the idea of staying close to the practice and helping more junior developers grow and get better. If you still have to code and be a manager, that sounds.. like a good reason to look for a job elsewhere. Unless you're talking about a tech lead role where you mentor and guide, which is different. But managing people's careers, helping them with salary conversations, HR stuff, job coaching and more.. that's a full-time job.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    I basically want more money so I dont have to deal with the corporate BS forever. I would enjoy helping develop people though. I currently love being able to help people with technical issues. I wonder how much I would actually be able to help people within the BS corporate constraints. Switching companies won't help me. I need stability due to several family medical issues and a limited job market in my area (fully remote is not a great option for me, at least initially). I also wasted a large part of my career working on FileNet and Neoxam, so switching is not so easy with the limited experience in other tech. It seems most posting are for seniors and almost nothing for midlevels. "If you still have to code and be a manager, that sounds.. like a good reason to look for a job elsewhere." That's why I don't really want to do management at my company anymore. "But managing people's careers, helping them with salary conversations, HR stuff, job coaching and more.. that's a full-time job." That's my thought, but apparently my company doesn't think so.
  - pts_ 5y ago
    Smug self fulfilling positions premised on socially engineering computer engineers.
- analog31 5y ago
  One possible answer is developer burnout. How many more years of high intensity coding do you have left? There is no clear path to the real money. I stepped off that path long ago.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    0 years. I have no motivation and lots of frustration.
- avereveard 5y ago
  > and at least 40% of my time would still be dev work that's not management, that's a leadership position. if in doubt when they offer you a management position ask what the budget for the role is, if it's none, you'd be just either a secretary doing the grunt work for some other real manager (nowadays known as "middle management") or a lead they gave a sounding title in lieu of the dangling carrot.
  - iaw 5y ago
    If it's titled as management at the current company it looks like management to the next company. Your larger point is true but that title can be leveraged into a number of positions that are 'real' management so I wouldn't discount it.
    - avereveard 5y ago
      chances are the other company knows as well what's up and upholds the veil, if your background is in the field and you haven't had any management focused education at start or on top, your resume will give you away.
      - giantg2 5y ago
        I have a business admin minor. If I knew minors were totally worthless then I wouldn't have wasted my time on it. My company cared more about me getting a CFA Foundations cert eventhough I said it was 99% stuff I learnt in my minor. The manager was shocked when I got a 95%+ 2 days later (most of them study for weeks or months). Hey, I tried to tell you it was a waste of time and money, but I guess I need an MBA from Stanford or Wharton for people to listen to me...
        avereveard 5y ago
        Yep. I've by now driven three projects trough successful exits, but when I apply to leadership roles I get talked down because I'm too young and don't "look the part", so to say. The whole hiring and human resource management stack is in shambles, built out of century outdated concepts and prejudices.
g051051 5y ago
I've never understood engineers who decide to go manage. Why would you give up actually doing real work? Whatever floats your boat, I guess.
- sbarre 5y ago
  As an engineer, do you ever wonder who keeps your path clear, who makes sure you can focus on delivery, who advocates for meeting-free days, good work practices, or explains why those conference passes are money well spent? Who helps push tools and services through procurement? Who spends hours working with HR re-working career ladders so engineers have options _other_ than becoming a manager once they reach a certain level of seniority? Who is your voice in the leadership team when they don't get what you do and just see you as a high cost? Who explains to senior management why that high cost is worth their money? Speaking of "not doing real work", who do you think bargains to give you time to deal with that tech debt, instead of being death-marched to ship feature after feature? Features make money, right? You think all that just happens automatically? I was a hands-on coder for 2 decades. Now I've decided I want to spend my time helping developers earlier in their careers make the most of their time and their skills, I want to help them enjoy their work and grow their careers in a way that I couldn't do because the field had not matured as much as it has now. But sure yeah, I'm not doing real work..
  - Xevi 5y ago
    That's what a manager should do, yes. But I think a lot of developers have had managers that don't do those things at all. And I think that's where the resentment of managers come from.
    - fnord77 5y ago
      indeed. I've found most managers have been a hindrance to getting the job done. unlike engineering, there's not really any formal "engineering manager" education. so it probably boils down to incompetence.
      - 5y ago
gumby 5y ago
Dang, would you mind adding [podcast] to the title?
peter_l_downs 5y ago
(This is only somewhat related, but I'll try asking here, apologies if it seems offtopic.) Does anyone know of any good books, blogposts, podcasts, etc. about how to set up a management structure for your startup? Like how you even decide to have Eng Manager and People Managers and Team Leads? I'm curious about the different ways people have tried organizing relatively small (10-50) teams of high-performing individual contributors. There are books like this one (I think, can't buy it yet), Will Larson's, and some of the others referenced in the episode notes which are all about how to make a specific structure work, but I haven't yet found information on other kinds of structures.
- setr 5y ago
  I imagine it’s like a b-tree. You simply have more reports, until it becomes untenable — it takes more time to coordinate them than you have. So your tree splits — you pick a couple nodes to continue directly reporting to you, and all others now report to your direct reports. As your reports gain more resources, they’ll do the same. Your children count probably maxes around 7. The new resources get a title from their level in the tree, along with some arbitrary suffix signifying their responsibility scope. This is also the same with responsibilities. As you gain too many, eventually you’ll force a split and push the responsibilities onto your children resources. If there’s none available with time/ability to do it, you pull in a new resource directly reporting to you. As that new resource takes more responsibilities, he ends up creating his own tree.. And then for top-down titling (eg appointing a CFO in a company of 5), it’s mostly a matter of fluff/marketing. You want customers to think you brought in the big guns. In a mid-size company, it’s more about solidifying the future. People don’t question the positions existing before they joined. They question the promotions after, the promotion of a peer to the big boss of their group. So it’s a bit of a power play, though responsibilities and importance aren’t all there to really justify the titling.
  - peter_l_downs 5y ago
    Thank you for your perspective, much appreciated.

