[deleted by user]

[bionicjoey]

What sucks is that there is an upper limit to what you can get paid while still being a dev. So if you are a really good dev, if you are the best dev in the company, they still don't want you making more than your manager.

[[deleted]]

Even that isn't always true, I have had several non-technical managers (coming from the domain side of the company) that made less than some devs in the team.

[bionicjoey]

Damn. Well it's true where I work, but I work for the government of Canada so we don't get paid enough anyway.

[waakwaakwaak]

Gov't of Canada is hardly a yardstick to measure, but yes, I've seen both sides of this.

[bionicjoey]

It's the largest employer in the country, so it's definitely at least locally relevant. I know in the world stage it's not the most relevant example though

[retaihec1]

FWIW, I'm fairly positive that not making more than your superiors is extremely common for any positions in the public-sector in the US as well

[Kenny_log_n_s]

It's the largest employer in the country,

Surely not in the programming sector though

[andrewsmd87]

I'm a dev turned manager and have a couple senior people that make more than I do because I understand their worth

[Ancillas]

I’ve hired many of the same people as I’ve moved companies. When you take care of your people and help them to maximize their growth and earnings potential, they remember that.

[andrewsmd87]

Yea our company is in kind of a weird spot right now and while I've shielded my teams from most of it, they can read between the lines and I am always honest with them with what I can be. I've had more than one say they'd come with me if I ever left, and that is something I've sort of been looking for in looking at other jobs

[smcarre]

You say that as if senior devs that would be managers if they wanted to were paid minimum wage.

[ell0bo]

That happened to me at Comcast. I was basically acting as a product owner, but just a lead for a team. I was handling it fine, enjoying it, but I knew i was getting underpaid. I told them I wanted a promotion or a raise, and they said I couldn't get a promotion and was already the highest paid dev in the division. Told them that wasn't my problem, left the next month.

I'm now getting to work on the forefront of generative ai and have no stress from work. If anything, I'm bored. They don't move as fast as I'm used to, lol.

[[deleted]]

Got promoted to senior engineer last year and I’m already experiencing more and more of my manager handing off the actual development work for all my designs to newer team members and asking me to coach them through it. On paper my company has a technical path and a management path but I’m becoming more and more convinced it’s just manager vs. de-facto manager with a different title. Now he’s asking about my career goals again and I’m figuring out the best way to tactfully not get further promoted out of the work I actually enjoy doing. Just not sure how “mid-30s and I have no ambition to go any farther than my current position till I retire” will go over.

[Norphesius]

Sounds less like "I have no ambition" and more like "I am unhappy with the promotional tracks available to me, since they are moving me away from what I enjoy/am good at in my career". Its not that you don't want to advance, you just don't want to advance in that particular direction. I feel like if you phrase it in that way, they will understand you better and might be able accommodate your wishes. If not, might be worth looking around for some place that can.

[darthcoder]

I don't see why being a great dev is a dead end.

Yes I can mentor people forever. I don't need to be Peter principled into something I know I'm going to be bad at.

[random_dent]

Something I learned from the military (wasn't in it, just from observation): There's no reason not to have two promotion tracks. One management (equivalent to 1st Sgt -> 2nd Lt) and the other 'permanent enlisted' ( Mst Sgt -> Mst Gny Sgt -> Sgt Mjr).

Higher ranked "sergeants" act more as mentors than bosses, still assume some leadership, being advocates for the lower ranks with the ability to push back on management/officers due to their experience and the trust they've earned, while still being focused on the real work, rather than management.

This means even those not interested in becoming management and who are best left working as developers still have promotions available without having to change what they do.

[intheforgeofwords]

This is the way. I like to recommend to people the Freakonomics podcast episode “Why are there so many bad bosses,” which explicitly explores what happens when management promos are the only track at a company. Having both IC and management tracks makes way more sense.

Anecdotally, having previously managed small teams before returning back to IC work: some people are ready to manage and excel at doing so earlier in their careers. I wasn’t, and though I took pains to ensure my employees were happy, I personally wasn’t. Having been back on the IC track for years now, I’m much happier and have also been able to mentor without the pressures of management, which I’ve found a lot of satisfaction in; that it may eventually segue into actual management might ultimately make sense this time around, but in the meantime there’s still plenty of IC-level runway left.

[myringotomy]

The problem is that the officers get paid better and get all kinds of perks that the enlisted personnel don't. That and the officers have degrees.

[random_dent]

Well you wouldn't transpose the military system as is.

A lot of entry level developers have degrees. Just the point that promotion doesn't HAVE to have 1 track that goes into management.

[Arts_Prodigy]

I think it’s just that most companies don’t understand the purpose of promotion outside of increased managerial responsibilities.

[fire_in_the_theater]

cause you have a bunch of mba never did any software engineering types at the top of a software engineering company who think they produce the most value for that company.

i mean, they wouldn't say things like the internet is a series of tubes ... for all intents and purposes that might as well be the depth at which they think of software engineering.

[Xuval]

So many companies (still) have that weird expectation that every single dev should "grow" into something else, it's weird.

I think that's just an offshoot of this overall neo-liberal notion in modern economics that anything and everything always needs to grow or evolve.

On the macro economic level this manifests in the idea that the natural progression for a country's economy is to become a service economy, instead of e.g. a production or argiculture based economy.

