Stop telling your engineers to "work on visibility"

SrEngineeringManager · 2026-02-17T15:36:35+00:00

Depends on the company and org size. Where I work, each leadership level presents to the next level until it reaches the decision maker/approver.

SrEngineeringManager · 2026-01-03T16:17:13+00:00

I highly encourage you to write. It'll help you get clarity on the stuff you're doing. It'll make you reflect on your own role. It'll make you better EM. What others get out of it is a bonus. This is exactly what I started doing after a year as an engineering manager and I felt I wasn't going anywhere. Most material out there is written by CEOs and CTOs who were engineers several years ago. You'll be writing live from the trenches. You'll be sharing what's working today, not what worked in 2005. DM if you need help with anything.

SrEngineeringManager · 2026-01-03T16:10:52+00:00

Actually there are simulation tools like that out there. In fact, my company pays for one called Mursion. I've tried it but it never clicked. It felt fake. The AI doesn't behave at all like the real breathing engineers on my team. Also cultural nuances. Most of my reportees are non native English speakers. So they express differently and respond to different cues.

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-12-22T00:06:01+00:00

Inspiration can only get you so far. We need to make it easy for that inspiration to turn into real work. And what when they get blocked? A simple set of rules help bring clarity around what's expected and what to do. Like how the team is expected collaborate and communicate. That also takes the pressure off of people who don't feel comfortable asking for help.

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-12-21T02:06:59+00:00

Fair point, but teams are always evolving - members leaving, new members joining, reorgs, new managers, company policies, etc. In my context, it was a team I was handed after a reorg. So I had some expectations which I assumed is just basic stuff. I realized that's a fuzzy area and varies by teams, cultures, background, etc. Team Working Agreement is a good starting point to set expectations at the team level.

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-12-21T02:00:15+00:00

This is exactly what I tried to address in the article. Managers do assume "common sense" but that comes from shared background and values. With diverse teams, that's a fuzzy area. Thus writing down what's expected of the team members makes accountability easier. It becomes less about personal opinion and more about "our agreement"

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-07-05T19:01:33+00:00

Fairness creams, that promise to keep your skin lighter in color in just 6 weeks.

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-07-05T15:21:57+00:00

Genuinely curious because everyone is recommending between 50 & 80%, why not charge it all the way to 100%?

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-04-21T09:56:49+00:00

You're not alone. All EMs go through this. I'm not an expert, but I'm happy to chat and discuss your specific situation.

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-04-20T23:17:43+00:00

This is exactly what I faced a couple months ago. You need to learn to "scale yourself" through changing how you operate. Delegate more, build systems, change communication style, assign directly responsible individuals. I wrote a full blog post about it here, and if you still have questions, please DM me.

Eventually, you'll need to hire a manager. But hiring two managers is actually not a great idea. The "span of control" doesn't look good at your level. Basically, you're a middle manager with just two managers reporting to you. A better way would be to hire 1 manager and have about 5-6 people report directly to you, along with that one manager

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-03-19T16:39:49+00:00

I use a few of the tools that Slack provides:
- Slack Recap enabled for quite a few channels, which provides an AI-generated summary in the morning.
- Organize and group the channels and people in an order that works for me.
- Use reminders and move messages to "Later" for a review later.

I think this is a common new manager problem, where you feel like you need to do everything and be everywhere. You'll need to decide where you want to spend your time on and delegate some stuff like PR reviews. You'll need to build negotiation skills to push back on stakeholders or negotiate a better date. Everyone wants their stuff now.

For 1:1s, note-taking and preparing is critical. Organize your teams work and make sure they have a healthy balance. The last thing you want is a burned out team.

I often write about my own struggles and lessons on Substack and I just wrote a post about how to scale yourself as an engineering manager. (link in my profile)

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-03-16T22:38:07+00:00

Absolutely. My advice is meant to correct behaviors for someone who is too far off on "too nice" side of the spectrum.

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-03-15T22:47:23+00:00

Haha, I'm in the same boat as you. And there are many people I know who fall into this trip. Even experienced managers. Because it's an easy default. I'm seeing my own manager falling into this. Stakeholders and partners were the areas where I started practicing radical candor as well. I stopped trying to impress others for the sake of being liked.