94 points by 0x54MUR41 5y ago

Is it wrong that these sorts of books demotivate me? I've read plenty of them years ago, but never got any real opportunities to utilize the skills. Management is so many steps away that it doesn't matter (I work at a large company). On top of that, even if I get promoted into "management", it would only be a 7% raise and at least 40% of my time would still be dev work (thanks development chapter lead model...). What's the point if there's not a clear and reasonable path to the real money ($200k+)?

sbarre 5y ago
If money is what you're after, then changing companies is the way to go.. especially right now while the market is so hot. But if the idea of real people management, so supporting others and helping them grow and advance their careers (not just "being the boss"), is interesting to you, then these kinds of resources are great. Good people management is harder than it looks. I've been on a 2-year journey to learn the skills required to do it well because I am no longer interested in day-to-day coding, but I like the idea of staying close to the practice and helping more junior developers grow and get better. If you still have to code and be a manager, that sounds.. like a good reason to look for a job elsewhere. Unless you're talking about a tech lead role where you mentor and guide, which is different. But managing people's careers, helping them with salary conversations, HR stuff, job coaching and more.. that's a full-time job.
- giantg2 5y ago
  I basically want more money so I dont have to deal with the corporate BS forever. I would enjoy helping develop people though. I currently love being able to help people with technical issues. I wonder how much I would actually be able to help people within the BS corporate constraints. Switching companies won't help me. I need stability due to several family medical issues and a limited job market in my area (fully remote is not a great option for me, at least initially). I also wasted a large part of my career working on FileNet and Neoxam, so switching is not so easy with the limited experience in other tech. It seems most posting are for seniors and almost nothing for midlevels. "If you still have to code and be a manager, that sounds.. like a good reason to look for a job elsewhere." That's why I don't really want to do management at my company anymore. "But managing people's careers, helping them with salary conversations, HR stuff, job coaching and more.. that's a full-time job." That's my thought, but apparently my company doesn't think so.
- pts_ 5y ago
  Smug self fulfilling positions premised on socially engineering computer engineers.
analog31 5y ago
One possible answer is developer burnout. How many more years of high intensity coding do you have left? There is no clear path to the real money. I stepped off that path long ago.
- giantg2 5y ago
  0 years. I have no motivation and lots of frustration.
avereveard 5y ago
> and at least 40% of my time would still be dev work that's not management, that's a leadership position. if in doubt when they offer you a management position ask what the budget for the role is, if it's none, you'd be just either a secretary doing the grunt work for some other real manager (nowadays known as "middle management") or a lead they gave a sounding title in lieu of the dangling carrot.
- iaw 5y ago
  If it's titled as management at the current company it looks like management to the next company. Your larger point is true but that title can be leveraged into a number of positions that are 'real' management so I wouldn't discount it.
  - avereveard 5y ago
    chances are the other company knows as well what's up and upholds the veil, if your background is in the field and you haven't had any management focused education at start or on top, your resume will give you away.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      I have a business admin minor. If I knew minors were totally worthless then I wouldn't have wasted my time on it. My company cared more about me getting a CFA Foundations cert eventhough I said it was 99% stuff I learnt in my minor. The manager was shocked when I got a 95%+ 2 days later (most of them study for weeks or months). Hey, I tried to tell you it was a waste of time and money, but I guess I need an MBA from Stanford or Wharton for people to listen to me...
      - avereveard 5y ago
        Yep. I've by now driven three projects trough successful exits, but when I apply to leadership roles I get talked down because I'm too young and don't "look the part", so to say. The whole hiring and human resource management stack is in shambles, built out of century outdated concepts and prejudices.

