Dangerous Myths Regarding Engineering Management

I want to talk about becoming an engineering manager.

The role is highly demanding, but that is not the issue. The issue is that people's views about the job persist even while they are performing it. These misunderstandings cause dissatisfaction, challenges, exhaustion, inefficiencies, and worse.

I've seen this happen several times before, and I'd like to help you avoid it. Although my perspective is one of many, the misconceptions listed below are universal. After understanding them, you can decide whether you actually want to take on the challenge of being an engineering manager. Regardless of your decision, you will have a better understanding of the role and its obligations.

This starts with one of the most detrimental myths regarding engineering managers.

1. This is a technical function

This is one of the most typical misconceptions that engineers face while exploring or transferring into engineering management. Worse, it fosters or exacerbates other misconceptions, such as the belief that the transfer to the role will be simple.

Understanding this misperception necessitates looking at work from two separate angles.

The Engineer’s Perspective

First, let’s review the steps you’d take while working on a feature:

• You finished and deployed the feature.
• A QA team evaluates it and identifies bugs.
• You fix the bugs.
• The feature is rolled out to end users.
• You go to the next iteration based on input.

Throughout these steps, you will spend the most of your time alone working with code. You communicate when needed, but your primary tasks are to determine what needs to be completed and then implement it.

And each of those responsibilities is technical. But what about when you're the engineering manager?

From Engineering Manager's Perspective

In this situation, you will take the following steps:

• Assign the feature to the engineer because you know it will motivate them and they are a good fit for it.
• Track their progress to help remove bottlenecks and make the process more efficient.
• Communicate with them about their progress and any challenges they are experiencing. Discuss these issues with the stakeholders.
• Discover the flaws in the engineer's work following QA assessment.
• To minimize problems, engineers should filter out those that aren't their fault, document those that are, create patterns from their work, and collaborate with other teams.
• Discussing the bug rate and trends with the engineer will help them improve.
• Continue to monitor their progress after

By now, you've undoubtedly seen the difference; if not, take a close look at that list and ask yourself:

What percentage of your work as an engineering manager was technical?

Yes, understanding the technical components of your engineer's work is advantageous, if not essential. You will need at least some of this knowledge to recognize patterns and provide relevant recommendations.

But you are not coding or addressing issues, and you should not be (more on this later). These are your engineer's responsibilities. Your responsibilities include timelines, communication, tracking, and coaching, among other non-technical tasks.

In short, shifting to engineering management does not simply expand your responsibilities; it radically alters them.

2. You should be the best on your team

Fear fuels or exacerbates many of these beliefs. This is no more true than for this one. Far too many technical managers are terrified of their teams, when the opposite should be true, motivated by the fear that if they aren't the best, someone will replace them.

However, if you're terrified of your team's strengths rather than enthused about them, you're more likely to lose your job.

You want them to be the best, while you want to be the worst.

Why you want to be the worst

Fearful engineering managers hire less talented engineers and neglect to develop them to their full potential. In extreme circumstances, those managers may create an environment that encourages those engineers to transfer or leave, seek to transfer those engineers themselves, score their performance adversely, or be significantly harder on them in general.

This approach also leads engineering managers to believe that they must do everything themselves. But this is not good in any way.

Remember that your team's success determines yours. So, the only way to be successful is to make them successful; anything else harms your outcomes, reflects poorly on your performance, and may lead to the replacement that many people fear.

You want your team to code better than you ever did. You want them to communicate and collaborate better. You want them to demonstrate the talents of senior engineers and leaders (including, yes, engineering managers). And you want to assist them in developing those talents.

Remember that you are not training your replacements; you are training your team and future colleagues. You may even be training colleagues you will supervise in their new responsibilities when you are promoted. One of the best ways to ensure this is to demonstrate to those who work for you the types of achievements you can achieve in terms of products and people.

3. You don't need to serve anyone anymore

Engineering management has benefits. These include incentives such as complimenting your team for their efforts and watching them progress. Unfortunately, many people believe that becoming an engineering manager means they have "made it" so to speak.

This is how many people see transferring into an engineering management position.

The difficulty is that this viewpoint makes your job tougher and less effective.

Why it is important to serve as a manager

I sincerely think that we are all servants to one another.

This is not a "servant" in the sense that someone gives directions and expects others to obey them. Rather, this refers to helping, supporting, listening to, and assisting others. An engineering manager must act in this manner.

Engineering managers must help their teams just as much as their teams support them.

Bossy managers achieve short-term results; Supportive managers get long-term results

Being a helpful manager has the added benefit of teaching you more about tea. You can spend time working with such a team member on these difficulties or concentrate your efforts on those who are not attempting to take advantage of you.

Do your job as a helpful manager with this potential in mind, learn from your failures, and plan for when others try it, and you'll be OK.

