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Some mistakes I made as a new manager

426 points by admp 3y ago

zabzonk 3y ago
> and see users happily using it all within a day or two kind of optimistic I would have said
MauroIksem 3y ago
I'm so tired of these humble brag posts.
- readthenotes1 3y ago
  Bro, reframe this "I have so many entrancing growth opportunities for my attention that I find it hard to take value from someone else's experience". Really, his bullet points are pretty basic management 101 - - but most managers don't know them and if it helps even one person be a better manager it's worth this time.
  - xupybd 3y ago
    100%. It even helps me reflect on my past managers to see what they were not great at. So I don't pick up those same habits.
- LVB 3y ago
  There are lots of humblebrag posts, but I don’t see much bragging in this one.
- deleted 3y ago
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- atlasunshrugged 3y ago
  This post didn't feel particularly braggy to me. Also, having connected with Ben (I cold emailed him about something he referenced in one of his earlier blog posts), he seems like a person who is genuinely just trying to help and share his knowledge when useful.
- croutonwagon 3y ago
  As someone that is both an individual contributor and runs a department. I find the viewpoint insightful and I am glad they shared it.
- raxxorraxor 3y ago
  I share some of your criticism. I don't believe there is the one universal style to management. There aren't even styles that fit certain types of employees. There is making good decisions in the face of problems and being able to communicate with your team. The what is much more important than the how. Maybe that is just my personality type or whatever, but I often don't see the thr essential wisdom. The post isn't braggy though and it is appreciated that the author shares his ideas.
kitanata 3y ago
Great article. Thank you for sharing your experience.
naet 3y ago
Using Twitter likes as a "thing to make you feel good about yourself" might give you a short term dopamine rush, but probably leads to long term unhappiness IMO.
- jimsimmons 3y ago
  People either realize this or they go on to mutate their personality beyond recognition
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- colinflane 3y ago
  Sure, we can agree social media news and zero cost information dissemination is an Existential Evil, but ... if author had said "shout into a bag", "pound head against wall", or "drink a beer". Maybe we could just let it ride, for once.
- shmde 3y ago
  People need validation. Its an inherent human trait. But I feel validation from living breathing humans in proximity of your life >>>> validation from twitter likes.
29athrowaway 3y ago
Always remember: as a manager you are still an employee, and you are still required to observe the law. Being a manager does not mean you are correct by default. It does not mean you cannot receive feedback from your managees. Also, a brief refresher: lying about someone is defamation. If you defame people's performance and cause them to lose money you are personally liable for damages. We should sue managers more, when they indulge in bad habits such as lying about performance and making false accusations. Some managers realize that their opinion is authoritative truth and abuse this to fork reality, creating a psychopathic fiction where everything they say is true. We should sue each and every of these entitled tyrants.
- bluefirebrand 3y ago
  > We should sue managers more. I'm very curious what you think the outcome of this would be.
  - 29athrowaway 3y ago
    Break the spirit of people that think lying has no consequences. Teach them a lesson, that they live in a country with people protected by rights.
    - bboygravity 3y ago
      There are A LOT of places in the world where lying is rewarded dearly. Including certain types of businesses in the US where lying a lot is basically a pre-requisite for company survival, growth and employee survival: banking, hedge funds and financial markets. The 2008 derrivatives crash was a concequence of that, the upcoming hyperinflation is a (predictable) consequence of that. More generally: ads lie all the time. Where does your assumption come from that lying has bad consequences for people? I agree with you that lying is not nice and extremely annoying, but in my opinion the level of corruption globally (and in financial markets in the US specifically) shows that lying constantly can have extremely positive outcomes for those who lie and do crime. It doesn't seem to me like law is trying very hard to stop them either.
DenisM 3y ago
The author seems to have a lot on his plate. One way to improve the situation is to delegate more technical leadership work, such as code and design reviews, to principal engineers and rely on them keep you appraised.
- pcurve 3y ago
  I agree. He/she has a ton on plate. He's still acting wearing engineering lead hat, which is understandable if he were a high performing IC. He wants to make sure the quality of the team's output is on par with that of his own.
chrsig 3y ago
> You upset them so deeply that they respond by unleashing the incredibly vicious-yet-perceptive tirade that they’ve been stewing on since the incident, reducing you to tears. Congratulations on hiring someone in the bottom ~2% of professionalism? At least your conscience can be clean at this point I guess. "Well your reaction was bad, so it doesn't matter what I did" This sort of discounts what the manager did to piss the person off, and if it's a recurring thing. A tirade isn't usually the first response. Maybe consider that you've overlooked some cues leading up to it.
- plaguepilled 3y ago
  I am not sure I agree with this assessment. A tirade isn't the first response and it deserves attention and a degree of empathy, but it is unprofessional almost universally. You generally don't need to do it (it is not competitively advantageous to try) and does not make the tirader nor the tiraded feel better. This is not to say a colleague should be a zen automaton that never feels discontent. However, learning not to get too upset when giving feedback, and similarly, giving feedback before you are that upset, are professional skills. So when the author says they can feel better about the interaction, it might make more sense to read that as "yes, I did something wrong, but this was also quite a silly exchange and it sort of lifts the intensity off a bit". Which, considering the author is indicating that they're worried they said the wrong thing to begin with, would make sense (since they are attempting to empathise).
- deleted 3y ago
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- alex_lav 3y ago
  > This sort of discounts what the manager did to piss the person off I don't agree at all. Short of legitimate, open malice, this type of behavior is pretty much never warranted.
  - chrsig 3y ago
    The persons reaction doesn't negate any problem with the managers behavior. For what it's worth, I don't think there's a shortage of malice, passive aggressive, instigating behaviors that occur in the workplace that can lead up to a such reaction.
DenisM 3y ago
That’s a nice looking site… Does anyone know a low-effort way of making something similar?
- hackernewds 3y ago
  AI apps (I'm kidding!)
  - kyleyeats 3y ago
    Same answer but not kidding (please try my thing): http://camarkup.com http://camarkup.com
- cachvico 3y ago
  https://pages.github.com/ https://pages.github.com/
- Brajeshwar 3y ago
  Here you go https://jez.io/pandoc-markdown-css-theme/ https://jez.io/pandoc-markdown-css-theme/ Source: https://github.com/jez/pandoc-markdown-css-theme https://github.com/jez/pandoc-markdown-css-theme And the Jekyll version https://github.com/jez/pandoc-markdown-jekyll-theme https://github.com/jez/pandoc-markdown-jekyll-theme I'm trying to move my site to this theme and got it working locally but too lazy to transition with my tweaks, and additions or rather the removals to the bare minimum with just Pandoc and Make (or something simpler) that I'm thinking. Not in a hurry.
PragmaticPulp 3y ago
> ANGSTING INSTEAD OF ASKING This is a great way of describing one of my biggest peeves in the office: So many unnecessary conflicts/dramas can be avoided by simple and honest communication. There’s a related dysfunction where managers are (wrongly) convinced that they must answer every question in the most positive and upbeat way possible. I had to leave a company once because my manager was frustrated with many people, including me, but he was too nice to actually explain what he thought we were doing wrong. He thought it was best to try to gently encourage us with hints and rhetorical questions and vague allusions to what he was actually thinking, but when you’d ask him for a direct answer he’d switch to “everything’s great” mode. The faux positivity turned into toxic positivity and destroyed morale across the team.
