The Engineer to Manager Transition, by Former Twitter Director of Engineering David Loftesness
Вставка
- Опубліковано 30 лип 2024
- Learn how to transition from engineer to engineering manager teamable.com (the first 90 days) from the guy who transitioned from all-star engineer to manager of 5+ high growth teams at Twitter.
Presented at the Hive engineering leadership summit at the Tumo Center in Yerevan Armenia. Learn more about hiring top tech talent: teamable.com - Фільми й анімація
My experience, when things gets tough, you will tend to fall back to what you are comfortable with. It's like a form of procrastination. And I've seen this affect people at all levels from engineers to managers, founders, and even those in the c suite. So if you are a manager and start finding yourself gravitating to more coding you are likely dropping the ball somewhere and it will become noticeable very fast to others if not you.
Excellent talk, probably the most practice oriented on the topic that I've listened to
Thank you for the talk, really it was helpful!!
Very useful talk. Awesome presentation!
wow thank you, i really needed this
Very useful. Thank you
Great Insights on the EM Role.
Great insights into the transition. Now a days, seeing more of "Engineering Managers" roles where they are mandating Managers to code. How do we relate that?
An excellent presentation. Probably the best I’ve seen on the topic of software management. I’m going to have my staff watch this.
Some notes. With a disclaimer, I specialize in CAD applications, and previously in console games, with their own specific requirements.
I don’t want to see a great presentation wasted, and or people just stop watching for reasons of volume. Normalize your audio. In the future be aware of how far away you hold the microphone.
In my experience, as a software manager, you must keep perspective, equally on all three of:
The product, what you are delivering from an end user view. That means you leave your desk, and in a different setting “eat your own dog food”, or use your own software.
The product, from an engineering, maintenance point of view. That means knowing the code, and architecture.
Your staff, from a personal point of view. Know how to interact with that specific personality, what motivates them, what will keep them happy and productive.
You have to maintain all three for success. Failure at any will affect the others critically.
I do have to adamantly disagree with the no coding rule. But agree on the “blocking” if done incorrectly. Your job is to delegate work, and minimize conflicts and inter-dependencies between engineers. This heavily involves organizing how modules, “code” is not only delegated, but optimizing how one person’s work affects the others. If you are not involved in making sure a sustainable architecture, an automated test system is in place, etc… well.. I’m not sure you are doing your job.
You simply move from coding routines, to managing how routines at a high level work together. You delegate first, not last, and then focus on making sure all “threads” are running at full potential, figuratively and literally.
Delegate first.. but keep time to still be involved in the code and have an accurate perspective.
Trying to separate “manager” from “technical manager” I also adamantly disagree with based off my experience in the industry. This just leads to the scum approach of passing down tasks that make no sense from the point of view of how things are actually developed… trying to wire a kitchen after the drywall has been set.
My experiences may differ, based on industry and specifics of the teams and products I have worked on.
Cameraman at 1:57 has hardest time of all people in the room
good talk
Can you elaborate more about go/no-go decision on the 90th day? Let's say I'd like to choose the "go" route, but because I don't get well trained or not having any previous experience, I feel stressed out every day and it keeps jeopardizing my confidence level because I am not good at it?
Hi, how did it work out for you?
Volume is very low :(
why is the volume so low on this video?
Ok I thought it was just me, can't listen....
andyram27 me as well
Because he's a monotone mumbler who can't talk properly. You can tell at 8:00 the poor sound guy tried to max the volume and got feedback, and subsequently gave up. I feel bad for the sound guy!
but great talk
It's so hard to hear
low volume, otherwise a useful video
Transition - use white on black text in presentations. :)
great content but terrible audio
Does resisting management make me stupid
Imho, No. I rather challenge them on the decisions that are being made with an emphasis on "Why" and what they think the downstream impact of it will be on the teams
What do you mean by "resisting" management? Do you mean that you don't want to become a manager yourself?
Can hardly hear you
Dealing with management at scale when you. Have done how dealing with someone who hasnt
sooo many introverts in this session.
isn't truth teller another word for rat?
true story: engineers make the worst managers
If you are an engineering manager working under me I will never let you code not even on planes and Saturdays like one dude saying, for the same reason I don’t let a car mechanic perform heart surgery, you simply suck at it , that’s why.
Managers of engineers should have been excellent engineers themselves. If not, they will struggle to be respected and effective.
Nah, excellent engineers should be principles or staff engineers leading other. Manager is a whole different skill set and being a great engineer doesn’t necessarily translate to great managers. On the other hand, average engineers can become excellent and respectable managers.
Any women in that sea of heads? NO
1%
I see at least six in the crowd
sea of introverts
@@igrai that's a man with long hair
there were a few lol. Mostly 20 something techies