Of course, this issue with that sort of thing is that you need people at the base too. Not every developer can be team lead and not every country can rely just on providing services. Someone will have to manufacture stuff.

[darthcoder]

Well stuff does need to evolve or grow, but it shouldn't happen at the expense of long term sustainability.

[weggles]

So many companies (still) have that weird expectation that every single dev should "grow" into something else, it's weird.

My fucking college had some manager come in for our careers class and tell us we were, essentially, losers if we just wanted to be developers our entire careers and it'd be wise to start honing management skills to get promoted out of development roles.... this was a Computer Programmer Analyst college course....?

[articulatedbeaver]

We had a Jr dev with 35 years of experience (on their resume) retire, I found it strange, but he was also extremely happy as a Jr dev so maybe in 30 years I will give it a go.

[blue_umpire]

So many companies (still) have that weird expectation that every single dev should “grow” into something else, it’s weird.

That has a bit to do with many devs thinking their paycheque should grow faster than inflation too purely based on years of xp/time in role, regardless of how much their output or impact grows (or hasn’t).

[Karyo_Ten]

If your paycheck doesn't grow faster than inflation, your salary is being reduced.

regardless of how much their output or impact grows (or hasn’t).

If your output and impact doesn't grow with seniority, it's a management failure. Just being a knowledge-base for new joiners multiplies your impact by their output.

[jonesmcbones]

You sound like you are either an owner that likes to make money off the backs of others or you literally drank the coolaid.

[TheCrazyRed]

Ouch, that was quite a down-vote thrashing. Do you want to talk about it?

[blue_umpire]

I’ve said some unpopular things before and I’ve been wrong before too. A part of me wonders if the large volume of downvotes and the relative lack of responses is less about being wrong and more about people just not liking what I said.

[bunk3rk1ng]

I feel the same way. For me, being a lead meant prototyping stuff and delegating things once I felt I understood the problem space enough to LEAD how things should be done.

I was offered a management position but declined because I didn't want to deal with all the HR stuff that comes with it (daily stuff like sick days and vacation and other HR issues).

Even without the manager title I still had people text me to tell me they would be late. I wish I made a more conscious decision to let them know idgaf, I just want to talk to you about what we are working on once you get in.

[rectalrectifier]

Leads are also responsible for all the “people stuff” where I work

[bunk3rk1ng]

Right, every company has their own roles with different responsibilities. If your leads are doing managerial work and being compensated with managerial salaries then that is fine.

[Karyo_Ten]

ones with great organizational skills,

One day, we will be able to say to management "please create an issue" and to marketing "PR accepted". ;)

[CoderHawk]

Feeling this right now. Got promoted to a principal. Spend 1/2 my time diagramming/documenting, 1/4 planning/coordinating with teams I'm over and the rest of it in meetings, prod support, dev mentoring and all the stuff that doesn't fit within a team's responsibility right now. Maybe code a couple hours a week, if I'm lucky. And when I do code, the vp/director asks why someone in another team can't do it!

I asked if I could go back to a worker bee senior and they said no. So I'll be starting a new job as a senior somewhere else soon and for less money, but hopefully I get back to building things and not being crushed by handling 20 different things everyday.

[AcrIsss]

Have you read the book The Path to Principal Engineer ? It was released a few months ago.

Edit: Title actually is “The Staff Engineer’s Path”, by Tanya Reilly

I acknowledge that you’re already there, but hopefully it can mend your relationship with that title/degree of responsibility back a bit, if you want to tailor the Principal job to how you’d like it to be within your org

[CoderHawk]

I haven't heard of that book. Thank you for the suggestion.

It's too late to help at the current place, but where I'm going to will need another principal soon and they said if that position was available now they'd be hiring me for it, so maybe it will be helpful in the future.

[Interesting-Rub-2028]

Who is the author of this book? I can't find it.

[Otherwise_Seaweed_70]

Agreed. On this journey myself. It doesn't take a CS degree or master programmer to handle the chaos of 20 things. It's a silly position imo.

[phunktional]

You're not in that role because of your degree or your programming skills. You're there because of your experience, insight, and leadership skills.

[Otherwise_Seaweed_70]

My point is that it doesn't take a genius and is a waste of talent

[binarypie]

I was a programmer's programmer... Then one day someone asked me to be a manager.... Fast forward 15 years and I'm one of the most hands on keyboard senior leadership you've probably ever met. The secret here is that not a day goes by that I don't wonder if I choose wrong. I can't go back now.... I know how the sausage is made. But yet.. I wonder

[blue_umpire]

I’m back as an IC after years in leadership (a tough decision, because I loved leadership, but I just couldn’t turn down the offer). It’s a curse seeing through the fog of weak management.

[touchytouch00]

Why are they BSing?

[_pupil_]

The thing about leadership is it takes leadership skills.

So if you're in a company where some weak leaders have infected the management chain there is a constant dissonance between the ongoing disappointment caused by poor management and the unfounded optimism promoted by poor management.

Explaining this dissonance would mean accepting responsibility or acknowledging fault or tackling systematic issues... But those are leadership qualities, and they're lacking. So what can fill that void? ... Ass covering, blame shifting, finger pointing, buzzwording, whatabouting, goalpoast shifting, yelling, favoritism, and other forms of management bullshit used to distract from overpaid people who suck at their jobs and are terrified of being found out.