- MuffinFlavored 3y ago
  > So many unnecessary conflicts/dramas can be avoided by simple and honest communication. It's really not that simple in my opinion. The flow of information is "upper management wants this a certain way/at a certain time, I'm just the enforcer, if you don't work to accommodate/comply at a high priority, it's a problem" more often than not.
  - majormajor 3y ago
    There are worlds of problems in teams and organizations that have nothing to do with what upper management wants, especially as a company grows. Disputes between two developers on a team, disputes between two teams, disputes between a developer and a team, a bunch of teams dogpiling on another team, etc... The above ones aren't always the same as the "what do you think of me" example for "angsting over asking" but are generally still problems of communication - the other team isn't doing what you would want them to do because they don't know what makes things easier/harder for you, vice versa, etc. Angsting instead of giving negative feedback is an extremely common one too, and leads to people being pissed off and blindsided at performance review time.
    - MuffinFlavored 3y ago
      > Disputes between two developers on a team, The way I've seen it: you should aim to be the developer avoiding disputes at all cost. If you are responsible for a dispute whatsoever, you're the problem child and will be dealt with (by management) > disputes between two teams, At my last job, managers were proxies to teams. Engineers were basically encouraged not to talk to other engineers because it would "distract them from whatever they were working on" and any ask you had for them needed to get approved by their manager/other management anyway. > disputes between a developer and a team, Again, teams didn't talk to each other. You tell your manager, they go talk to that team's manager. And that team's manager's main job is to say "no, we have no capacity for that", shielding the team at all costs, unless upper management says something/asks something. All initiatives had to come from above, not below. > a bunch of teams dogpiling on another team, etc... You get the idea. Team manager -> team manager
klabb3 3y ago
This sounds like the words of an a good manager, simply because of the healthy amount of self-doubt. It’s a strange status quo that management is something you’re expected to handle simply from experience as an IC, which is absolutely not a guarantee. The predictable result is that only those with great mentors or willing to self-learn the hard way actually become good, after much trial and error. It’s unfortunate and borderline insulting to genuinely good leaders to say that popularity, company loyalty and/or domain experience is enough. So we end up with what we select for. Otoh, what ICs often overlook is that managers often lack the hard and soft power to manage effectively, which of course is a leadership problem in itself. I’ve had well-meaning managers who still were bad for me because they didn’t have enough influence or respect in the greater org. Just like with engineering, even the best can’t do a great job if they are unable to access the right tools.
colinflane 3y ago
Thanks to the author. This resonated with me. It was helpful to see here a couple of the same issues I grappled with (to know "I'm not crazy"): feedback loops, prioritization / importance, communication. On the topic of the dreaded Micro-Management, I read recently somewhere, "better to micro-manage than to not manage at all". That also resonated.
- flamebreath447 3y ago
  No. If the only way you can manage is via micromanagement then you shouldn’t be a manager, end of story, period. The bar is far too low for managers already. The technical, communication and delivery bars are clear for developers at different levels. Managers have these too. You don’t settle with dog shit management skills. If I ever saw a manager doing this and didn’t improve they would see the door in short notice. Stop being lazy, provide your team with tooling or ways to help you gain insight. Make it clear to them what you need and how you can help them get there. Basically, do your job.
  - ebiester 3y ago
    Both no management and micromanagement are failure states. The parent is comparing two failure states. But I think the key to point out is that most line managers have fewer than 5 years of experience. The good ones move up the chain and the bad ones return to IC work. Sure, some will stagnate in an organization but it's more common to see it as part of the early career. (In smaller organizations, directors and senior managers will also have teams, but they usually have larger swaths of experience and end up delegating a fair amount to tech leads.) I will also point out that few engineering managers have proper training. Most of us had to pick it up as we went. You talk about a manager seeing the door in short notice: if you were their boss, would it even cross your mind to give feedback and training?
johndhi 3y ago
I'm a new manager and am facing a conundrum over a supposed super star who joined my team but, at least from what I can tell, is far and away the least productive member of my team. Any ideas?
- cwhsu 3y ago
  I'm also new to manager role, but I think the first thing is you need to talk with him. Try to understanding what's going on about him, maybe it's just he had some bad time for whatever reason now. You can talk with him based on the fact of his performance and tell him your expectations. Just try to find out what's going on first before making any judgement.
- astockwell 3y ago
  One suggestion: Give it time. Many (myself included) are “slow boils”. Probably every manager I’ve ever had was kicking themselves for hiring me 6 months in, but past the 12 month mark and things have turned a corner. Anecdotal for sure, but every previous manager I’ve had continues to randomly ping me about job openings.
- ebiester 3y ago
  What are the full set of responsibilities of the team member? Are they being tied to previous projects? Is there something that is getting in their way? Is there a culture clash? Also, understand that the new person is learning the context and team culture, and will take some time to get up to speed. How long have they been on the team? How long have you been on the team? The other team members? There is a lot of context to consider. We can make a lot of assumptions based on our own experiences, but may end up sending you astray.
- paulcole 3y ago
  I disagree with the other person who said, “Give it time…” Read the book Difficult Conversations. From the book, you need to prep by looking at the situation from your perspective and the other person’s. This has been very helpful for me in figuring out these tough situations. Then you look for the difference in those stories, hear the other person’s story from their perspective and work towards a solution. Generally the more you put off these conversations the more you’ll regret it. And honestly it’s a weight off your shoulders when you do have them and you’ll often wish you had them sooner. And most people in my experience hate starting these kinds of conversations so more often than not, in some way, they appreciate that you as their boss are starting it for them.
cwhsu 3y ago
Great article! I also find this one very useful for a new manager. https://www.benkuhn.net/abyss/ https://www.benkuhn.net/abyss/
steveBK123 3y ago
> I asked people for feedback. I found that if I just asked “do you have any feedback for me?” people often wouldn’t, but if I asked more granular questions—“was that meeting useful?”—I would usually learn a lot from it. This part is good. I think generally as engineers, a manager simply asking "do you have feedback for me" just feels like a trap. I don't know man, there's plenty of things you do that annoy me but like.. can we be more specific here? The other side to this is - don't ask for feedback if you don't plan to action any of it. I worked for a guy who must have read a book that told him to ask for feedback, but he was so rigid that he would vehemently defend against any feedback he was given. Not like personal stuff either, but structure/length/schedule of meetings, standups, etc. The "strong ideas loosely held" type guys need to be careful when they become management, because while it may work with peers (if they also love arguing), it doesn't work with a power imbalance. All your "strong ideas" will become "permanently held", congrats.
- KarlTheCool 3y ago
  I feel this response. If voicing your opinion is a risk that needs calculating, it's not worth trying. It's sad to see a small team's chat be bullied into a stream of just :eyes: :raising_hands: :party_popper:
  - ehnto 3y ago