g051051 5y ago

I've never understood engineers who decide to go manage. Why would you give up actually doing real work? Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

sbarre 5y ago
As an engineer, do you ever wonder who keeps your path clear, who makes sure you can focus on delivery, who advocates for meeting-free days, good work practices, or explains why those conference passes are money well spent? Who helps push tools and services through procurement? Who spends hours working with HR re-working career ladders so engineers have options _other_ than becoming a manager once they reach a certain level of seniority? Who is your voice in the leadership team when they don't get what you do and just see you as a high cost? Who explains to senior management why that high cost is worth their money? Speaking of "not doing real work", who do you think bargains to give you time to deal with that tech debt, instead of being death-marched to ship feature after feature? Features make money, right? You think all that just happens automatically? I was a hands-on coder for 2 decades. Now I've decided I want to spend my time helping developers earlier in their careers make the most of their time and their skills, I want to help them enjoy their work and grow their careers in a way that I couldn't do because the field had not matured as much as it has now. But sure yeah, I'm not doing real work..
- Xevi 5y ago
  That's what a manager should do, yes. But I think a lot of developers have had managers that don't do those things at all. And I think that's where the resentment of managers come from.
  - fnord77 5y ago
    indeed. I've found most managers have been a hindrance to getting the job done. unlike engineering, there's not really any formal "engineering manager" education. so it probably boils down to incompetence.
    - 5y ago

gumby 5y ago

Dang, would you mind adding [podcast] to the title?

peter_l_downs 5y ago

(This is only somewhat related, but I'll try asking here, apologies if it seems offtopic.) Does anyone know of any good books, blogposts, podcasts, etc. about how to set up a management structure for your startup? Like how you even decide to have Eng Manager and People Managers and Team Leads? I'm curious about the different ways people have tried organizing relatively small (10-50) teams of high-performing individual contributors. There are books like this one (I think, can't buy it yet), Will Larson's, and some of the others referenced in the episode notes which are all about how to make a specific structure work, but I haven't yet found information on other kinds of structures.

setr 5y ago
I imagine it’s like a b-tree. You simply have more reports, until it becomes untenable — it takes more time to coordinate them than you have. So your tree splits — you pick a couple nodes to continue directly reporting to you, and all others now report to your direct reports. As your reports gain more resources, they’ll do the same. Your children count probably maxes around 7. The new resources get a title from their level in the tree, along with some arbitrary suffix signifying their responsibility scope. This is also the same with responsibilities. As you gain too many, eventually you’ll force a split and push the responsibilities onto your children resources. If there’s none available with time/ability to do it, you pull in a new resource directly reporting to you. As that new resource takes more responsibilities, he ends up creating his own tree.. And then for top-down titling (eg appointing a CFO in a company of 5), it’s mostly a matter of fluff/marketing. You want customers to think you brought in the big guns. In a mid-size company, it’s more about solidifying the future. People don’t question the positions existing before they joined. They question the promotions after, the promotion of a peer to the big boss of their group. So it’s a bit of a power play, though responsibilities and importance aren’t all there to really justify the titling.
- peter_l_downs 5y ago
  Thank you for your perspective, much appreciated.