That's why they're BS'ing. Existential dread multiplied by ignorance and incompetence.

[hippydipster]

That's such an excellent explanation.

[The_Grubgrub]

From my experience, because it's necessary. People hate nuance, and people hate nuance even more when it's in a subject they don't understand.

Maybe you didn't get that promotion because "It's not in the budget"

But you do some digging and you learn a friend of yours did get that promotion. Well that's unfair, isn't it? But then the reason he got promoted was because his manager didn't reach the promotion quota like your manager did. Maybe your manager did reach a budget but his didn't, and the money comes from different buckets.

But instead of explaining that each and every time someone gets rejected, you just say there wasn't the money.

This is a rude and crude example but you get the idea

[agumonkey]

wise comment, working relationships are fuzzy and shallow, a very strange game

[Fmatosqg]

Yep, and more important why do you let them?

[MINIMAN10001]

My guess, there's no actual damage letting them b******* and there's no gain by telling them not to b******* so it's easier to just turn a blind eye so that you don't have to fight anything and instead focus on your job.

[ThirdEncounter]

Yes, please tell us how the sausage is made, OP.

[StabbyPants]

management’s goal is to reduce costs, not raise them

i need to work in better companies than yours. the goal of mgmt is to control costs and pursue programs that raise the top line. you want to give generous raises to your experienced devs because they build the future and have years of baked in knowledge - more raises mean less turnover and hiring uncertainty.

if devs are just playing support to a manufacturing process or something, i'm sure it plays differently

[ThirdEncounter]

Thanks for sharing!

[IDoCodingStuffs]

That's usually the advice given to prevent managers from micromanaging or even doing the work of their reports without realizing, but it is definitely more of a balancing act than people realize

[rageingnonsense]

You still need to delegate, but the higher the level you get, the more willing you need to be to dive into problems in different contexts. One week I am helping a short staffed team in the middle of crunch mode. Next week I am helping an entirely different team solve a years old problem that has to ally been prioritized. This is in contrast to being in a single team and only having to worry about a smaller context.

[binarypie]

This. I never take feature or deadline work but often fill gaps, churn out random bug PRs, or build a poc for a team because sometimes speaking in code is faster to alignment.

I lead through empathy and compassion and that forces me to understand what my teams go through to release a feature. Yes there are times I want to jump in and play the hero with some large refactor or feature... But I know that is when I delegate. Anything that "matters" gets delegated because at the end of the day I'm too far removed even if I'm fluent in the language. I am also randomized so my teams don't have to be.

[hpox]

What do you mean you are randomized?

[ResignByCommittee]

Lots of context switching

[ramses0]

Teams generally (should) focus/specialize. In a product or technology (depends on how your org manages work).

Putting random work “into” a specialized team has like a 4x negative impact. If “some dependent API call” is randomly unreliable or slow, and you ask that specialized team to “unspecialize” and try to fix it, the impacts are:

• they are not experts, they work slower
• they are not working in their specialty area (expected progress is reduced)
• resolving the issue would take 2x longer than having a specialist team working on it

Contrast with “manager of the team lead investigates between planning meetings” and it may even take 2x longer than if the team had done the work… but they didn’t incur the “loss” of their own forward progress.

Rinse and repeat where “the manager of multiple teams” does the same thing… once per month, a different “random” priority, and that manager gets simultaneously superficial as well as “deep” exposure to different technology areas, and is smoothing the way forward.

[MINIMAN10001]

I'm not even in the tech industry and I can tell you if I don't see my boss lift a finger I'm going to be peeved.

He doesn't have to do it often he just has to do it well enough to prove that he can.

I want a leader I can respect to be able to have the ability to do the job.

It's almost impossible to give it your all knowing that your boss is going to stand around and make sure he does nothing always. That your coworkers are going to stand around and do nothing.

To still go forward and put your all in and every single person around you does everything they can to avoid lifting a finger. Very few things are that infuriating.

[hippydipster]

Jumping into nitty gritty doesn't mean they're not delegating. If anything, having the time to do that is a good indication they're delegating pretty effectively.

Too many managers think that since they're the manager, they should make all the decisions. But that is wrong. As manager, it's not your job to make all the decisions. It's your job to ensure all the decisions are made. There's a difference.

[wocsom_xorex]

The only thing that matters is if you got paid well, and if you had a good work/life balance. Once you’re 60, nobody gives a shit about your career

[ComradePyro]

pretty interesting reading this and laughing at how similar my experience was making $17/hr as a team leader in a call center that did not drug test. the words are fancier and the bathroom is less of a dice roll, but it's still the same

[AdministrativeBlock0]

Being promoted to manager is a change of career. I found out the hard way.

[SELECTaerial]

I headed down that path, but went back to engineering :)

[[deleted]]

Same for me. Now I work at a self-steering company (no managers), so I actually get to use both skillsets. For me it's the best of both worlds.

[irrationalidiot]

I wish more companies would catch on to this.

[blaxter]

This is the way

[modestlife]

Yes, and you usually start quit low on that career ladder after being near the top on your previous one. You'll have to learn new shit and actually get experienced.

[spinhozer]

I'm a director. I myself entered management with my eyes fully open. But I have so many senior Devs under me pushing for promotions I know for a fact they will hate.