    I found it difficult when working with American companies, as they can be purified by positivity. A saving grace of software work is the retrospective, those were at least a moment of honesty. While I do appreciate the upbeat attitude, I found it made people hide small issues to not ruin the vibe, and anyone with major concerns with approach risks getting backbenched.
    - pfannkuchen 3y ago
      I have also been really confused by this. It reminds me a bit of a clunky, modified, but also less extreme version of face saving in Eastern cultures.
jdlyga 3y ago
I recommend experienced engineers dip their toes into management to see if it's the right career path for you. But make sure that you're able to back out if you hate it, which is a very likely outcome.
zmmmmm 3y ago
This is a really good post. As someone with very similar challenges and situation, I found it highly relevant and a very useful read. Only thing I'd have to modify for myself is .... "made as a new manager" => "continue to struggle with after 10 years".
tschellenbach 3y ago
I've been managing teams for 16 years, I think it's actually really beneficial to stay hands on in lead or director roles. After that it's usually not possible given the work load. It improves team alignment, you can evaluate people's work better, understand their issues better and help level them up. Some of the companies that promoted the hands-off style of management, like Twilio are currently really struggling. Datadog is a great example of a more hands on approach and they are crushing it. If tech is more core to a company, people should stay hands on.
- pcurve 3y ago
  I was a director with 3 sr. managers reporting into me. They had 4-5 ICs. I found being hands-on pretty much impossible even with fewer than 20 people.
  - WastingMyTime89 3y ago
    Honest question, I come from an industrial background where you have Work Package Manager in charge of the work of roughly 10 persons but not their actual manager with all the bureaucracy associated and an actual manager with less than 25 reports don’t exist. Is 4 reports common in the US? How do companies survive with so much management?
    - orthoxerox 3y ago
      I'm not in the US, but 4-5 reports is about the right size for a tech lead that wants to stay hand-on. With 8-10 reports you might struggle to sneak some personal contributions in, and if you have more direct reports than that, then you're a full-time manager by necessity.
      - WastingMyTime89 3y ago
        Ok, so it's more or less what I'm used to. WPMs are indeed not expected to contribute and a tech lead for a team of 5 is what I would expect. I was more surprised by the idea that you could both be a tech lead and deal with all the issues surrounding budgeting, hiring, company goals alignment and career development issues I associate with being a manager. It seems to me like that means having a lot of people to train and have to keep in the loop.
explorer83 3y ago
I particularly liked the "managing the wrong amount". I hate being micromanaged. So I told myself when I could manage people that I would not micromanage them. Big mistake, some people need more of a guiding hand. One glaring missing point from this though that I would add is "don't think because you are a manager people will listen to you or respect you". You still have to earn that kind of relationship with people and a lot of people think they can do better than you if they had your title.
- fbdab103 3y ago
  >So I told myself when I could manage people that I would not micromanage them. Big mistake, some people need more of a guiding hand. I am fighting this same issue. I want to give as much autonomy as possible, but some are woefully ill-prepared for it. Sadly, it feels the best option is to over-manage until proven otherwise.
doktorhladnjak 3y ago
Reading that article really makes me never want to go back to being a manager. It was almost everything I disliked and found stressful about the job. That I don't really understand why others find being a manager appealing is probably the best sign that it's not for me.
pcurve 3y ago
"Manage projects according to the owner’s level of task-relevant maturity." This is really important. Even your highest performer isn't going to be good at everything you throw at, and will want some handholding.
andrewstuart 3y ago
>> You did upset them, You did upset them, but they are unwilling to admit it and will passive aggressively sabotage you for the next 3 years, all the while smiling and assuring you nothing is wrong.
Joel_Mckay 3y ago
First of all, being in a managerial role is usually not enjoyable (expect manipulative antics). Here are a few styles/philosophies on how to accomplish a profitable department: 1. The Dictator: Follow orders, report regularly, or you are fired. If productivity under-performs, than do fire someone in case people forget who is in charge 2. The Coach: How do we win as a team, who has the best skill/will to take on the big challenges, and if individuals bring down our team they are fired 3. The Cult leader: Listen to the customer, how can we serve the customer better, how can we indoctrinate our brand into people lives, and if you violate our doctrine you are fired 4. The Con/Sociopath: Make money at any PR cost, scam the consumer/shareholders/departments, and if you won't break ethical norms you are fired 5. The Masochist: How should I manage the team, what should we be focused on, why are we burning budget and still failing, you are victimizing me with costs, so we had to cut costs and you are fired 6. The Idealist: An irrational infatuation with the impossible makes all other features irrelevant, and everyone still gets fired when the budget expires Depending what the company does, each role’s style has its strengths and weaknesses. Have a wonderful day =)
alex_lav 3y ago
I spent some time as a manager and decided I'd never do it again. Many of the places I've worked and observed have directors, principals, architects etc who've never been a manager, and do not include managerial experience as a component of hiring for those roles, so I personally have moved on from thinking it's a required step in the Path to Engineer Leadership. In my experience (a decade, many companies including multiple consultancies) Manager is very directly a "Middle Manager" type position. Meaning, mostly, there is no leadership or autonomy but instead a position derived purely from all the administrative "did you do your job" type checks and balances. "Did you update Jira", "Did you respond to Steve", "Are you stuck?" Everywhere I've worked, the actual "software" or "engineering" components of "Engineering Manager" are handled by someone else. I am glad I spent the time, though, as I have a much better understanding of workplace politics and interpersonal scheming. Telling someone something specific that is also almost-untrue, just so they get out of your business. Having different narratives for different units of work, depending of who's asking. The ridiculous concept of "dotted line managers". The process was pretty illuminating, both in terms of how unnecessary most workplace hierarchies are and how low the bar can be for individual contributor competency. After writing all of this, I think it'd be easy to say "Well this person just did a terrible job as a manager", but I received extremely positive reviews from both my reports and my superiors. Once I gave up trying to do a "good" job and just kind of let the ridiculousness flow, everything improved dramatically (on paper; my mental health plummeted). This has turned into a bit of a rant, and I suppose I apologize in advance for what turned into kind of a scathing venting.
lifeisstillgood 3y ago
Wow. the level of mistrust and fear shown by reactions here is ... at least I am not alone :-) We (most of us) live in democracies with clear rules of law and strong defence of individual rights. But we work in feudal hierarchies with arbitrary rules and love by whim of the powerful. I think that's the first thing to chnage rather than hoping the training middle management to be "better communicators" will improve things. Would Britain still have a colony in the US if we had handled that Tea situation better? Some experiments to try: - executive management (C-suite) to be elected annually by all FT employees voting anonymously. - annual project plans (do we build a new CRM or do we fix the existing one) again voted for by employees (one is referendum one is representative elections?) - stop remote working. I am fairly convinced the best most effective e means to build software is to put the right developers in the same room as the right business owners and let them fix it. Every step away from that, each time the business owner has to go to a different project, the time zones mean that a daily stand up is communication, every step back is a cut in efficiency. just stop it
- vxNsr 3y ago
