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I have a long held belief that engineering managers are mostly a scam, and are actually just overpaid scrum masters. This is from working at some top companies
by greatpostman 3y ago
I have a long held belief that engineering managers are mostly a scam, and are actually just overpaid scrum masters. This is from working at some top companies
- booleandilemma 3y agoMy manager does little else besides asking what everyone is working on every day. We could automate her position with a slack bot and get the same results.
- tmpX7dMeXU 3y agoIt’s likely that you do not have complete visibility over her role.
- KyleSanderson 3y agoIt's likely that they do - and it's reported at her standup what their team is working on.
- vjust 3y agoGive me a date when it will be done. That’s mgmt for you
- kilbuz 3y agoWhy don't you just tell me when you want it done? (said in Kramer MoviePhone voice)
- pizzafeelsright 3y agoIt depends. My manager filters my email. And tells me what the new priority is. Two levels up is a director. Above that is a department head. Out of 100 people there are about six that truly build, ship, accelerate the goal arrival. The rest of us make waves allowing the divers to have a soft landing.
- pizzafeelsright 3y agoIt depends. My manager filters my email. And tells me what the new priority is. Two levels up is a director. Above that is a department head. Out of 100 people there are about six that truly build, ship, accelerate the goal arrival. The rest of us make waves allowing the divers to have a soft landing.
- intelVISA 3y agoAlways makes you wonder what drives those 6 people to carry entire orgs like that when they could be free, and 10x richer.
- coffeebeqn 3y agoHow? ICs are usually well paid unless they’re clueless. I’m paid more than any manager or sr manager at my company at staff level.
- _dark_matter_ 3y agoYeah I report to a director and make more than them at senior staff level
- pizzafeelsright 3y agoTeach me this!
- nostrademons 3y ago1.) Be good at what you do. 2.) Be even better at leetcode. 3.) Interview during a downturn, when everybody's stock is in the toilet and all the companies that are about to go bankrupt aren't hiring. 4.) Get multiple competing offers. 5.) Play them off against each other. Turn them down if you have to. 6.) Get as much stock as you can in the counteroffer. 7.) Wait for the upturn, where the company's stock goes parabolic. 8.) Profit. #3 and #7 are the most important. Timing and luck are better than skill. But you usually need #1 and #2 to accomplish #4 during #3, and you need #4/5 to get #6, which is what really makes you the big bucks in #7.
- ajcp 3y agoYou might be right, but that might be because they're just really bad managers. A good engineering manager shouldn't be there to herd engineers. A good engineering manager is there to protect their engineers from the organization, ensure they have the resources required to do the work, and to make sure their organizational goals, development, and wellbeing are being advocated and cared for. Scrum masters shouldn't care about that. Managers should.
- bombcar 3y agoI feel some people have never had a good manager, and so they don’t realize just how much bullshit they can insulate you from.
- jackcosgrove 3y agoMaybe also some had good managers but didn't realize it because you don't notice the lack/lessening of bullshit.
- langsoul-com 3y agoThe classic so good you don't notice them problem. In work, always selectively take time off when it's somewhat important. So your skills aren't taken as the norm.
- pico303 3y agoAs an engineering manager, my team doesn’t know half the crap I keep off their shoulders. But that’s the part I play these days if we want to get things done.
- wavemode 3y agoYeah, but... isn't that kind of strange? Most managers who didn't know half the things their reports were doing, would conclude that their reports were useless. So is it surprising that developers who lack visibility into the things going on above their paygrade, tend to conclude that their managers are useless?
- refurb 3y agoI've seen what teams with a lack of management do. They do a lot, but little of it drives the business forward.
- baby 3y agoSounds like they lack a tech lead rather
- upupupandaway 3y agoI'm not a scam, I like to believe, because I've always gotten good feedback from my teams. But definitely the job description is quite light and a bit handwavy, so all companies could use fewer engineering managers, not more. I myself would volunteer to go back to IC right now.
- dilyevsky 3y agoYou think someone is leaving honest feedback on those forms? It's trivial for any manager who is not a complete moron to figure out who left a bad review and retaliate as I've seen happen multiple times in my career (mostly to other ICs but sometimes entire teams)
- eru 3y agoNot only that, but even if I don't think my manager is the best guy ever, there's usually no point in giving them bad marks on those forms. It doesn't cost me anything to give good marks, and helps them play their own game.
- humbleharbinger 3y agoI never criticize a manager. It has very limited upside on the off chance that a manager takes my feedback seriously. OTOH the downside is tremendous. I don't think feedback in a corporate setting from someone you have power over can be relied on.
- alephnerd 3y agoA good engineering manager is worth their weight in gold. Sadly, a good engineering manager is hard to find.
- ditonal 3y agoSilicon Valley used to have engineering managers who managed engineering. As the money got bigger we got more grifters / professional manager types. First thing they do is rebrand middle management as “leaders” and the other thing they do is make management non technical. This has even bled into making higher level IC engineering roles being “above” coding. “Staff engineers don’t code, they set high level architecture “. This is toxic to an engineering org in many ways. Firstly you now have a bunch of highly paid technical employees completely removed from how things actually work. But what’s worse is you created a culture where you’re incentived to follow - a senior engineer who wants to get promoted should write less code because coding is associated with being a low level employee. The fundamental root cause is a misunderstanding of code as low level factory work and not intrinsically tied to the design and architecture. But it’s one of many ways in which traditional business structures and software engineering do not mesh and you need an extremely strong engineering leader to keep software culture on track, which very few organizations have.