4. The transition will be easy

Many people believe that engineering management is a technical function that they are familiar with or will rapidly learn. As a result, the adjustment becomes increasingly challenging. Unfortunately, the troubles do not stop there. The task is also unpleasant, if not dangerous. An analogy is an effective method to think about this.

It's like learning to drive

When you’re an engineering manager, you’re driving yourself and overseeing your team, tracking them, coaching them, communicating it to others, and so on. Because you’re doing all of this simultaneously, you also have to prioritize what’s most important at any given moment, organize yourself, and, again, still find time to breathe.

You can always go back

Many people believe they are unable to return, which adds to their stress.

You can always return to the individual contributor role.

Yes, it can be an awkward and difficult talk with your boss (but not always). However, if you have given the role your all and are still not succeeding, or if it is interfering with your personal life or mental health, schedule that conversation.

Regardless matter how they or your colleagues react, you have nothing to be embarrassed about. You should be proud of yourself for trying and being brave enough to recognize it wasn't a job you enjoyed or were suited for.

Many people could learn from you.

5. Have to do it all yourself

This is a very common and enticing mistake to fall into, in part because it might begin with good intentions.

The damaging loop of completing your team's task for them

Imagine you are a new engineering manager. You are tracking your engineer's progress and bug reports. You realize they're struggling and have a solution. You're also preoccupied with work, and you're already stressed by the transition, so you don't have much time to coach them on these topics.

But you do have time to fix things yourself, which saves you time and helps them out. Plus, you can always tell them what you did afterward.

So you repair it! The engineer, project manager, your employer, and you are all satisfied.

This is where the issues begin, however. The first is that you genuinely want to talk to the engineer about the adjustments you made so they can learn and improve in the future, but you have so much work to accomplish that the conversation never happens.

The second is that the engineer begins making mistakes again. They may be the same or different faults, but they haven't learned anything from the past, so they're battling to correct them without assistance.

They may not ask you for assistance directly, but you are in the same scenario as before. You were one of those engineers that learned to solve problems on their own, therefore you know how to do this. You want to coach them to do the same!

This cycle will continue indefinitely, progressively intensifying. It may appear manageable, even heroic, to do what you are doing, but it is neither. In fact, it is extremely detrimental for the following reasons:

• Your employers never realize the engineer is struggling in this way.
• Being burdened with even more work.
• Falling behind on other obligations.
• Burning out.
• The engineer becomes increasingly dependent on you.
• Their career will suffer since they will not have learned the abilities required to advance.
• Other engineers question why you're not providing the same support.
• If you start instructing them, the engineer may become irritated with you.

It may seem like a lot for such a small item motivated by good intentions, but this is what may happen and why this myth is so deadly. Worse, every time someone new joins your team, you'll be inclined to repeat the pattern.

But you have to keep toughing it out; it gets easier over time. You'll create training guides and packages, see long-term coaching results, and be able to delegate tasks to your senior engineers and leads.

6. You are just another manager with no output

As an engineering manager, your effort is unseen. Furthermore, the better you get at managing your obligations, the more efficient you will become with them.

All of this encourages individuals, both inside and outside the job, to believe that engineering managers (all managers) accomplish nothing. The contrary is true, but let us begin with why your effort is unseen.

Your work is invisible but has a massive impact

After all of the work, your team defines your success and you determine theirs. This does not make you more important than them, or them more important than you; it just means that you have the same impact on the end result as they do.

Think of it this way:

• What if you never looked into why that engineer was lagging behind on their work?
• What happens if you never coach them?
• What if you never considered who would be best suited for a certain task?
• What if you hadn't created the report to track bug trends?

The reason you're doing less is because you did more

Efficiency does not imply poor performance.

However, when we observe someone working more efficiently than others, we frequently misinterpret it for a lack of effort or love. However, as you gain experience as an engineering manager, you will be able to improve and streamline your processes.

For example, you might first accept calls for every last detail your engineers want to discuss. Over time, you'll find that most issues don't require a call and may be addressed asynchronously.

Does this make you worse than an engineering manager who still answers calls? No. It makes you more productive. Sometimes that entails doing a lot of effort up front so you don't have to do as much later.

Furthermore, having reduced so much of your work helps you to focus on the areas that require your attention or deal with unexpected shifts in strategy or emergencies without falling behind on your other obligations.

These are the characteristics of an effective engineering manager. Be proud when you start displaying them.

Do you still want to be an engineering manager?

Knowing and applying these engineering management principles makes you happier, more efficient, productive, and useful. It also eliminates the frustrations and problems that come with these assumptions.

You will have one of two reactions to the preceding. One possibility is that you will decide you want to continue working as an engineering manager. The other option is that you decide you don't want to be one.

Both are excellent choices, and you are an incredible person in either case. The main thing is that you're informed, so you can make the greatest decision for yourself, your career, and your life.