This paper is super interesting and seems to agree with real life anecdata - most managers are crap and management is a hard skill that people are not trained f

This paper is super interesting and seems to agree with real life anecdata - most managers are crap and management is a hard skill that people are not trained for. How to find a good engineering manager to work for: 1. during your interview you must learn something significant - can be technical, or about managing people or something. 2. they should not grate you even 1 second. The interview is where you and they are at your respective very very best behaviors. If they grate on you even for 1 second, you probably don't want to work for them. You should always come out feeling positive. 3. they should push you during your interview without you feeling bad about it. The job of a manager is to bring the best/most out of you. When you are on the job they will push you hard. Also they need to find the boundary of your abilities during your interview. 4. they must have better communication skills than you and you should look up to them. Everyone judges their boss and can't deal with a boss that is worse than them at their job. Find a good manager to work for is very difficult. Because of the high stakes related to a job search - finding a good one will probably only happen by accident. Treasure those bosses. The worst thing that can happen (as it happened with me) is that your first boss is great at their job. Then every boss after that will be such a huge letdown. :)