  Voting on EM isn’t a bad idea, but one year is too much potential turnover and if it never turns over then you’ve just built a Potemkin democracy and we’re back we’re we started. You would also end up with even more politics as all the narcissists would campaign to be elected and would use every little trick in book just as they do in public elections today. You could also potentially end up in a situation where no one takes any ownership bec they think, “it’ll be the next person’s problem” (again something you see today).
- lucaspfeifer 3y ago
  Rather than everyone voting for a few people at the top, what if each level voted for the one above and the one below? That way, people would be voting for the positions and people that they know the most about. Like the other response said, when people with only a surface-level understanding get involved, democracy devolves into a surface-level popularity contest.
riffraff 3y ago
This is a good article, and matches my experience and my mistakes :) I would argue that the workload part ("delegate or drop what you can't do") is not ideal tho. IMHO your default should be to delegate, and only do what the rest of your team can't do, or what you can do much more efficiently (e.g. manage a tricky stakeholder, gather information at the management level). If you were an IC promoted to management you likely were good at delivering and proactive but this will bite back when you're a manager, cause your instinct is that you can do all that you were doing before, plus whatever your old manager was doing. Taking the default stance that your team can handle things on their own helps with preventing the "I'm in the middle of the road" issue and at the same time reduce your risk of burning out.
donatj 3y ago
I have told this story here several times (never in this much detail) but why not once more. I had worked at my first software company for around five years when our lead developer left for greener pastures. Soon thereafter as the most senior developer on staff I had a meeting with the owner of the company and his assistant talking about the need to interview people to fill the lead position and it was kind of half floated “I don’t suppose you would want it” and I champed at the bit. I was young and desperate for what I saw as career advancement. They agreed and drew up a new contract. I moved out of the bullpen and into the office. Pretty quickly started trying to fix things I saw as “wrong” with our process by laying down decrees. One of the biggest being trying to get people to use version control (git) - it was 2009 and it was frankly still “acceptable” not to use version control. I had a lunch-and-learn where I taught everyone how to set up and use git. They didn’t understand the why. We had nightly backups, isn’t that good enough? I tried incentivizing them with a literal weekly “whoever has the most commits by the end of week gets a gift card“ and the same very green junior dev won it every week because she was the only one who bothered. At this same time a developer I had considered a friend was vastly underperforming. Prior to my time as lead, his desk had been moved to be in public view to try to keep him on task, it had not worked. He would mess around all day every day and when due dates rolled around he would turn in half completed rush jobs. He was already on notice when I took over. After a talk with the owner it was very clear we were trying to get rid of him. I had to be the one to place my friend on an improvement plan he was fully expected to fail. It was very difficult for me emotionally. A couple days later we were both working late and I called him into my office and I basically told him on the low down that the owner was gunning for him and he should start looking for a new gig. He was gone very shortly thereafter and I thankfully never had fire him. Around the same time as this, a developer told another developer a joke with exceedingly mild sexual innuendo - something not at all out of place in an episode of Rocky and Bullwinkle hidden for the parents. Well a third developer overheard the joke and put in a formal complaint and after bouncing off our HR person I was tasked with formally reprimanding the joke teller and the intended joke recipient. Joy. This entire time I am doing a very poor job of delegating, working 10 hour days and weekends and falling further and further behind. Hardest I have ever worked in my life, even to this day. And then my yearly review comes due. The owner’s assistant conducts it. It is the first negative review of my career, I am not getting enough done. I am working harder than ever, being put into positions I hate, and being told I am not doing enough. I went from loving my job to hating it. My stress level reaches 9001 and something in me just breaks, I get the worst headache of my life followed by what I would describe as jolts of “face lightning” followed by numbness and facial weakness. I go to the ER. They suspect stroke and do a CT scan, but find nothing. I end up getting diagnosed with stress induced trigeminal neuralgia and put on a drug to relieve apparent inflammation of my nerves. I had a former colleague who regularly tried to recruit me to whatever gig he was working at the time. Literally the next day I text him asking if he’s looking for a developer. He is, he sets me up with an interview with his boss. Within a week of the negative review and the trip to the ER I am putting in my two week notice. As one final insult, the owner points out that in my contract I had agreed to three weeks notice. I had planned to take a week off between jobs, but that’s gone I guess. And that’s why in the last 14 years since, I’ve made zero new attempts to become a manager again. I am a firmly believe I was not built for the task. I just want to build cool things.
praptak 3y ago
Most of this advice applies to non-managers too. Even "staying on the critical path" is not entirely manager-specific. Line employees also sometimes stay on the critical path when they shouldn't.
azangru 3y ago
The article reminded me that I don't understand what managers are for :-) Especially if a manager is in fact a software engineer promoted to that role. The promotion likely occurs because a) the person is good at being a developer, and b) the manager's position is better paid than his previous one. Which combines a perverse incentive (of course anyone would like a raise) with a completely different set of responsibilities that the person hasn't been trained for. I do like the ideas coming out of scrum, some of which would fit well with what the author is describing. For example, the anecdote about a junior engineer struggling with documentation for a new feature sounded like an opportunity for pairing with a more knowledgeable team member, and talking through the feature while planning the documentation for it. When the author said that he instead would write a design doc and the engineer would implement it, he was not acting as a manager, but rather as a software engineer. As another example, the author talks about planning the work, which, in a scrum environment, would involve a product owner (someone from the business side), and the rest of the team, to collectively identify and plan the next set of features. In a (sprint) review, the team, together with other interested parties, can inspect their progress and talk about the roadmap (something that the author is trying to do on his own). I understand the purpose of senior software engineers, or of a product owner. Of a manager, not that much.
- evilduck 3y ago
  You've never witnessed an underperforming developer? Who among a group of peers is going to deal with that? What about conflicts and disputes? Adults can become quite childish over the smallest issues and sometimes an impartial mediator needs to step in. And when budgets constrict, do you just draw short straws to decide who quits for the greater good or do you all volunteer to take equal pay cuts? You all openly share your salaries right? When budgets increase, do you all slice the pie equitably? And what about a good developer not realizing their potential? Who will nudge them to take the next step and sign up to a training session or apply for a promotion in another group, or even look for new jobs because you know they've hit a ceiling here? Your teammates who rely on you are very unlikely to send you packing for your own good. And when someone has a personal crisis, does a peer or product manager get consulted about their private issues? Bob from the API team just had their teenage son overdose on fentanyl, do you think he's going to be super talkative about needing a couple weeks off on short notice and in a state of mind to perform some transition planning?
uncle808 3y ago
I worked as a manager for the past year and fell into a lot of traps this article describes. I've realised that managing people isn't for me and I'm moving onto a technical role but I've gained a lot of respect for engineering managers. It really is a tough job that I think many commenters on here don't fully appreciate.