- charles_f 3y ago> As the money got bigger we got more grifters / professional manager types. That. Same for all the decorative functions with low value added. > make management non technical This is a big flag to me. I know this is a devisive opinion, but I don't think you can do a good job at managing people without knowing their core business. > making higher level IC engineering roles being “above” coding. There is little that revolts me more than people working in technical companies, and seeing themselves as above the technical layer. I don't mind people not being software engineers, a lot of them are great, willing to learn a bit of context in order to do their job efficiently and facilitate mine. The same way I learn about the other functions. But I've worked with quite a number of managers, PMs and TPMs who talk down to me the moment I tell something even remotely technical, like I'm some sort of amateurish geek only tolerated at the adult's table. I do my best to stay away from these folks.
- hx8 3y ago> But I've worked with quite a number of managers, PMs and TPMs who talk down to me the moment I tell something even remotely technical, like I'm some sort of amateurish geek only tolerated at the adult's table. You're working with the wrong people.
- throwawaysleep 3y agoScrum masters are the real scam. Let some non technical with neither a background in engineering or tech or management run things.
- DamnYuppie 3y agoI think even worse than that are Product Managers who want to run their own developers using Scrum.....just no.....
- throwawaysleep 3y agoI prefer those because at least a product manager is busy. Scrum Masters are so often bored to tears and end up generating all sorts of meetings as a result.
- baby 3y agoIt’s the job that have too much free time that end up generating the most politics.
- midasz 3y agoScrum masters don't really need to be super technical right? They just need to make sure the rituals work and eventually make themselves redundant. I'm an IC and thinking of following some courses so I can fill that role in my team but only because it may give some credence to the rituals, not because my technical insights make it better. I think the rituals can add value but only if they're taken seriously - otherwise they're a waste of time.
- oldpersonintx 3y agoThey are 100% failed developers IMHO Just like home inspectors...failed contractors
- lovich 3y agoBruh, I don't know where you've been but "Engineering Manager" positions are the new "Devops" from 10 years ago in terms of needing to do multiple jobs. Every position I've both applied for and gotten has required that I can -Complete technical tasks at the minimum of a senior engineer level if not staff/principal -Train the <senior engineers on a weekly basis -Project Management -System Design, to the point that I am willing to put my name on each and every design as the architect -Understand all the projects my team owns to the level that I can answer extremely explicit technical questions from other teams line engineers immediately in that meeting and not need to refer to my team's expertise -Be on call 24/7. This isn't asked explicitly, but I am told that I need to be available to support my team for every on call event, which funnily enough means I cover 100% of the on 24/7 call schedule my team has -People Management -Employee growth -Vendor Management -more I am probably forgetting I am not super incensed about this because the total comp has kept increasing as the expectations grow, but I am now 3 jobs in a row with companies expecting this combination of perfect high level engineer and perfect MBA accredited business leader in one role. If you have engineering managers that legitimately seem like overpaid scrum masters you should probably look to join a more mature software company. Also if you're at a FAANG or close to FAANG startup and still feel this way, odds are that you have no idea what goes into 90% of running a team in an well running business and think that the company is making bad decisions because they don't dump 90% of their revenue into feature development instead of stupid choices like fulfilling government mandated regulation. Edit: Also I've worked on teams with Scrum Masters. Its been more than 7 years since I last came across someone with that title. My Scrum Master equivalent planned tasks equate to less than 6 man hours total a week and 5 of that is the standup set for 15 minutes for 4 engineers a day that we normally end 5 minutes in
- baby 3y agoI’ve worked with engineering managers and they did none of the stuff you listed lol. I’m still wondering what they were doing.
- lovich 3y agoIf that is legimately the case then you are probably working fore a bad company. I would caution you to confirm that your engineering manager isn't working in the background on a bunch of non engineering tasks that kept the engineers more productive. IMO, my modus operandi as an engineering manager is to body all the work that I can handle for a team that lets the team stay focused on the engineering work and be more productive.
- xyst 3y agoIt’s the one profession that should be automated heavily via AI or whatever. I have worked at orgs that have chains of middle managers. Each one of them asking for updates on the same shit.
- Aurornis 3y agoWhere are all of these scam manager jobs where I don’t have to do anything other than a little bit of scrum mastering? Sign me up! For some reason I can only find the heavy workload manager jobs. It’s different work than being an IC (I’ve gone back and forth) but I wouldn’t call being a manager easier.
- smugma 3y agoAFAIK This isn’t true at any FANG-like companies. Engineering managers I’ve seen either code or at least do technical reviews. This is true for senior managers and often still true regarding technical direction at the director level.
- xtracto 3y agoThe problem with "Engineering Managers " in our software verticals is that we mostly get people who are shitty engineers and shitty people managers. What are the JDs of "Engineer Managers" ? And what are their REAL responsibilities. Their responsibilities are basically improve and maintain the performance of whoever they "manage" . But for some reason we decided that shitty engineers that decided they dont want do do development are the ones looking for management positions. And they get good at playing the politics game. My wife works in a non tech position and had a manager, who studied for people management and understand in the long term what makes people perform (hint, it's not keeping them sad, overworked and getting all the shit politics). Good managers filter the shit from you. Push back on stupid deadlines and double drippings, and act on your needs as a person. And they may not know shit about the technical side of things, but they trust you do your job. I think Industrial Engineers with some specialization in people management make the best managers for Software Dev.