What I WISH I KNEW before becoming engineering manager

Becoming engineering manager was a huge thing for me and it set a new direction for my career, but there were a lot of things I hadn't considered before moving from development to management. In this video I share a few hard parts of being engineering manager and I explain what you can do to better prepare for this role.
🎥 Timeline:
0:00 Intro
0:31 No more teammates
2:13 No more coding
4:01 Social exhaustion
5:06 Uncomfortable situations
6:41 Loneliness
8:14 Building support group
9:38 Preparing to become a manager
Make sure to check my other content for engineering managers:
* www.notonlycode.org/what-does...
* www.notonlycode.org/engineeri...
* www.notonlycode.org/engineeri...
If you enjoy this kind of content, check out my website, 🌏 notonlycode.org, where I publish more in-depth articles about software development.
As always, if you have any questions, suggestions or feedback, you can contact me:
✉️ email: [e-mail]
🐦 Twitter: @GregoryWitek

[@peevesthepoltergeist2070]

I have gone through all of it that you said. It was difficult but eventually I got used to it and I focus more on the positive side and try to mentor team such a way to reduce PIPs and firing. It’s fun when you know your team very well. Most important part is to understand psychology and talent of each individual and get the best out of it.

[@user-le6ei8fv4b]

Well said, thanks for the tips.

[@nicolascava]

Excellent video. Thank you for being vulnerable about your story and struggles as an engineering manager.

[@emmanuelpregnolato5026]

Thank you I needed this.

[@mysorepreetam]

Thanks. Your content is really helping me prepare for engineering manager interviews. Keep up the good work!.

[@NotOnlyCode]

Hi Preetam, I'm glad you find it useful. Good luck with your interviews!

[@danishfaizan7911]

Thanks! The content was great! It helped a lot.

[@NotOnlyCode]

Glad to hear it!

[@derNoaa270]

Very well said! After 10 years working as an IC you summarized this transition and feeling right on point. The natural collaboration and growing together with your peers is gone. I also struggled with the feeling that I *must* keep up with latest tech and remain at the same level as an IC. However with more weeks and months passing I realized, that being an (engineering)manager is just as challenging, just in a completely different domain. This helped me a little bit to focus on the organizational and people aspect of the role even more and motivates me to try my best every day in supporting the team and the organization.

[@NotOnlyCode]

Hi Norbert! Every EM I've ever met has gone through this challenge - they wanted to be both a great developer and a great manager. But eventually you have to focus on one thing at a time, if you try to do both, you won't succeed at either. I'm glad you're past that stage and you're able to focus on supporting your team.

[@jihyehong8464]

This is a very good video!!

[@brian-lau]

I honestly don't understand why your channel haven't taken off... KZbin algorithm seems like a myth

[@NotOnlyCode]

Haha, yeah, the algorithm is a mystery 😅 I'll keep improving what I can on my part though, I'm sure one day it'll start recommending my videos more often

[@ray941644]

Loved this content! Thanks for this ❤

[@ThRealJC2]

Bein a manager is more about social skills and psychology than technical skills. And yes! sometimes it is very awkward.

[@NotOnlyCode]

Well said!

[@akalrove4834]

How come this man does not have more subs. This content is pure gold.

[@chimp7]

niche topic

[@LV7agent]

I felt like this when I was production manager at a furniture manufacturer, it's a very lonely job. Now I'm starting to code in Python, tough luck, not that simple, but not imposible.

[@melanis1]

I am not an engineering manager yet. But I am planning to make a career development into becoming an engineering manager. Your videos give me lots of insights what to expect. Thank you.

[@NotOnlyCode]

Thanks for watching, I'm happy you enjoyed it!

[@prerna3404]

Im also going through the same but I want to know what is being asked in EM interviews, is it ds and system design ? Leadership principles?

[@VasileSurdu]

I had this 'tech lead' role where actually I'm doing both the managing of the team and also code reviews etc i had the same difficulties as you described. Problem is that officially i was a tech lead but this engineer manager has basically even more responsibilities like budgeting etc. Don't think I'll take that role since deep inside in a bit geeky so i love having my nose in tech but going full manager will not make me happy long term

[@nikkonkde]

Nice vlog Gregory👍

[@NotOnlyCode]

Thank you Mihai!

[@sdb584]

Pro Tip: When you feel the urge to dive into a project and program again ask yourself the following 3 questions: 1) Will I become a hinderance to the project since I can only devote a small amount of time to implementation? 2) What is the need for the team if I'm doing the work? 3) Am I stunting my team's growth by inflicting too much of my own ways as I implement?

[@NotOnlyCode]

Great tips, Stuart, especially the first point! I've seen managers taking big tasks that they could never finish because of lack of time, and that actually blocked the team.

[@AlainDejalle]

Great video. I just discovered your channel as your video on how Agile failed software developers popped up in my stream. How do you look at it now that you've moved up? Would you make a follow up on it?

[@paulomirandaarias9544]

Very good video sir

[@NotOnlyCode]

Thank you!

[@saisafetytrends]

great content! could you do these with no background music after the intro?

[@NotOnlyCode]

Thanks for suggestion, I'll consider it! Is it music in general that you find distracting or is it this specific genre/track?

[@hillie47]

@@NotOnlyCode It's generally distracting.

[@rmworkemail6507]

@@NotOnlyCode yes, to some degree. Tho, is not terribly bad.