426 points by admp 3y ago

zabzonk 3y ago

> and see users happily using it all within a day or two kind of optimistic I would have said

MauroIksem 3y ago

I'm so tired of these humble brag posts.

readthenotes1 3y ago
Bro, reframe this "I have so many entrancing growth opportunities for my attention that I find it hard to take value from someone else's experience". Really, his bullet points are pretty basic management 101 - - but most managers don't know them and if it helps even one person be a better manager it's worth this time.
- xupybd 3y ago
  100%. It even helps me reflect on my past managers to see what they were not great at. So I don't pick up those same habits.
LVB 3y ago
There are lots of humblebrag posts, but I don’t see much bragging in this one.
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atlasunshrugged 3y ago
This post didn't feel particularly braggy to me. Also, having connected with Ben (I cold emailed him about something he referenced in one of his earlier blog posts), he seems like a person who is genuinely just trying to help and share his knowledge when useful.
croutonwagon 3y ago
As someone that is both an individual contributor and runs a department. I find the viewpoint insightful and I am glad they shared it.
raxxorraxor 3y ago
I share some of your criticism. I don't believe there is the one universal style to management. There aren't even styles that fit certain types of employees. There is making good decisions in the face of problems and being able to communicate with your team. The what is much more important than the how. Maybe that is just my personality type or whatever, but I often don't see the thr essential wisdom. The post isn't braggy though and it is appreciated that the author shares his ideas.

kitanata 3y ago

Great article. Thank you for sharing your experience.

naet 3y ago

Using Twitter likes as a "thing to make you feel good about yourself" might give you a short term dopamine rush, but probably leads to long term unhappiness IMO.

jimsimmons 3y ago
People either realize this or they go on to mutate their personality beyond recognition
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colinflane 3y ago
Sure, we can agree social media news and zero cost information dissemination is an Existential Evil, but ... if author had said "shout into a bag", "pound head against wall", or "drink a beer". Maybe we could just let it ride, for once.
shmde 3y ago
People need validation. Its an inherent human trait. But I feel validation from living breathing humans in proximity of your life >>>> validation from twitter likes.

29athrowaway 3y ago

Always remember: as a manager you are still an employee, and you are still required to observe the law. Being a manager does not mean you are correct by default. It does not mean you cannot receive feedback from your managees. Also, a brief refresher: lying about someone is defamation. If you defame people's performance and cause them to lose money you are personally liable for damages. We should sue managers more, when they indulge in bad habits such as lying about performance and making false accusations. Some managers realize that their opinion is authoritative truth and abuse this to fork reality, creating a psychopathic fiction where everything they say is true. We should sue each and every of these entitled tyrants.

bluefirebrand 3y ago
> We should sue managers more. I'm very curious what you think the outcome of this would be.
- 29athrowaway 3y ago
  Break the spirit of people that think lying has no consequences. Teach them a lesson, that they live in a country with people protected by rights.
  - bboygravity 3y ago
    There are A LOT of places in the world where lying is rewarded dearly. Including certain types of businesses in the US where lying a lot is basically a pre-requisite for company survival, growth and employee survival: banking, hedge funds and financial markets. The 2008 derrivatives crash was a concequence of that, the upcoming hyperinflation is a (predictable) consequence of that. More generally: ads lie all the time. Where does your assumption come from that lying has bad consequences for people? I agree with you that lying is not nice and extremely annoying, but in my opinion the level of corruption globally (and in financial markets in the US specifically) shows that lying constantly can have extremely positive outcomes for those who lie and do crime. It doesn't seem to me like law is trying very hard to stop them either.

DenisM 3y ago

The author seems to have a lot on his plate. One way to improve the situation is to delegate more technical leadership work, such as code and design reviews, to principal engineers and rely on them keep you appraised.

pcurve 3y ago
I agree. He/she has a ton on plate. He's still acting wearing engineering lead hat, which is understandable if he were a high performing IC. He wants to make sure the quality of the team's output is on par with that of his own.

chrsig 3y ago

> You upset them so deeply that they respond by unleashing the incredibly vicious-yet-perceptive tirade that they’ve been stewing on since the incident, reducing you to tears. Congratulations on hiring someone in the bottom ~2% of professionalism? At least your conscience can be clean at this point I guess. "Well your reaction was bad, so it doesn't matter what I did" This sort of discounts what the manager did to piss the person off, and if it's a recurring thing. A tirade isn't usually the first response. Maybe consider that you've overlooked some cues leading up to it.

plaguepilled 3y ago
I am not sure I agree with this assessment. A tirade isn't the first response and it deserves attention and a degree of empathy, but it is unprofessional almost universally. You generally don't need to do it (it is not competitively advantageous to try) and does not make the tirader nor the tiraded feel better. This is not to say a colleague should be a zen automaton that never feels discontent. However, learning not to get too upset when giving feedback, and similarly, giving feedback before you are that upset, are professional skills. So when the author says they can feel better about the interaction, it might make more sense to read that as "yes, I did something wrong, but this was also quite a silly exchange and it sort of lifts the intensity off a bit". Which, considering the author is indicating that they're worried they said the wrong thing to begin with, would make sense (since they are attempting to empathise).
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alex_lav 3y ago
> This sort of discounts what the manager did to piss the person off I don't agree at all. Short of legitimate, open malice, this type of behavior is pretty much never warranted.
- chrsig 3y ago
  The persons reaction doesn't negate any problem with the managers behavior. For what it's worth, I don't think there's a shortage of malice, passive aggressive, instigating behaviors that occur in the workplace that can lead up to a such reaction.

DenisM 3y ago

That’s a nice looking site… Does anyone know a low-effort way of making something similar?

hackernewds 3y ago
AI apps (I'm kidding!)
- kyleyeats 3y ago
  Same answer but not kidding (please try my thing): http://camarkup.com http://camarkup.com
cachvico 3y ago
https://pages.github.com/ https://pages.github.com/
Brajeshwar 3y ago
Here you go https://jez.io/pandoc-markdown-css-theme/ https://jez.io/pandoc-markdown-css-theme/ Source: https://github.com/jez/pandoc-markdown-css-theme https://github.com/jez/pandoc-markdown-css-theme And the Jekyll version https://github.com/jez/pandoc-markdown-jekyll-theme https://github.com/jez/pandoc-markdown-jekyll-theme I'm trying to move my site to this theme and got it working locally but too lazy to transition with my tweaks, and additions or rather the removals to the bare minimum with just Pandoc and Make (or something simpler) that I'm thinking. Not in a hurry.