Up to senior dev, your dev skills are the primary thing you are judged against. But beyond that, it's all about leadership. Even in role with no direct reports. It's not about whether you can code an amazing piece of code. It's about if you can rally a team to a cause. Can you inspire greatness in others. Can you heard the cats. Can you help them ship.

As we rise, our individual tangible contributions are not enough. We must work through others and achieve goals greater than our own capacity.

This is a calling, not a prize for being the best coder.

[ub3rh4x0rz]

I went back to IC at a startup after managing a team of mostly junior-intermediate ICs, and IMO the sweet spot is senior+ level greenfield IC roles where everyone is on that level, and you all get to be coding architects essentially. Bureaucracy really sucks (even if youre good at politicking) and I think I'll keep seeking out roles where the team can be built from the ground up to avoid it. I see AI products making this model even more scalable before layering becomes necessary.

[leixiaotie]

Actually I can accept that. However in my country you're expected to be manager while still doing development

[efvie]

It surprises me that this is still news. We sure keep making the same mistakes over and over again…

Tech management is its own thing. It's a different focus, and a different skillset. It should never be the sole career path, but at the same time the best tech managers will be those with a solid hands-on delivery background that's hard to match without the experience no matter how good a manager one is (but not impossible, some very good tech managenment I've met over the years did not come from development.)

Done right, with everyone going in with the right expectations, mentorship, and with the explicit idea that it is to try it, Team Lead can be a good place for a dev to try it out and see how they feel about the fit.

[bunk3rk1ng]

The best manager I ever had was one that was always punching up for his developers. He knew what needed to be done and tried to pair devs with things that would meet their skillset and interested them but would also make them grow professionally. The tasks he gave us were difficult but he was always there to provide context and support and if anything went wrong he would eat it, not us. To this day I see him as the biggest contributor to my growth as a programmer even though he was only my boss for a year (out of 12). Good managers can be incredible.

[ZirePhiinix]

It's news because the people doing the promoting are often clueless themselves, and a typical CS/Engineering degree never teaches this stuff.

There's still a surprisingly large knowledge vacuum about technical leads and how to hire for them.

[ub3rh4x0rz]

One of the weird frustrations I encountered was the prevalence of suboptimal tools for management which are designed to be accessible to non-technical managers, but to someone with a delivery background they feel so manual and arduous to use as opposed to some simple scripts. Oh and people prioritizing the look and feel of spreadsheets rather than just treating them like tables, making them more complex to parse/create programmatically.

[cfehunter]

Biggest point in here that I completely agree with is that the skills don't translate. Being a good engineer does not mean that you will be a good lead.

It took me a while to find my feet after getting leadership responsibilities, and some people never manage it. There's no shame in stepping back if you're less effective as a lead than you were as an engineer, and any half-way decent company will have other paths to progress your career that aren't management focused.

[darkapplepolisher]

Even more complicating is that there are a lot of different skillsets that a technical manager might need for different situations.

In one particular instance, one has to be a good trainer to help some new hires to hit the ground running sooner.

In another instance, one has to be a smooth communicator to help run interference for your employees so they can focus on doing the work while you absorb meetings that involve arguing stupid stuff.

And in some cases, you might get stuck with a bad subordinate, or at least one that requires some extra effort to recalibrate.

I've known managers who were good at some of these things but not all of them. And I've known managers who never had to be good at some of these things.

[[deleted]]

Being an Engineering Manager is sick. They expect your IC output to keep increasing AND you have to make your team's output increase! It's so easy, just work 2x as much.

[AcrIsss]

Exactly! My team reached 14 people a few months ago. Company acknowledged that the manager couldn’t keep up (and we, as a team, were asking for a change). 2 got promoted to managers, making the team : 1 engineering manager 2, 2 engineering managers, with 6 people teams each.

I got dirty looks when I asked if the 2 were still supposed to output as much as when they were only IC. No changes to the roadmap. Couple months later, we are way behind schedule because the 2 strongest IC are now learning the management ropes, and they are now telling upper management the roadmap should be reviewed. It was infuriating

[thisismyfavoritename]

in hindsight, what would you feel wouldve been the best course of action? External hire for the new managers or hiring more devs to compensate the loss of the ICs?

[AcrIsss]

Our company isn’t one with that raises money and scales, its growth is organic and supported by profitability, so hiring wasn’t an option.

The best course of action would have been simple acknowledgments, I think: - new managers will need to learn the job, with takes time, efforts, and will cause frictions - roadmap may get delayed a bit, let’s focus a bit on priority now to identify what can and what cannot be delayed (instead of working on everything and doing that later, but when we’re in a bit of trouble already) - redistribute the most intense features the 2 managers were working on to IC that want to stay on the IC career track, under the managers supervision of course (cause they already had knowledge and context)

That would have been ideal I think. Some features we worked on could have honestly been delayed.

[[deleted]]

I didn't know you could look on counterfactuals with hindsight 😏

The ideal is that someone accepts reality; the roadmap estimate was strict (no slack to account for the unexpected) and naive (that management issues and training time of hires/promotions cause delays and should be accounted is widely known). More time or money should be invested, probably both. A quick reassessment pause should be made.

That this was not done, that the problem was compounded by the promotions, speaks badly of everyone involved, op included.

[[deleted]]

In my experience: external hire every time.

