Things I've learned in my 10 years as an engineering manager

Summary

It’s been a while since my boss told me I needed to start hiring for my team. While I was at it, I should also handle onboarding... Since I knew the roadmap, I could take ownership of that... And because I knew the people, I could coach them in their careers.I didn’t realize at the time, but he was dooming me to be an engineering manager.Since then, I’ve worked across four companies as a manager, one as a founder, and another as a manager of managers. I will skip the standard advice and lessons on Engineering Management and focus on the non-obvious ones.There is no standard definition for an Engineering Manager. If you pick two random managers, they can do very different things, even if they are at the same company.In every company I’ve worked at, my role has never been the same. The only constant is that it’s defined by the team's needs, requiring you to balance across four pillars: Product, Process, People, and Programming. Some examples:Large team? Say goodbye to programming. You’ll focus on building careers, coordinating efforts, and navigating the organization to get resources for your team.Small team? You’ll manage scope to match reality, and with less communication overhead, you might actually do some coding.No PM? You own the product completely: validating features, prioritizing the roadmap, and talking to clients. This takes up most of your time because shipping features that don’t offer user value makes everything else pointless.Reporting to the CEO? You’re now the link to sales, operations, and client communications.The key is to identify where your team’s bottleneck lies in your software development lifecycle. You’ll probably shift between pillars as circumstances change, and that’s the point: the role requires flexibility.Tip: Never ask the interviewer what they expect from a manager. Some managers assume their experience is industry standard and might find that question odd. Instead, ask about their daily life and the challenges that take up most of th...