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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" educa

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.

sbarre 5y ago
I'm sorry you've had that experience. In my early career, I never had any managers, we were just "the developers" and left to figure stuff out on our own.. But in the last 5 years of my coding career, I had some excellent managers who really helped me grow and do my best work, which is what inspired me to go that route myself and try to do the same for other developers who are earlier in their careers. I will say, there actually is formal management education. It's just not often a requirement for promoting developers into management positions, and a lot of time the people who get put into those manager positions are either the least-good coders, or people who don't want the job but take it to get the promotion and (maybe) salary increase. And once they're in the roles, they are not properly trained or supported in the new skills they absolutely need to do a good job. That's not a recipe for success... but it's also an organizational problem just as much as an individual problem.
- fnord77 5y ago
  is there a formal engineering management education, though? at the risk of sounding exceptionalistic, I think managing engineers is a different beast than managing other roles
  - sbarre 5y ago
    That's very exceptionalistic (to stick with your word). You could apply this logic to any practitioner discipline, like medicine, research, sports, construction, cooking, etc.. Of course someone with practitioner experience will be (or appear?) better able to manage people doing that work, because they understand the finer details. But people management itself is also a learned skill, and that's where in my experience companies fall down on the training sometimes. They assume that the practitioner experience and the seniority is enough, and it's not. Then there's the whole empathy/EQ side of things. Being a manager requires a ton of emotional labour and that's not for everyone.
g051051 5y ago
> I've found most managers have been a hindrance to getting the job done. Same. Additionally, "management" seems to be the path chosen by the most incompetent programmers to try to salvage a career.
- ehnto 5y ago
  I am fed up and bored to death with the perpetual tooling renaissance we are having, I love programming but career software is often anything but the good bits of programming. I am interested in transitioning to tech leadership so Im not burnt out on software bullshit and can enjoy coding on personal projects at home. It sounds a bit like you have a good gig that you enjoy, good for you, but you can't extrapolate like you are. You are being a bit ignorant, frankly, grossly generalizing a career it sounds like you don't understand well.
  - g051051 5y ago
    And yet, I've run across countless "managers" who were previously developers, who had no credentials for management other than wanting to be a manager. Their "training" was to take some sort of corporate HR-provided course to "certify" them, and then being put in charge of other developers. While there have been a few who weren't completely toxic, the vast majority had no idea what they were doing, struggled mightily, and had very unhappy teams. > You are being a bit ignorant, frankly, grossly generalizing a career it sounds like you don't understand well. Yeah, I do understand it well. I had some management experience early on, and was actually good at it, but I hated it because it made me stop doing actual software development.

sbarre 5y ago

I'm sorry you've had that experience. In my early career, I never had any managers, we were just "the developers" and left to figure stuff out on our own.. But in the last 5 years of my coding career, I had some excellent managers who really helped me grow and do my best work, which is what inspired me to go that route myself and try to do the same for other developers who are earlier in their careers. I will say, there actually is formal management education. It's just not often a requirement for promoting developers into management positions, and a lot of time the people who get put into those manager positions are either the least-good coders, or people who don't want the job but take it to get the promotion and (maybe) salary increase. And once they're in the roles, they are not properly trained or supported in the new skills they absolutely need to do a good job. That's not a recipe for success... but it's also an organizational problem just as much as an individual problem.

fnord77 5y ago
is there a formal engineering management education, though? at the risk of sounding exceptionalistic, I think managing engineers is a different beast than managing other roles
- sbarre 5y ago
  That's very exceptionalistic (to stick with your word). You could apply this logic to any practitioner discipline, like medicine, research, sports, construction, cooking, etc.. Of course someone with practitioner experience will be (or appear?) better able to manage people doing that work, because they understand the finer details. But people management itself is also a learned skill, and that's where in my experience companies fall down on the training sometimes. They assume that the practitioner experience and the seniority is enough, and it's not. Then there's the whole empathy/EQ side of things. Being a manager requires a ton of emotional labour and that's not for everyone.

g051051 5y ago

> I've found most managers have been a hindrance to getting the job done. Same. Additionally, "management" seems to be the path chosen by the most incompetent programmers to try to salvage a career.

ehnto 5y ago
I am fed up and bored to death with the perpetual tooling renaissance we are having, I love programming but career software is often anything but the good bits of programming. I am interested in transitioning to tech leadership so Im not burnt out on software bullshit and can enjoy coding on personal projects at home. It sounds a bit like you have a good gig that you enjoy, good for you, but you can't extrapolate like you are. You are being a bit ignorant, frankly, grossly generalizing a career it sounds like you don't understand well.
- g051051 5y ago
  And yet, I've run across countless "managers" who were previously developers, who had no credentials for management other than wanting to be a manager. Their "training" was to take some sort of corporate HR-provided course to "certify" them, and then being put in charge of other developers. While there have been a few who weren't completely toxic, the vast majority had no idea what they were doing, struggled mightily, and had very unhappy teams. > You are being a bit ignorant, frankly, grossly generalizing a career it sounds like you don't understand well. Yeah, I do understand it well. I had some management experience early on, and was actually good at it, but I hated it because it made me stop doing actual software development.