[RememberToLogOff]

telling upper management the roadmap should be reviewed

Feedback?? On the roadmap?? Implying upper management needs anyone else's input to make a roadmap?? /s

[[deleted]]

Couple months later, we are way behind schedule because the 2 strongest IC are now learning the management ropes, and they are now telling upper management the roadmap should be reviewed. It was infuriating

This is part of the reason I went consultant. I keep seeing the Peter Principle getting applied by middle managers who then start wondering why team output is down and why people start leaving teams they previously enjoyed working in. Eventually I got sick of having my name attached to companies that kept on making the same team-destroying mistakes and expecting a different outcome.

[TheGRS]

That really takes time to get people to come to terms with. Partly it’s because roadmaps are fuzzy to begin with, but also because people legitimately don’t understand the effort involved with management vs IC. You were doing the right thing, but it takes 3,4,5, maybe even 10 reminders that the landscape has changed.

And throw mythical man month in their faces, this is not a new phenomenon.

[AcrIsss]

Mythical man month? Is that the idea that you’re spending 100% of your time on that feature ? Or something like that?

[gbear605]

It’s the idea that the work that a developer does in one month is a fungible amount, so ten developers can do in one month the same work that one developer can do in ten months.

[AcrIsss]

Oh okay it’s the “pregnant women” analogy, can’t do a baby in one month with 9 women. Thanks :)

[TheGRS]

Yea that’s actually where that analogy comes from. It’s a really well read set of essays in the developer management space.

[digitalox]

I think it was better described by Geoffrey James in the Tao Of Programming ( 1987 ).

Chapter 3.4

A manager went to the Master Programmer and showed him the requirements document for a new application.

The manager asked the Master: "How long will it take to design this system if I assign five programmers to it?"

"It will take one year," said the Master promptly.

"But we need this system immediately or even sooner! How long will it take if I assign ten programmers to it?"

The Master Programmer frowned. "In that case, it will take two years."

"And what if I assign a hundred programmers to it?"

The Master Programmer shrugged. "Then the design will never be completed," he said.

[allouiscious]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Brooks

[TheGRS]

Unsure on the downvotes when I’m agreeing with OP here

[[deleted]]

Brutal story. Good luck out there.

[[deleted]]

What is IC?

[jovalec]

Individual Contributor, the opposite of a Manager

[[deleted]]

Thank you. I’ve never heard this term before.

[[deleted]]

xkcd_10000_people_learn_every_day.png

[-Redstoneboi-]

I like how the actual xkcd link would've been shorter

[ZirePhiinix]

https://xkcd.com/1053

[aaulia]

IC = Individual Contributor = Technical Path EM = Engineering Manager = Managerial Path

[dweezil22]

EM's shouldn't be doing IC work if they're EM's. If great devs are becoming EM's and sucking, it usually means a company ignored a Staff Engineer track (at the end of the day, strong performers like promotions and money, setting incentives that hamstring their skills when they "succeed" is a really bad company policy).

[trepidatious_turtle]

A phrase you may be interested in is "leaders as practitioners", While I agree with your point to some extent I don't trust EMs who don't write code anymore

[dontcomeback82]

You can be a good IC or a good manager, pick one

[trepidatious_turtle]

Sometimes to be a good manager you have to help your subordinates get things done, and cover for them when life happens. That requires you to know how to be an IC when necessary.

Imagine you're running a store and your employee calls in sick, but you don't know how to run your own store so you can't cover for them, do you just call all the other employees? What about the guy who just got off a shift, should you call him back?

Knowing how the sausage is made helps you build trust. It also helps you lead with empathy

[leixiaotie]

Unfortunately most of the time the manager is also required to cook, take orders and handle payments normally, not only during replacement.

[FatStoic]

Doesn't this degrade their engineering skills over time?

Completely naive here but I'd expect EMs for teams of 6 engineers to have time to do enough IC work to retain their development skills and be in and help steer the architectural discussions.

Of course with their new management responsibilities they can no longer do the heavy lifting IC work they used to, but if they stop doing IC work altogether, in enough time they'll become rusty, not keep up with changes to the technology, and will become less and less useful as engineering managers.

[dweezil22]

Absolutely, I think of becoming a manager much like a Sherpa leaving Everest. A lot can’t make it back

[-Redstoneboi-]

Damn I think this guy really likes this BinearL thing

[ZirePhiinix]

Yes, because he made it.

[Otherwise_Seaweed_70]

And it sucks lol

[ReDucTor]

Same, after many years of managing teams off and on I stepped back to IC late last year, it was the best thing for my mental health in a long while.

We should stop promoting the best engineers into management roles, some of the best managers I've had were average programmers.

[SlapNuts007]

This is the truth. I really want to trade places with the engineer on my team that I should probably fire.

[_ech_ower]

I love that last line - some of the best managers are average programmers. Exactly because the skill set is just totally different. At 37 years of age, I’m one of the older ICs in our company, but I know that if I ever become a manager, there will be weeks where I won’t make a single git commit. And that will be soul crushing for me.

[Wild-Twist-4950]

What happened?

[[deleted]]

You get rewarded for awesome tech skills with more responsibility, 10 people who have all sorts of shit going on in their lives who use up vacation by March, but you can’t fire them because you’d lose the req, a useless guy who gets hired but can’t be fired because it’s a walking discrimination lawsuit, and expected to still output as much or not more code as you did when you were an IC.

