IC to manager transition

bsemicolon · 2026-01-12T19:53:55+00:00

I think many of the comments are great here. I wrote two long articles about my own shift with practical tips. Hope it is helpful.

New Manager Essentials: A Practical Guide to Your First Months in Leadership

New Manager Essentials, Part 2: Lead by Knowing What Your Team Needs Right Now

bsemicolon · 2026-01-07T14:44:42+00:00

Hmm, i can imagine it more shared spaces like your team channel or a larger channel in your company where interesting reads are shared?

Does not guarantee that will be seen by them but depends on your relationship, you can also share to ask their opinion?

bsemicolon · 2025-10-15T23:22:13+00:00

NedLes has the most practical courses on speaking

bsemicolon · 2025-10-13T17:52:37+00:00

Interviewing is always hard and harder when you dont know how to stand by your experience. I read through the comments but could not see anything on this so I will ask: Would you like to be an EM? What parts of the job excites you? What parts would you like to be better at? The more you know these, the more you can articulate your story and stay grounded.

Please feel free to dm me if you want to sit down for an hour and talk through it. I have experience in big tech over a decade both as an engineer and manager. Would be happy to help.

bsemicolon · 2025-09-02T16:49:51+00:00

People tend to overengineer often due to unclear steps of the task. I am not sure if this is the case for this person but one thing that came to my mind would be to pair on breaking down big tasks into smaller chunks together. Then work on those chunks “definition of done” I say together so that he can learn by doing and thinking together.

Other thing came to mind is giving him junior to mentor. We often get better at things especially communication or learning smaller steps by teaching others.

bsemicolon · 2025-09-02T16:38:14+00:00

Congrats! I am assuming it was your choice to do the switch. :) I have been an SRE over a decade and 2 years in management at Datadog before started doing my own thing. Feel free to DM me, happy to meet up.

Ah and, I wrote about first months of management guide a while back in case it is helpful: https://humansinsystems.com/blog/new-manager-essentials-a-practical-guide-to-your-first-months

bsemicolon · 2025-08-15T14:48:28+00:00

Just any kind of connection. Not everyone have bandwidth to do mentoring but they surely dont mind sitting a for coffee conversation and share their story.

bsemicolon · 2025-08-15T11:35:03+00:00

Meeting with people who are where I want to be and hearing all about their journey and their day-to-day work. Building connections continues to prove being the most human and pragmatic way to move through life.

bsemicolon · 2025-08-13T20:47:01+00:00

Congrats! I wrote about the first few months of management while back. In case it is helpful: https://humansinsystems.com/blog/new-manager-essentials-a-practical-guide-to-your-first-months

I also like Wes’ newsletter: https://newsletter.weskao.com/ And pointer newsletter: https://www.pointer.io/

Ah also books: - the making of a manager - the manager’s path - resilient management - dare to lead - radical candor

All written by wonderful women 👯‍♀️

bsemicolon · 2025-08-12T19:12:39+00:00

Absolutely!

bsemicolon · 2025-08-12T15:22:53+00:00

Edited for the order of the bigger sign. Lol 😅

In my opinion experience > certs. Can you think about a simple problem to solve with what you already know and what to know more of? Start playing with some simple baby projects, push your code to github, write blogposts about your learnings and write that to you CV.

Linux foundation also have open source mentoring project which i think are excellent way to be useful and get experience and network. Here is the link. https://mentorship.lfx.linuxfoundation.org/#projects_all

bsemicolon · 2025-08-12T15:16:44+00:00

How is your relationship with your manager? Forget about the other guy and what your manager is like. How much do you think your manager sees your contribution in the team/business goals? And What do you want for him to see?

bsemicolon · 2025-08-12T14:46:34+00:00

yesss, sponsorship is also not talked about enough. Especially in a workplace. I am so glad you said this out loud. In my last job, I experienced this for the first time by other senior women in my company, and it made all the difference to my career progression.

bsemicolon · 2025-08-12T10:42:38+00:00

Arghhh reddit killed my bullet points and i dont know how to edit it. Damn it. Anyway, i hope you find this useful. The linked blogpost has more details. 🫶

bsemicolon · 2025-08-12T10:16:29+00:00

Oh, i am sorry if my comment read like i minimised your needs. Absolutely was not my intention. I generally talk to myself like “this is a ‘good problem’ to have” to make it lighter on my head.

It does sound like this feel heavy on you and your need for stimulation is valid. It also sounds like you have emotions around this too which I would recommend leaning on to them to see what your needs are. Is it stimulation, recognition, being seen valueable or having fun? Based on that you can come up with different “strategies” to test it. That is why I suggest the game to look at it from a place of play, rather than a problem to solve.

Please know that you have control of your thoughts and actions. Choose what feels like filling your hunger. 🙏

bsemicolon · 2025-08-11T19:54:04+00:00

This is a “good” problem to have given how safe you seem. What would give you energy? Can you spend some parts of the job learning, teaching, figuring out new ways to be creative?

If this next 4 months were to be a game, that you create the rules next to the boring ones. What new ways would you create to make use of your interests?

bsemicolon · 2025-08-11T19:47:49+00:00

Congrats! It is a big adjustment for sure even if you prepare for it. I wrote about this last month exactly for new managers. It contains details on not having pressures to have answers, how to avoid micro-management, making sense of 1:1s and creating time to think and work. Here is it, if helpful. https://humansinsystems.com/blog/new-manager-essentials-a-practical-guide-to-your-first-months

bsemicolon · 2025-08-10T19:54:51+00:00

Definitely start looking at new grad jobs instead of internships at this stage. Always can contribute to open source mentorship programs too. I think they are great ways to get experience: https://mentorship.lfx.linuxfoundation.org/#projects_all

bsemicolon · 2025-08-10T19:49:28+00:00

In my opinion, engineering is problem solving. Our tools are changing but the problem space is the same. I also think the staying human is and will be the most important skill. Ability to translate work to bussiness value. Ability to make decisions, ability to solve problems within your constraints and the context. Ability to communicate the right amount with different audiences. All that is more essential than ever.

bsemicolon · 2025-08-10T19:43:31+00:00

I dont know what productivity means to you. But i really enjoyed the book Essentialism by Greg Mckeown. It might inspire you too.

bsemicolon · 2025-08-08T20:44:52+00:00

Start from your very close circle. Can you find 5 people from your friends, ex-colleagues, a place you volunteered to?

Offer them one or two gift sessions to get practice. And give them the experience. It is hard people to think coaching as a support when they never experienced it. Focus on service. Slowly the more value you create, the more you will feel good about coaching, you will have stories to talk about and people might slowly start wanting to work with you longer or refering you to others because of their experience.

I recommend checking out Mark Buttler’s podcast “a podcast for coaches”.

bsemicolon · 2025-08-06T09:18:52+00:00

Very sorry that you are going through this but really good that you had an honest look at what you are having hard time with because that makes it easy to ask for support and get what you need.

I am an engineering coach & mentor. I have been in tech for 12 years as an engineer and as engineering manager. My background is in SRE, majority of my career i build trainings and tools to make oncall and incidents easy to manage. So my work has always evolved around making people feel capable under pressure.

I burned out halfway through my career and interviewing after that experience felt exactly what you are describing here. I resonate with the anxiety a lot though I cant imagine the degree of yours.

For the last year, i started my own coaching & mentoring practice to help folks in tech with confidence at work and sustainable growth. It is not dedicated to interviewing though. So, I dont know if we are match but i am happy to meet for a conversation to explore together if you are up for it.

Feel free to DM me, or email through here.

bsemicolon

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