4 ms·

How is a team that is meeting their manager consisting only of 5 people if the manager has 30-50 people reporting into them? I wasn't sure if it was a typo or

How is a team that is meeting their manager consisting only of 5 people if the manager has 30-50 people reporting into them? I wasn't sure if it was a typo or where you actually advocating for a manager to have 30-50 direct reports?

manmal 4y ago
5 people in one meeting, done 2-3 times per day, for 4 days per week => 40-60 people
geokon 4y ago
Yes. The manager managed 6+ teams. They had decades of industry experience and were very good at.. Management? dealing with project scope, knowing what clients would find useful, when to change direction etc. Managing a team is realistically not a full time job. He did not write any code or independently make technical decisions nor act as a mentor or senior dev or anything like that. He used to write code, so could follow technical discussions but he wasnt some topdog 10xer. He just managed and he was good at it. Since he was involved in many concurrent projects he also knew the organization and talent very well
- grogenaut 4y ago
  Manager in my parlance is heavily working on growing me and the others in my team as well as managing or product portfolio. As others said that sounds like a director. Who runs the day to day off the team. Or do you only sync once a week?
  - geokon 4y ago
    i guess its situational. I'm not clear what "the day to day off the team" actually means in concrete terms. I dont mean it in a dismissive way, genuinely curious You need to work with someone or get feedback, then you go talk to the relevant person..? If you really need you could go run something by the manager. Again i dont really see that being a full time daily job (for just one team). Just a few hours here and there. I guess the major sync is once a week, but youre generally in the loop with whats going on throughout the week "heavily working on growing me" You work together with your team and learn from each other. Often there is one person with more years of experience with any particular issue Technical mentorship is great but almost completely separate from managment
    - grogenaut 4y ago
      Who's running the sprints, dealing with Hr issues, doing evaluations, sorting out interpersonal issues, talking with product, etc. Or is someone on the team like the team lead doing all of that, or a TPM, project manager, etc. Who makes the long term tradeoff decisions on staffing, maintenance, product priorities, etc. That's the day to day of a team.
    - yibg 4y ago
      Day to day from my experience: - When there are blockers, especially with other teams. e.g. priorities mismatch - Task assignments, priorities - The project management side of things I've worked in teams where the "manager" had several teams. But in those situations each team had 1 or 2 that were leads, either officially or not. But they worked with the rest of the team and were basically managers except for the people management responsibilities (performance reviews, hiring, firing etc).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- junofan 4y ago
  That’s a director.
  - geokon 4y ago
    i guess its semantic。。do you meet your director every week for several hours? I'm genuinely curious bc it was my one and only proper deskjob. Every other corporate structure sounds like office space
  - wincy 4y ago
    My job also calls this a manager. I’m the technical team lead and my boss (our manager) manages 3 separate teams consisting of a QA, 3-4 devs, and a then we have a PO (who is part of a separate management structure and reports to a different person). Boss is ultimately responsible for hiring/firing/pay (aside from some minor HR stuff) although he mostly relies on my assessment of people’s technical acumen. He attends our daily standups and likes to show up for important meetings. He also handle big picture estimations of how long our dev process is going to take, with my input. Does that make me the devs manager? Maybe? So far the position is like a 70% technical 30% managerial position it feels like.
    - Karrot_Kream 4y ago
      Interesting. In the Big Tech companies I've worked at, the manager is the people-oriented equivalent of the technical team lead and controls promotions within an org structure. Why do you need one? Generally to free the technical lead's time up to deal with people concerns less. In smaller companies this doesn't matter as there just aren't that many people to deal with but at a larger company, a big technical project can interact with enough different stakeholders that you need a dedicated people manager to deal with them. Managers are also expected to help their direct reports grow by offering them feedback. Manager feedback and regular performance evaluations eventually lead to raises and promotions which then builds up a manager's experience level. This often becomes a target in itself where managers try to optimize to promote their direct reports at the expense of more holistic growth so they can get a promotion. Each team gets a manager because the manager controls promotions at the company and maintains employee standards.
- flashgordon 4y ago
  Ah that's what confused me. So typically a manager managing other teams (or managers) is not a front line manager (eg senior mgr or dir). I think the op was referring to directly managing 20 reports which is imo quote brutal (imagine just doing 30 min 1/1 with 20 people each week)?
- lozenge 4y ago
  One of each team must have spent more time with the clients, planning, communicating with the official manager etc. That's a level in the managerial structure.