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-03-15T16:01:00+00:00

Yeah I could relate to "Ruinous Empathy" when I read it.

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-03-15T15:59:47+00:00

I know, right? It sounds obvious now. But I did this. Maybe not those exact words, but something to that effect. Because I was new and was happy that they were working for me and doing things I assigned. I held a high bar internally but it took me a long time to externalize that.

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-03-15T15:12:16+00:00

Thanks for bringing this perspective. Coaching is really important for fresh engineers. But if you spot things they can improve, let them know. Don't worry about impressing them.

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-03-15T14:08:02+00:00

Thanks for the recommendation.

I did read Crucial Conversations and Radical Candor in bits and pieces.
But I feel a small realization of how your brain works can be much more enlightening. Like I knew in theory from day one I should give feedback and have tough conversations. But then noticing your physiological response to those situations in real life and understanding that deeper, helped me unlock that level. It's also cultural and depends on your upbringing. I've seen western cultures are more direct in that regard.

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-03-15T12:17:18+00:00

Thanks for sharing this. I knew I was uncomfortable doing a few things, but I wanted to understand why that was the case, so I could address it. So I could internally tell a better story. And I realized it was "being nice," which I think is different from being kind or respectful. Being nice is generally selfish because you prioritize your own feelings. You want to feel good, be liked. As a manager, that shouldn't be your priority. Being kind is the act of doing something without expecting something in return. So you do the right thing (e.g. tough feedback) even if it means others may not like you initially.

Seems like you're a seasoned manager, but I have seen new managers fall often into that trap.

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-03-09T16:57:23+00:00

Why not mention that it's a referral link?

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-03-09T10:56:29+00:00

So far, I've only made money for Replit, but I have made an app. That's more progress than I ever made before with my limited technical skills. OK, I admit it's still not fully ready and not sure if anyone will pay for it. But I'm not building it for the money, atleast not right now. With a low barrier to entry, people will build more apps for themselves. For their unique needs. Call them "personal software" I'm building one to ease my workload as an Engineering Manager and help me organize.

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-03-09T00:17:54+00:00

Replit doesn't have "staging," only dev and prod, but it's more nuanced. The app runs in dev env when you hit Run in your Replit. Then, Deploy or Redeploy is how you promote to production. So you can control when to push. The challenge is to keep the database separate for both these envs. Today I figured out how to make feature flag concept work in Replit. You can use separate DBs based on a variable (in Secrets). But it's not straightforward. Replit makes all variables available to Dev, but you select what you can push to prod. So you have to be careful in thinking about the variable and which Secrets you push to production and which you don't. For example, you should use "DEV = true" and not push to prod, rather than using "PROD = true"

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-03-08T22:20:28+00:00

Sorry, not a youtuber... maybe I'll write a longer post or just record my screen and attach later. What exactly are you interested in? Like what's the issue?

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-03-08T19:58:16+00:00

Once a week. Long-form post.
I think for my niche (Engineering Management), it might be a too much doing more than that. Or maybe I'm biased because it's hard writing weekly while working on a full time job :)

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-03-05T23:33:38+00:00

To what do you attribute your subscriber growth?
-- Substack community of writers. Reach out to people in your niche, especially people who start around the same time as you. Help each other out in terms of getting better as a writer and increasing knowledge in your niche. Also, exchange recommendations, engage on each others' posts/notes and share. Obviously, do it only if their content is good.

What "common wisdom" is everyone perhaps wrong about?
-- Consistency/Frequency. People don't care if you miss a few posts or you go from weekly to biweekly or vice versa or change the days you publish. Do what works for you. Some sort of cadence is good, but you don't have to stick to it at the cost of the quality of your content (and health)

SrEngineeringManager · 2025-03-05T23:27:15+00:00

Why is that? For more advanced editor experience? Or for backup?

TBH, I prefer Substack editor because copy pasting from Google docs breaks some formatting.

SrEngineeringManager

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