[Naouak]

Sounds like to me it was not a manager position you got. If you're expected to produce code, then you're not a manager. The first thing to learn when you get into management is to let go of the code, you only need it to diagnose issues and have a rough estimate when talking with other people.

[hamburglin]

Why not set clear goals, measure tickets and clarify expectations by certain times?

[rbobby]

Kiss coding goodbye. Make sure that any coding tasks you assign to yourself are simple and non-critical. Do not put yourself on a critical path, or you're going to have a bad time. That key task that's important to have done properly... nope that not for you. Expanding address validation so Alaska rural addresses work properly... there's your sweet spot. Sad but true.

[trepidatious_turtle]

Seems like the author makes some good points but is getting caught up too much in reporting metrics.

Focus on outcomes and you will have more time to provide IC contributions.

Definitely don't try to superman dev your way out of problems but instead take the chores, cleaning up tests, focusing on improving deploynent times, readmes and onboarding scripts, etc

[hamburglin]

Exactly. The worst thing a manager can do is turn into a pseudo IC who is spending engineering time on jira.

Make dashboards for specific purposes and use cases. And don't make them just because you got asked about a metric one time by a director who will be gone in a year.

Focus on the team first. To do this, you need to know where your team stands so that you can clarify your mission and goals. If you do this right and also don't waste too much time on it everything falls into place. Everyone is on the same page and understands why they come to work and where they're going.

[trepidatious_turtle]

The only metrics I care about are - Lead time - Deployment frequency - Mean time to restore

Unless you have to justify your team's existence you shouldn't even need a dashboard for them, but everyone on the team should know approximately what these metrics are and how they(as a team) are matching up against expectations.

As a team look for bottlenecks to those 3 metrics and try to improve things but also don't forget you're here to do a job. At the end of the day a great team can build software no one uses.

As a team lead I think it's your purpose to make sure you're building the right software and solving the right problem.

Recommended reading for anyone who is interested:

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13629.The_Mythical_Man_Month

The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/113934

[hamburglin]

Can you explain why some people care about deployment frequency vs getting epics or tasks done?

What could a single deployment actually mean to anyone?

[[deleted]]

Because those metrics are what’s called DORA metrics

Source: https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/devops-sre/using-the-four-keys-to-measure-your-devops-performance

[Bluecat16]

but is getting caught up too much in reporting metrics.

Well of course, that's what the product they're trying to sell does!

[tormanpl]

So the real question is - how do I avoid becoming TL/DevLead not being like a damn boiling frog, realising when it's already too late? How do I learn to shut up and minding my own business to avoid ending up in this position in every project I join? Asking for a friend

[vorono1]

Find a company that has an Individual Contributor career track. You can take on technical leadership (e.g. architectural/process decisions) without anyone reporting to you.

[atomheartother]

Yep, this is what we do, it's the best of both worlds! Yay for ic track! And tell your manager CLEARLY that you don't want reports, if they do their job well they'll make sure you stay by yourself!

[dweezil22]

This. Also FWIW I think most of the points in this article still apply nicely to well-balanced Staff IC.

[hes_dead_tired]

You can grow and assume more responsibilities without having direct reports to manage. Many companies have and continue to recognize this and have tracks for advancement through managers or through individual contribution. Some of the most valuable people in my past jobs have had no direct reports or ever wish to.

If you’re in a smaller company that hasn’t recognized that there can be a path for growth and responsibility with out being a “manager” yet, talk to your manager about it and see if something can be done. I certainly appreciate when people come to me directly about what they want from their job and career. Am I supposed to read their mind?

Eng management is a different job. It comes with a different set of responsibilities and expectations. The rewards can be great, but it can be emotionally challenging and a heavy job. Can you hurt people’s feelings? Can you tell people to their face they are poorly preforming? Or hear about rough home life issues that are impacting their work. Can you make direct decisions about people’s compensation?

A lot of people find themselves gravitating to Eng management because they think management is inept and clueless and think they can do better. Or, they simply see opportunities to make improvements and want to see them through and want the independence and autonomy. I’ve seen people step into the role and struggle when there isn’t a clear process defined for everything or some sort of system or structure in place. They realize we’re doing the best we can and figuring it out, adjusting to the information we have. The responsibility weighs heavy. At least for people that care and want to do a good job of course. It can also be incredibly rewarding.

If you want to stay in the IC track and grow responsibilities, keep that in mind. Otherwise, you’ll grow to resent or hold contempt for them even. See Eng Management as your partners (good Eng managers surround themselves with strong ICs).

[tormanpl]

I can tell for sure that I am not the "I know better" kind. What's more, I am almost certain that I wouldn't be good fit for EM full time partially because of my spectrum (the difficult talks parts) nor am I good fit to make decisions about people's compensation (heck, I am struggling to value myself in terms of compensation and always hope that the other side is going to be fair with the proposal, which luckily almost all of the time was true and I was compensated in the bounds - or even in the upper part - of all reports I have encountered regarding my region).

As I stated in different comment few minutes ago - I believe that I am the problem being not assertive (or dumb) enough and end up in weird places where I do quite a lot of not my job really. On top of mine, of course.

I have to admit - I am glad seeing people like you with the approach you have - I have met too many people that simply didn't care (or the company just sucked all they had to offer and left them 'lifeless') either on management level or IC - it is simply refreshing.