PragmaticPulp 3y ago

> ANGSTING INSTEAD OF ASKING This is a great way of describing one of my biggest peeves in the office: So many unnecessary conflicts/dramas can be avoided by simple and honest communication. There’s a related dysfunction where managers are (wrongly) convinced that they must answer every question in the most positive and upbeat way possible. I had to leave a company once because my manager was frustrated with many people, including me, but he was too nice to actually explain what he thought we were doing wrong. He thought it was best to try to gently encourage us with hints and rhetorical questions and vague allusions to what he was actually thinking, but when you’d ask him for a direct answer he’d switch to “everything’s great” mode. The faux positivity turned into toxic positivity and destroyed morale across the team.

MuffinFlavored 3y ago
> So many unnecessary conflicts/dramas can be avoided by simple and honest communication. It's really not that simple in my opinion. The flow of information is "upper management wants this a certain way/at a certain time, I'm just the enforcer, if you don't work to accommodate/comply at a high priority, it's a problem" more often than not.
- majormajor 3y ago
  There are worlds of problems in teams and organizations that have nothing to do with what upper management wants, especially as a company grows. Disputes between two developers on a team, disputes between two teams, disputes between a developer and a team, a bunch of teams dogpiling on another team, etc... The above ones aren't always the same as the "what do you think of me" example for "angsting over asking" but are generally still problems of communication - the other team isn't doing what you would want them to do because they don't know what makes things easier/harder for you, vice versa, etc. Angsting instead of giving negative feedback is an extremely common one too, and leads to people being pissed off and blindsided at performance review time.
  - MuffinFlavored 3y ago
    > Disputes between two developers on a team, The way I've seen it: you should aim to be the developer avoiding disputes at all cost. If you are responsible for a dispute whatsoever, you're the problem child and will be dealt with (by management) > disputes between two teams, At my last job, managers were proxies to teams. Engineers were basically encouraged not to talk to other engineers because it would "distract them from whatever they were working on" and any ask you had for them needed to get approved by their manager/other management anyway. > disputes between a developer and a team, Again, teams didn't talk to each other. You tell your manager, they go talk to that team's manager. And that team's manager's main job is to say "no, we have no capacity for that", shielding the team at all costs, unless upper management says something/asks something. All initiatives had to come from above, not below. > a bunch of teams dogpiling on another team, etc... You get the idea. Team manager -> team manager

klabb3 3y ago

This sounds like the words of an a good manager, simply because of the healthy amount of self-doubt. It’s a strange status quo that management is something you’re expected to handle simply from experience as an IC, which is absolutely not a guarantee. The predictable result is that only those with great mentors or willing to self-learn the hard way actually become good, after much trial and error. It’s unfortunate and borderline insulting to genuinely good leaders to say that popularity, company loyalty and/or domain experience is enough. So we end up with what we select for. Otoh, what ICs often overlook is that managers often lack the hard and soft power to manage effectively, which of course is a leadership problem in itself. I’ve had well-meaning managers who still were bad for me because they didn’t have enough influence or respect in the greater org. Just like with engineering, even the best can’t do a great job if they are unable to access the right tools.

colinflane 3y ago

Thanks to the author. This resonated with me. It was helpful to see here a couple of the same issues I grappled with (to know "I'm not crazy"): feedback loops, prioritization / importance, communication. On the topic of the dreaded Micro-Management, I read recently somewhere, "better to micro-manage than to not manage at all". That also resonated.

flamebreath447 3y ago
No. If the only way you can manage is via micromanagement then you shouldn’t be a manager, end of story, period. The bar is far too low for managers already. The technical, communication and delivery bars are clear for developers at different levels. Managers have these too. You don’t settle with dog shit management skills. If I ever saw a manager doing this and didn’t improve they would see the door in short notice. Stop being lazy, provide your team with tooling or ways to help you gain insight. Make it clear to them what you need and how you can help them get there. Basically, do your job.
- ebiester 3y ago
  Both no management and micromanagement are failure states. The parent is comparing two failure states. But I think the key to point out is that most line managers have fewer than 5 years of experience. The good ones move up the chain and the bad ones return to IC work. Sure, some will stagnate in an organization but it's more common to see it as part of the early career. (In smaller organizations, directors and senior managers will also have teams, but they usually have larger swaths of experience and end up delegating a fair amount to tech leads.) I will also point out that few engineering managers have proper training. Most of us had to pick it up as we went. You talk about a manager seeing the door in short notice: if you were their boss, would it even cross your mind to give feedback and training?

johndhi 3y ago

I'm a new manager and am facing a conundrum over a supposed super star who joined my team but, at least from what I can tell, is far and away the least productive member of my team. Any ideas?

cwhsu 3y ago
I'm also new to manager role, but I think the first thing is you need to talk with him. Try to understanding what's going on about him, maybe it's just he had some bad time for whatever reason now. You can talk with him based on the fact of his performance and tell him your expectations. Just try to find out what's going on first before making any judgement.
astockwell 3y ago
One suggestion: Give it time. Many (myself included) are “slow boils”. Probably every manager I’ve ever had was kicking themselves for hiring me 6 months in, but past the 12 month mark and things have turned a corner. Anecdotal for sure, but every previous manager I’ve had continues to randomly ping me about job openings.
ebiester 3y ago
What are the full set of responsibilities of the team member? Are they being tied to previous projects? Is there something that is getting in their way? Is there a culture clash? Also, understand that the new person is learning the context and team culture, and will take some time to get up to speed. How long have they been on the team? How long have you been on the team? The other team members? There is a lot of context to consider. We can make a lot of assumptions based on our own experiences, but may end up sending you astray.
paulcole 3y ago
I disagree with the other person who said, “Give it time…” Read the book Difficult Conversations. From the book, you need to prep by looking at the situation from your perspective and the other person’s. This has been very helpful for me in figuring out these tough situations. Then you look for the difference in those stories, hear the other person’s story from their perspective and work towards a solution. Generally the more you put off these conversations the more you’ll regret it. And honestly it’s a weight off your shoulders when you do have them and you’ll often wish you had them sooner. And most people in my experience hate starting these kinds of conversations so more often than not, in some way, they appreciate that you as their boss are starting it for them.

cwhsu 3y ago

Great article! I also find this one very useful for a new manager. https://www.benkuhn.net/abyss/ https://www.benkuhn.net/abyss/

steveBK123 3y ago

> I asked people for feedback. I found that if I just asked “do you have any feedback for me?” people often wouldn’t, but if I asked more granular questions—“was that meeting useful?”—I would usually learn a lot from it. This part is good. I think generally as engineers, a manager simply asking "do you have feedback for me" just feels like a trap. I don't know man, there's plenty of things you do that annoy me but like.. can we be more specific here? The other side to this is - don't ask for feedback if you don't plan to action any of it. I worked for a guy who must have read a book that told him to ask for feedback, but he was so rigid that he would vehemently defend against any feedback he was given. Not like personal stuff either, but structure/length/schedule of meetings, standups, etc. The "strong ideas loosely held" type guys need to be careful when they become management, because while it may work with peers (if they also love arguing), it doesn't work with a power imbalance. All your "strong ideas" will become "permanently held", congrats.

