Nothing wrong with an EM finding a little time to code if it doesn't take away from more important things, but you must be careful not to do anything too impressive because then your own upper management will start measuring you on code contributions again and you may slip in your ability to be measured and appreciated as a people leader. Technical teams already have enough code wranglers, what's missing at most companies are EM's who can debug humans and empathize with their reports and be accessible rather than heads down in code and distracted or too focused only on the technical priorities. I'm curious where you got this statistic:
"95% of engineering managers wish to write more code, but feel they just can’t." It suggests a worrying lack of self awareness among EMs: why move into management if you would really prefer to be writing code?
Thanks for the reply Jim! I actually invented that statistic, based on my own conversations 😅
I think there is a tough balance. Many first-time managers code too much, and are stuck at that phase. On the other hand, I see many managers who don't code at all, and lose touch with the tech.
It's not that people prefer to write code, it's just that it's the job of our people. It's like sales manager who don't sell anymore. In my opinion, to manager your people well, you need to still be in touch with the actual work.
In my opinion, the 'type 1 hands on manager' isn't a manager. That's a tech lead. Management is a role where you shouldn't be trying to be the smartest person in the room anymore. So I don't disagree with everything you said, it just comes across a bit too strongly on the side of managers needing to code when I don't think that's the job at all. Coding on the side and doing things here and there to help the team is great, but not if it distracts from their core responsibilities as a people leader. Way too many tech managers get fixated on staying technical and completely neglect to become good people leaders. It's a very real and critical problem in the tech world, a bigger problem than managers not knowing enough about the code.
From what I’ve seen around, this is mainly the problem with first time managers, in their first 2-3 years.
As soon as they transition to manage another team, I’ve seen that most of them don’t touch code at all.
I agree it’s a problem, not sure which is bigger. I might have leaned a too strong on my own experience, maybe should have added the other side of the scale too.
Looks like great EMs are looking for impact instead of just “doing some coding”.
This was my experience too-recently with my last manager, but event at smaller scale in my company where I was the only manager.
And that’s a great thing you’ve built with RAGs, I recently wrote about RAGs too because I think they are the missing pieces in helping faster LLM adoption for businesses.
I can fully relate with this transition from type 1 to 2. I also believe most managers should be able to find some time to code in the non-critical path (automating dull tasks is also one of my favorites), although sometimes the day-to-day responsibilities don't allow you to do that. This was a great reading, Anton!
Yeah, it’s tough to maintain it. I think the biggest problem is actually making it a habit - it’s so easy to fall to inertia and just continue doing the same things.
Great article Anton! And thank you for the mention too. You highlight some really valuable lessons with building tools that help your team - thanks for sharing.
Nothing wrong with an EM finding a little time to code if it doesn't take away from more important things, but you must be careful not to do anything too impressive because then your own upper management will start measuring you on code contributions again and you may slip in your ability to be measured and appreciated as a people leader. Technical teams already have enough code wranglers, what's missing at most companies are EM's who can debug humans and empathize with their reports and be accessible rather than heads down in code and distracted or too focused only on the technical priorities. I'm curious where you got this statistic:
"95% of engineering managers wish to write more code, but feel they just can’t." It suggests a worrying lack of self awareness among EMs: why move into management if you would really prefer to be writing code?
Thanks for the reply Jim! I actually invented that statistic, based on my own conversations 😅
I think there is a tough balance. Many first-time managers code too much, and are stuck at that phase. On the other hand, I see many managers who don't code at all, and lose touch with the tech.
It's not that people prefer to write code, it's just that it's the job of our people. It's like sales manager who don't sell anymore. In my opinion, to manager your people well, you need to still be in touch with the actual work.
In my opinion, the 'type 1 hands on manager' isn't a manager. That's a tech lead. Management is a role where you shouldn't be trying to be the smartest person in the room anymore. So I don't disagree with everything you said, it just comes across a bit too strongly on the side of managers needing to code when I don't think that's the job at all. Coding on the side and doing things here and there to help the team is great, but not if it distracts from their core responsibilities as a people leader. Way too many tech managers get fixated on staying technical and completely neglect to become good people leaders. It's a very real and critical problem in the tech world, a bigger problem than managers not knowing enough about the code.
From what I’ve seen around, this is mainly the problem with first time managers, in their first 2-3 years.
As soon as they transition to manage another team, I’ve seen that most of them don’t touch code at all.
I agree it’s a problem, not sure which is bigger. I might have leaned a too strong on my own experience, maybe should have added the other side of the scale too.
Thanks for the feedback!
Looks like great EMs are looking for impact instead of just “doing some coding”.
This was my experience too-recently with my last manager, but event at smaller scale in my company where I was the only manager.
And that’s a great thing you’ve built with RAGs, I recently wrote about RAGs too because I think they are the missing pieces in helping faster LLM adoption for businesses.
I think the tricky part is that coding has low impact right now, but being completely out of touch can have huge impact that accumulates.
It likely depends on the coding experience before. I haven't coded in 7 years, and jumping back in was surprisingly easy. More here: https://www.ivankusalic.com/executive-coder-experiment/
Thanks Ivan, I enjoyed the read :)
I couldn’t agree more! The engineer in me just can’t resist getting his hands dirty - one way or another
Love the personal chatbot idea and appreciate you sharing a step-by-step article too!
Maybe you can make one at Pinterest if it doesn’t exist already 🙃
Thanks for sharing
I can fully relate with this transition from type 1 to 2. I also believe most managers should be able to find some time to code in the non-critical path (automating dull tasks is also one of my favorites), although sometimes the day-to-day responsibilities don't allow you to do that. This was a great reading, Anton!
Yeah, it’s tough to maintain it. I think the biggest problem is actually making it a habit - it’s so easy to fall to inertia and just continue doing the same things.
Great article Anton! And thank you for the mention too. You highlight some really valuable lessons with building tools that help your team - thanks for sharing.
Thank you Greg :)