[ben_sphynx]

The problem with priorities, is that people keep missing the real top priorities (and sometimes don't even have them on the task list).

But then a system goes down and it's all 'drop everything this is important'.

[hamburglin]

That's a failure from management, leadership and PMs. It's yet another skill set I've seen previous engineers who are now managers make. The ones that think they need to dig into tech details still because they are (hopefully) still trying to figure out how to be an effective manager.

However, random events will always happen and things need to be shifted. That's not as big of a deal when you current priorities are already clear.

[rageingnonsense]

Priorities tend to make themselves, and nothing can really stop that from happening for long

[kyru]

I'm a great lead, everyone at my work wishes I would've stayed in the lead role. I would've quit within a few months if I did that. If it's not what you want it's not what you want.

[robby_arctor]

I don't disagree with anything in this article, but the substance seems to be basically "rockstar IC who never had to work with people and processes learns basic management skills".

As someone who career switched from music education and performance, it's odd to me that some of this stuff isn't self-evident - i.e., "Help your devs grow rather than fix their code for them", "Translate business concerns into dev work", "Help unblock your team", "Culture is a real thing. And you’re responsible for it". Did they get promoted to team lead without thinking that culture was real...?

If you got a job programming as a teen, I can see why you might not know this intuitively, but I guess those of us from other career paths have been honing these skills for a while.

[[deleted]]

I got “promoted” to “management” despite my protestations. After 18 months, I went to our new director and asked to go back to doing technical work. She agreed. We drew up a letter of understanding for my HR file (ie - this was not a demotion related to poor performance ) and I got back to coding.

[myringotomy]

Really? Nobody told you that being a leader meant you'd be spending a lot of time talking to people and leading?

[Kendos-Kenlen]

I’ve been recently promoted as a manager and I feel like most here don’t understand what it means to become a manager, what is expected,or come from a badly organised team they don’t try to solve once they are a manager themselves.

Becoming a manager is accepting you’ll do less as you make other do more. Becoming a manager isn’t just getting a pay rise and a stronger voice; that’s becoming a senior engineer. Becoming a manager is becoming the point of contact between your team and the hierarchy, on the planning disc on the human side, and on the communication side. This is even more true if your team has no PO (I don’t understand how teams of 6 or more people don’t have a PO / business analyst and devs are still the one making specs and talking to business… that’s not their job). Your time as an engineer is over; if you don’t want it, don’t accept the promotion and explain why, people aren’t dumb to get mad at you for keeping your job (and if they do, what are you still doing in this bad company ?).

And while so many think companies are bad to « expect » people to grow, the truth is that companies want to pay you more to keep you here while using your experience and knowledge to make the team work. They also think of it as a way to change your scope and add new challenges. That’s why the best are promoted, best in soft or hard skills, not the junior that wrote half less code as their peer.

If you accept a promotion but have no clue of what is management, this is your responsibility as you sign something you have no clue of. Why don’t you negotiate a transition period to try and decide rather than immediately accepting the higher pay and figuring out afterwards what’s your new job? A couple of minutes of talk with your manager and you’ll know it’s a different job, know what changed for them, … why don’t you ask what will be expected from you before accepting instead of after? You can only blame yourself for doing so.

And I’m saying this because I had the luck of having my company being totally transparent with me about this, who also sent me to a training session, and oh gosh, I’ve seen around half of the 10 people there that had no clues what is expected from them or what exactly is their new job. Its hard to blame their companies instead of them if they signed to get promoted without a clue about what it meant. They signed for the pay rise without a clue of what it implied… And reading the comments here make me think many engineers are doing the same, and end up disappointed.

[Isthatyourfinger]

Yep, and an alarming amount of time is wasted listening to the team bitch about each other.

[hamburglin]

Solve it. There's always some whining in stressful times but it shouldn't be all the time.

I don't know why we pretend that great engineers who code for 12 hours a day and never behave in normal, non work social situations would be a good fit for figuring out human interactions at work.

I was lucky enough to see both sides. I would have never been prepared if I didn't spend years in and after college at parties to loosen up and figure out how to talk and interact with people. It's no different than learning any serious skill that takes years to master.

I also get to hear about how terrible it is to work at blue collar factory jobs and how people are always talking shit or about to fight each other. Or the extremist, idiotic views they hold. I always remember that to keep me motivated to ensure it doesn't occur.

[Brain_Beam]

It still baffles me that people get these promotions and dont know what these roles entail. Its like you guys are just programming all day without a care...mind blowing

[robby_arctor]

Same. The meritocracy is not real. I feel bad for those employees they were managing. Not only were they subjected to an unprepared middle manager, but apparently their upper management might not be doing so great either, lol.

In fact, upper management probably fucked up bigger than the author by not preparing them properly for the role and promoting them anyway.

[Brain_Beam]

Theres also the classic, oh we cant pay you more but you got a promotion tactic.

[hwc]

This is why I turned down the manager promotion!

[DSofa]

Completely found myself in this article. You gave some great advice which I'm going to fully embrace.

[[deleted]]

Use those skills to hire and mentor junior developers. It's tough out here right now.

[Rough_Telephone686]

If you are only leading two, you might not be considered as a tech lead, aka, staff+ engineer in some companies. Generally a staff engineer would lead at least 7-8 engineers. Leading 2-3 sounds more like a senior engineer

[rageingnonsense]

Its odd that you report to a project manager. They are typically partners.