KarlTheCool 3y ago
I feel this response. If voicing your opinion is a risk that needs calculating, it's not worth trying. It's sad to see a small team's chat be bullied into a stream of just :eyes: :raising_hands: :party_popper:
- ehnto 3y ago
  I found it difficult when working with American companies, as they can be purified by positivity. A saving grace of software work is the retrospective, those were at least a moment of honesty. While I do appreciate the upbeat attitude, I found it made people hide small issues to not ruin the vibe, and anyone with major concerns with approach risks getting backbenched.
  - pfannkuchen 3y ago
    I have also been really confused by this. It reminds me a bit of a clunky, modified, but also less extreme version of face saving in Eastern cultures.

jdlyga 3y ago

I recommend experienced engineers dip their toes into management to see if it's the right career path for you. But make sure that you're able to back out if you hate it, which is a very likely outcome.

zmmmmm 3y ago

This is a really good post. As someone with very similar challenges and situation, I found it highly relevant and a very useful read. Only thing I'd have to modify for myself is .... "made as a new manager" => "continue to struggle with after 10 years".

tschellenbach 3y ago

I've been managing teams for 16 years, I think it's actually really beneficial to stay hands on in lead or director roles. After that it's usually not possible given the work load. It improves team alignment, you can evaluate people's work better, understand their issues better and help level them up. Some of the companies that promoted the hands-off style of management, like Twilio are currently really struggling. Datadog is a great example of a more hands on approach and they are crushing it. If tech is more core to a company, people should stay hands on.

pcurve 3y ago
I was a director with 3 sr. managers reporting into me. They had 4-5 ICs. I found being hands-on pretty much impossible even with fewer than 20 people.
- WastingMyTime89 3y ago
  Honest question, I come from an industrial background where you have Work Package Manager in charge of the work of roughly 10 persons but not their actual manager with all the bureaucracy associated and an actual manager with less than 25 reports don’t exist. Is 4 reports common in the US? How do companies survive with so much management?
  - orthoxerox 3y ago
    I'm not in the US, but 4-5 reports is about the right size for a tech lead that wants to stay hand-on. With 8-10 reports you might struggle to sneak some personal contributions in, and if you have more direct reports than that, then you're a full-time manager by necessity.
    - WastingMyTime89 3y ago
      Ok, so it's more or less what I'm used to. WPMs are indeed not expected to contribute and a tech lead for a team of 5 is what I would expect. I was more surprised by the idea that you could both be a tech lead and deal with all the issues surrounding budgeting, hiring, company goals alignment and career development issues I associate with being a manager. It seems to me like that means having a lot of people to train and have to keep in the loop.

explorer83 3y ago

I particularly liked the "managing the wrong amount". I hate being micromanaged. So I told myself when I could manage people that I would not micromanage them. Big mistake, some people need more of a guiding hand. One glaring missing point from this though that I would add is "don't think because you are a manager people will listen to you or respect you". You still have to earn that kind of relationship with people and a lot of people think they can do better than you if they had your title.

fbdab103 3y ago
>So I told myself when I could manage people that I would not micromanage them. Big mistake, some people need more of a guiding hand. I am fighting this same issue. I want to give as much autonomy as possible, but some are woefully ill-prepared for it. Sadly, it feels the best option is to over-manage until proven otherwise.

doktorhladnjak 3y ago

Reading that article really makes me never want to go back to being a manager. It was almost everything I disliked and found stressful about the job. That I don't really understand why others find being a manager appealing is probably the best sign that it's not for me.

pcurve 3y ago

"Manage projects according to the owner’s level of task-relevant maturity." This is really important. Even your highest performer isn't going to be good at everything you throw at, and will want some handholding.

andrewstuart 3y ago

>> You did upset them, You did upset them, but they are unwilling to admit it and will passive aggressively sabotage you for the next 3 years, all the while smiling and assuring you nothing is wrong.

Joel_Mckay 3y ago

First of all, being in a managerial role is usually not enjoyable (expect manipulative antics). Here are a few styles/philosophies on how to accomplish a profitable department: 1. The Dictator: Follow orders, report regularly, or you are fired. If productivity under-performs, than do fire someone in case people forget who is in charge 2. The Coach: How do we win as a team, who has the best skill/will to take on the big challenges, and if individuals bring down our team they are fired 3. The Cult leader: Listen to the customer, how can we serve the customer better, how can we indoctrinate our brand into people lives, and if you violate our doctrine you are fired 4. The Con/Sociopath: Make money at any PR cost, scam the consumer/shareholders/departments, and if you won't break ethical norms you are fired 5. The Masochist: How should I manage the team, what should we be focused on, why are we burning budget and still failing, you are victimizing me with costs, so we had to cut costs and you are fired 6. The Idealist: An irrational infatuation with the impossible makes all other features irrelevant, and everyone still gets fired when the budget expires Depending what the company does, each role’s style has its strengths and weaknesses. Have a wonderful day =)

alex_lav 3y ago

I spent some time as a manager and decided I'd never do it again. Many of the places I've worked and observed have directors, principals, architects etc who've never been a manager, and do not include managerial experience as a component of hiring for those roles, so I personally have moved on from thinking it's a required step in the Path to Engineer Leadership. In my experience (a decade, many companies including multiple consultancies) Manager is very directly a "Middle Manager" type position. Meaning, mostly, there is no leadership or autonomy but instead a position derived purely from all the administrative "did you do your job" type checks and balances. "Did you update Jira", "Did you respond to Steve", "Are you stuck?" Everywhere I've worked, the actual "software" or "engineering" components of "Engineering Manager" are handled by someone else. I am glad I spent the time, though, as I have a much better understanding of workplace politics and interpersonal scheming. Telling someone something specific that is also almost-untrue, just so they get out of your business. Having different narratives for different units of work, depending of who's asking. The ridiculous concept of "dotted line managers". The process was pretty illuminating, both in terms of how unnecessary most workplace hierarchies are and how low the bar can be for individual contributor competency. After writing all of this, I think it'd be easy to say "Well this person just did a terrible job as a manager", but I received extremely positive reviews from both my reports and my superiors. Once I gave up trying to do a "good" job and just kind of let the ridiculousness flow, everything improved dramatically (on paper; my mental health plummeted). This has turned into a bit of a rant, and I suppose I apologize in advance for what turned into kind of a scathing venting.