[@lesterlau2011]

Here is a hard choice on me right now, a Technical Manager role and a senior developer role. I am an introvert and enjoy coding very much. But the Manager role offer a more attractive package than the senior developer role. I wonder if it’s a normal phenomenon? Manger grade usually pays better than engineer grade. On the other hands, it’s difficult to stay relevant once you becomes a manager. I am also afraid of future career development.

[@NotOnlyCode]

Hi, a lot of people have a similar dilemma. Answering the question about package - yes, it's common, I'd even say very common. Big tech companies are an exception, where moving to management might mean a (temporarily) lower salary. In most of other companies moving to management is considered a promotion and means higher compensation. Regarding your concerns about your future career - in my experience there's no need to be worried. If during your first 1-2 years you realize you don't like management, you can quite easily move back to a developer role. What's more, management experience is valuable if you later move up to a principal developer role etc. because it means you know how to lead projects, manage stakeholders etc. And if you decide you like management, you'll have plenty of options, in the future you can stay a line manager, or move to higher position like director, or take a CTO role in a startup or a smaller company. It's not a bad career choice, and as I said, you can switch back, so if you have a chance, give it a try and see if you like it.

[@productthinking]

Great video, can I ask what you use for video editing?

[@NotOnlyCode]

Thanks! I use Final Cut Pro, but to be fair my editing is so basic you could do it with other apps as well, even free ones

[@amolbanait1980]

Great content!! Wud u suggest some certifications useful today for Engineering managers??

[@NotOnlyCode]

Hi, thanks! Overall I’m not very fond of certificates and I’m not sure if there’s something specific for engineering managers, but I would suggest focusing on specific skills and then finding courses/certificates for that skills. Maybe you want to become a better coach for your team members? You can become a certified coach, or maybe you want to improve your understanding of business? Then you can take some business classes, or maybe classes for productivity etc. There are some EM classes organized by Pat Kua I believe, that should give an overview of EM skills, but I haven’t taken them so can’t say much

[@andymike6575]

How about Lean Six Sigma, PMP, or Agile scrum master

[@ropro9817]

I wish I saw this video before I became an EM... 😅

[@hillie47]

Funny how you went from "70 to 80 percent" coding to "10 to 20". I guess I'm "fortunate" that I work as an external engineer and I can spend over 90% of my time on "real" work and not much time is lost on meetings. A friend of mine moved from engineering into management and he said he wanted to spend at least half his time still doing engineering work. I laughed at him and asked him how things went after 6 months. He said he had been able to do a tiny bit of engineering work only after a few months. His time got completely sucked up by meetings and as he was now managing some engineering group, he was now pulled into other meetings by company stakeholders that needed something done on the engineering side. But as an engineering manager it's also something to look at: If your engineering team is only able to spend 70% to 80% of their time on real work, maybe there's an overhead issue? Some folks love spending their time in meetings, but I've managed to stay out of them as much as possible early on in my career. It's surprising how well folks stay in sync when there's a 15 minute agile/scrum style standup at the start of the day, instead of a weekly big & bulky status meeting that lasts 2 hours or more (something I dropped out of early on in my career). Some companies have a meeting culture and it's difficult to change that. But one can take incremental steps to cut out a little bit of waste here and there.

[@NotOnlyCode]

That's a fair point regarding 70-80%. I actively try to take this overhead away from my engineers and I hope they can spend closer to 90% on actual work, but in a large company it's a tough fight - people are used to sending meeting invites to discuss everything. I reduced a number of regular meetings we have (e.g. we don't do stand-ups anymore), we agreed with my team that we only attend meetings that we find valuable, etc. but it requires constant effort to keep it this way. Thanks for your comment btw, it's very insightful, and the part about your friend made me chuckle - I also used to think I could code and manage equally at the same time, but not anymore!

[@dontdoit6986]

On my current product team, the engineering manager is also the software architect. They get plenty of coding work as well as whatever mysterious management meetings they have.

[@resitsahin7787]

Good content. I have to tell you if you use the word up for a manager and down for a technical or lower level manager, then you are missing a big part of the game. Managing is not a technical work. You are not ruling people. You are serving them and providing them management service. So they should always %100 trust you( if they are clever enough) and believe that they can talk anything with you. When you send someone, they should believe that if you are doing this, there should be some real reasons. This is very hard to achive, but this mind set will convert you you real manager. All the things you said about being ackward are normal and daily part of managing people. I never send anyone, firs i spend large amount of time to select incommers. Second i work on existing people, try to improve their weaknesses, change their roles, send them to education. After all those things, most of the time people find new roles and leave hapily.... When i see my team talking about me, i tell them please keep talking as this is very enjoable about talking your manager :) .... good luck.

[@TyzFix]

In US, the manager positions become, for a lot of times, a place to retain a senior employee who made a lot for the employer in the past but no longer can or be willing to do so. I see so many of them just manage 0-5 engineers but hands off and stay with managing work, like meetings. Really, I don’t see any reason you need to manage a few people.

[@hillie47]

These folks are the first to go when the layoffs start.

[@trippg3261]

That might have been true a while ago. But TBH engineering management is understood today to be a career track. There’s still challenges of course.

[@hantu4321]

This sounds like ah chong manager is above no they're not look at big companies and the government specialist are above gred khas(special grade) while managers numbers gred