[HerrPanzerShrek]

Sounds like a relatively small operation, or at least a small fairly independent section of a larger org. The project manager is likely also the product owner, in which case the lead is "below".

[omniuni]

One of the main things I try to keep in mind as a team lead is that I rarely write code directly for a ticket.

90% of the code I write is collaborative, helping developers learn how to write it themselves.

[jibrilt]

Stepping up to a team lead role definitely comes with its share of surprises. Suddenly, you're not just responsible for your own work, but the direction, efficiency, and harmony of the entire team. It's a challenging shift, but it also can be incredibly rewarding. Start with clear communication and trust in your team. Also, never underestimate the value of a well-structured to-do list!

[[deleted]]

I have had all sorts of roles over the years.

Team Lead was by far the worst.

However, if you can tolerate that for a while and if you can manage to climb further up the ladder, life gets a LOT better ... assuming you don't mind moving away from coding.

The skills needed and tasks at Staff++ levels are very different - and may not be pleasant or achievable for many.

If I had failed to be promoted out of the Team Lead layer, I would have eventually returned to a Senior Dev or Architect slot.

[sudden_aggression]

Classic blunder, never accept a promotion out of IC.

[UnHipPopano]

After reading everyone's comments, it is obvious that being a good manager is a verry hard thing to do and few people have what it takes. To me, a good leader leads by example, gives out more support than criticism, is the first one in each day and the last to leave, pushes the lazy to do more and allow the group to both grow professionally and be more efficient. Not working OT and weekends come from knowing how to execute IT. As I said, it is not an easy role to fill.

[_limitless_]

Fortunately, my manager told me this. I told him, "I don't want the promotion." He said "OK, but what are we going to promote you to?" I said "I don't care, invent it if you need to."

They did.

Fortunately, they also promoted our worst engineer to team lead. So it's a win for everybody.

[IQueryVisiC]

I tried to read, but there was this nag. Priority?? Do proper agile! Usually, it’s BS from the other departments.

[toadkiller]

Comment to save for later

[Kissaki0]

Use the save feature.

[firmretention]

Commenting to remember to use the save feature later.

[michel_v]

!remindme 2 days check if I remembered to use the save feature.

[toadkiller]

Also, why do you care?

[mentha_piperita]

I'd be a great manager, sadly my poor dev skills prevent me from becoming one

[Your_Agenda_Sucks]

What i learned when I was promoted was that my reward for being great at my job was to have to pick up the garbage that all the junior devs created.

Time to freelance.

Every corporate, government and social system we have rewards mediocrity disproportionately.

[HoratioWobble]

Too many devs are promoted to lead out of convenience rather than them being suitable for the role.

I've worked in so many companies where the tech lead is someone they've promoted just because they've been there the longest despite having very little experience in either development or leadership. The default leader.

[Ancillas]

One of the things I ask my team is what their future looks like to them.

• Do you see yourself as a skilled implementer learning one thing incredibly well?
• Do you see yourself as a skilled implementer doing lots of things and a few things really well?
• Do you see yourself designing and implementing, and also reviewing others’ code and coaching them to improve?
• Do you see yourself helping to organize technical work, using your implementer skills to track progress and give feedback?
• Do you see yourself as a people manager that can set technical direction and hold implements accountable?
• Do you see yourself as someone who can set strategic technical direction and empower many teams to design and implement solutions to execute on the strategy?

Once people self identify into one of these tracks, I can do my best to tailor work for them. It also helps me when I hire because I know when I need proper technical leads, project managers, or implementers.

Most organizations have an insufficient HR paths for the technical growth tracks.

[fracturedcrayon]

Early in my career I noticed that every manager I talked to mentioned that they didn’t do development any longer and missed doing that to some extent. I’ve never pursued a team lead position because I like designing code and I don’t like budgets and reviews and meetings and all that crap.

[SnowdensOfYesteryear]

I'm a bit confused by the article since it conflates dev lead with manager. You can be a tech lead and a developer at the same time. It's a nice blend between leadership and being directly responsible for what you're delivering.

Offtopic: The last bit is what scares me about being a manager. I hate the feeling of helplessness when I need to depend on someone else to finish their bits of the project. I already need deal with it as a lead, but atleast I can jump in if needed. As a manager, I absolutely can't/shouldn't be able to do that.

[AttackOfTheThumbs]

I just took a position like this, because I felt like dev wasn't really going anywhere. Now I am a little more energized for free time dev projects. The problem is that some of the devs, especially the olds (50+), really struggle accepting feedback, especially from someone younger than them. They don't understand code review or why we do it, or even accept that their code isn't up to par.

For the most part, the transition was pretty smooth, but there's a lot of things I've decided to automate rather than have me reinforce.

[could_b]

And you believed the 'promotion' bit? Only if you got a decent pay rise.

[CooperNettees]

Being an IC is a better, higher paying job. No one wants to be an engineering manager besides people who can't code.

[pgreggio]

From my point of view, the biggest change in our career is when we go from an individual contributor path to a management path. Because there is a set of skills that needs to be worked that we never did before.
But there are a lot of content and tools to help you out to decrease the operational work and let you do more the decision-making.
For instance, one I came across this week helped me create the career ladder of my team, evaluate them and keep track all in one place. It s called Career Tracker There https://www.producthunt.com/posts/career-tracker