lifeisstillgood 3y ago

Wow. the level of mistrust and fear shown by reactions here is ... at least I am not alone :-) We (most of us) live in democracies with clear rules of law and strong defence of individual rights. But we work in feudal hierarchies with arbitrary rules and love by whim of the powerful. I think that's the first thing to chnage rather than hoping the training middle management to be "better communicators" will improve things. Would Britain still have a colony in the US if we had handled that Tea situation better? Some experiments to try: - executive management (C-suite) to be elected annually by all FT employees voting anonymously. - annual project plans (do we build a new CRM or do we fix the existing one) again voted for by employees (one is referendum one is representative elections?) - stop remote working. I am fairly convinced the best most effective e means to build software is to put the right developers in the same room as the right business owners and let them fix it. Every step away from that, each time the business owner has to go to a different project, the time zones mean that a daily stand up is communication, every step back is a cut in efficiency. just stop it

vxNsr 3y ago
Voting on EM isn’t a bad idea, but one year is too much potential turnover and if it never turns over then you’ve just built a Potemkin democracy and we’re back we’re we started. You would also end up with even more politics as all the narcissists would campaign to be elected and would use every little trick in book just as they do in public elections today. You could also potentially end up in a situation where no one takes any ownership bec they think, “it’ll be the next person’s problem” (again something you see today).
lucaspfeifer 3y ago
Rather than everyone voting for a few people at the top, what if each level voted for the one above and the one below? That way, people would be voting for the positions and people that they know the most about. Like the other response said, when people with only a surface-level understanding get involved, democracy devolves into a surface-level popularity contest.

riffraff 3y ago

This is a good article, and matches my experience and my mistakes :) I would argue that the workload part ("delegate or drop what you can't do") is not ideal tho. IMHO your default should be to delegate, and only do what the rest of your team can't do, or what you can do much more efficiently (e.g. manage a tricky stakeholder, gather information at the management level). If you were an IC promoted to management you likely were good at delivering and proactive but this will bite back when you're a manager, cause your instinct is that you can do all that you were doing before, plus whatever your old manager was doing. Taking the default stance that your team can handle things on their own helps with preventing the "I'm in the middle of the road" issue and at the same time reduce your risk of burning out.

donatj 3y ago

I have told this story here several times (never in this much detail) but why not once more. I had worked at my first software company for around five years when our lead developer left for greener pastures. Soon thereafter as the most senior developer on staff I had a meeting with the owner of the company and his assistant talking about the need to interview people to fill the lead position and it was kind of half floated “I don’t suppose you would want it” and I champed at the bit. I was young and desperate for what I saw as career advancement. They agreed and drew up a new contract. I moved out of the bullpen and into the office. Pretty quickly started trying to fix things I saw as “wrong” with our process by laying down decrees. One of the biggest being trying to get people to use version control (git) - it was 2009 and it was frankly still “acceptable” not to use version control. I had a lunch-and-learn where I taught everyone how to set up and use git. They didn’t understand the why. We had nightly backups, isn’t that good enough? I tried incentivizing them with a literal weekly “whoever has the most commits by the end of week gets a gift card“ and the same very green junior dev won it every week because she was the only one who bothered. At this same time a developer I had considered a friend was vastly underperforming. Prior to my time as lead, his desk had been moved to be in public view to try to keep him on task, it had not worked. He would mess around all day every day and when due dates rolled around he would turn in half completed rush jobs. He was already on notice when I took over. After a talk with the owner it was very clear we were trying to get rid of him. I had to be the one to place my friend on an improvement plan he was fully expected to fail. It was very difficult for me emotionally. A couple days later we were both working late and I called him into my office and I basically told him on the low down that the owner was gunning for him and he should start looking for a new gig. He was gone very shortly thereafter and I thankfully never had fire him. Around the same time as this, a developer told another developer a joke with exceedingly mild sexual innuendo - something not at all out of place in an episode of Rocky and Bullwinkle hidden for the parents. Well a third developer overheard the joke and put in a formal complaint and after bouncing off our HR person I was tasked with formally reprimanding the joke teller and the intended joke recipient. Joy. This entire time I am doing a very poor job of delegating, working 10 hour days and weekends and falling further and further behind. Hardest I have ever worked in my life, even to this day. And then my yearly review comes due. The owner’s assistant conducts it. It is the first negative review of my career, I am not getting enough done. I am working harder than ever, being put into positions I hate, and being told I am not doing enough. I went from loving my job to hating it. My stress level reaches 9001 and something in me just breaks, I get the worst headache of my life followed by what I would describe as jolts of “face lightning” followed by numbness and facial weakness. I go to the ER. They suspect stroke and do a CT scan, but find nothing. I end up getting diagnosed with stress induced trigeminal neuralgia and put on a drug to relieve apparent inflammation of my nerves. I had a former colleague who regularly tried to recruit me to whatever gig he was working at the time. Literally the next day I text him asking if he’s looking for a developer. He is, he sets me up with an interview with his boss. Within a week of the negative review and the trip to the ER I am putting in my two week notice. As one final insult, the owner points out that in my contract I had agreed to three weeks notice. I had planned to take a week off between jobs, but that’s gone I guess. And that’s why in the last 14 years since, I’ve made zero new attempts to become a manager again. I am a firmly believe I was not built for the task. I just want to build cool things.

praptak 3y ago

Most of this advice applies to non-managers too. Even "staying on the critical path" is not entirely manager-specific. Line employees also sometimes stay on the critical path when they shouldn't.

azangru 3y ago

The article reminded me that I don't understand what managers are for :-) Especially if a manager is in fact a software engineer promoted to that role. The promotion likely occurs because a) the person is good at being a developer, and b) the manager's position is better paid than his previous one. Which combines a perverse incentive (of course anyone would like a raise) with a completely different set of responsibilities that the person hasn't been trained for. I do like the ideas coming out of scrum, some of which would fit well with what the author is describing. For example, the anecdote about a junior engineer struggling with documentation for a new feature sounded like an opportunity for pairing with a more knowledgeable team member, and talking through the feature while planning the documentation for it. When the author said that he instead would write a design doc and the engineer would implement it, he was not acting as a manager, but rather as a software engineer. As another example, the author talks about planning the work, which, in a scrum environment, would involve a product owner (someone from the business side), and the rest of the team, to collectively identify and plan the next set of features. In a (sprint) review, the team, together with other interested parties, can inspect their progress and talk about the roadmap (something that the author is trying to do on his own). I understand the purpose of senior software engineers, or of a product owner. Of a manager, not that much.

evilduck 3y ago
You've never witnessed an underperforming developer? Who among a group of peers is going to deal with that? What about conflicts and disputes? Adults can become quite childish over the smallest issues and sometimes an impartial mediator needs to step in. And when budgets constrict, do you just draw short straws to decide who quits for the greater good or do you all volunteer to take equal pay cuts? You all openly share your salaries right? When budgets increase, do you all slice the pie equitably? And what about a good developer not realizing their potential? Who will nudge them to take the next step and sign up to a training session or apply for a promotion in another group, or even look for new jobs because you know they've hit a ceiling here? Your teammates who rely on you are very unlikely to send you packing for your own good. And when someone has a personal crisis, does a peer or product manager get consulted about their private issues? Bob from the API team just had their teenage son overdose on fentanyl, do you think he's going to be super talkative about needing a couple weeks off on short notice and in a state of mind to perform some transition planning?

uncle808 3y ago

I worked as a manager for the past year and fell into a lot of traps this article describes. I've realised that managing people isn't for me and I'm moving onto a technical role but I've gained a lot of respect for engineering managers. It really is a tough job that I think many commenters on here don't fully appreciate.