manmal 4y ago

5 people in one meeting, done 2-3 times per day, for 4 days per week => 40-60 people

geokon 4y ago

Yes. The manager managed 6+ teams. They had decades of industry experience and were very good at.. Management? dealing with project scope, knowing what clients would find useful, when to change direction etc. Managing a team is realistically not a full time job. He did not write any code or independently make technical decisions nor act as a mentor or senior dev or anything like that. He used to write code, so could follow technical discussions but he wasnt some topdog 10xer. He just managed and he was good at it. Since he was involved in many concurrent projects he also knew the organization and talent very well

grogenaut 4y ago
Manager in my parlance is heavily working on growing me and the others in my team as well as managing or product portfolio. As others said that sounds like a director. Who runs the day to day off the team. Or do you only sync once a week?
- geokon 4y ago
  i guess its situational. I'm not clear what "the day to day off the team" actually means in concrete terms. I dont mean it in a dismissive way, genuinely curious You need to work with someone or get feedback, then you go talk to the relevant person..? If you really need you could go run something by the manager. Again i dont really see that being a full time daily job (for just one team). Just a few hours here and there. I guess the major sync is once a week, but youre generally in the loop with whats going on throughout the week "heavily working on growing me" You work together with your team and learn from each other. Often there is one person with more years of experience with any particular issue Technical mentorship is great but almost completely separate from managment
  - grogenaut 4y ago
    Who's running the sprints, dealing with Hr issues, doing evaluations, sorting out interpersonal issues, talking with product, etc. Or is someone on the team like the team lead doing all of that, or a TPM, project manager, etc. Who makes the long term tradeoff decisions on staffing, maintenance, product priorities, etc. That's the day to day of a team.
  - yibg 4y ago
    Day to day from my experience: - When there are blockers, especially with other teams. e.g. priorities mismatch - Task assignments, priorities - The project management side of things I've worked in teams where the "manager" had several teams. But in those situations each team had 1 or 2 that were leads, either officially or not. But they worked with the rest of the team and were basically managers except for the people management responsibilities (performance reviews, hiring, firing etc).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
junofan 4y ago
That’s a director.
- geokon 4y ago
  i guess its semantic。。do you meet your director every week for several hours? I'm genuinely curious bc it was my one and only proper deskjob. Every other corporate structure sounds like office space
- wincy 4y ago
  My job also calls this a manager. I’m the technical team lead and my boss (our manager) manages 3 separate teams consisting of a QA, 3-4 devs, and a then we have a PO (who is part of a separate management structure and reports to a different person). Boss is ultimately responsible for hiring/firing/pay (aside from some minor HR stuff) although he mostly relies on my assessment of people’s technical acumen. He attends our daily standups and likes to show up for important meetings. He also handle big picture estimations of how long our dev process is going to take, with my input. Does that make me the devs manager? Maybe? So far the position is like a 70% technical 30% managerial position it feels like.
  - Karrot_Kream 4y ago
    Interesting. In the Big Tech companies I've worked at, the manager is the people-oriented equivalent of the technical team lead and controls promotions within an org structure. Why do you need one? Generally to free the technical lead's time up to deal with people concerns less. In smaller companies this doesn't matter as there just aren't that many people to deal with but at a larger company, a big technical project can interact with enough different stakeholders that you need a dedicated people manager to deal with them. Managers are also expected to help their direct reports grow by offering them feedback. Manager feedback and regular performance evaluations eventually lead to raises and promotions which then builds up a manager's experience level. This often becomes a target in itself where managers try to optimize to promote their direct reports at the expense of more holistic growth so they can get a promotion. Each team gets a manager because the manager controls promotions at the company and maintains employee standards.
flashgordon 4y ago
Ah that's what confused me. So typically a manager managing other teams (or managers) is not a front line manager (eg senior mgr or dir). I think the op was referring to directly managing 20 reports which is imo quote brutal (imagine just doing 30 min 1/1 with 20 people each week)?
lozenge 4y ago
One of each team must have spent more time with the clients, planning, communicating with the official manager etc. That's a level in the managerial structure.