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and Tech leadership skills. 
The lineup for this year is 

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truly stellar and features many 
Legends in software development 

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names, such as Robert Uncle Bob.
Martin can back Scott Hanselman 

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Franca subramanium, Carolyn 
honey, Alan. 

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Hello. 
Mary poppendieck and many other 

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prominent names including some 
of those who have also appeared 

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in this podcast before the 
conference. 

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your couch. 
We spoke to the definitey 

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organizers, and I'm happy to 
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purchase a ticket, early price 
is still available. 

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See you there. 
One purpose of the interim 

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manager is to make sure it's 
aligned with whatever. 

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The organizational goal is an 
injury manager should be. 

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Making sure that whatever the 
team is working on. 

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Has a good balance of delivering
things that the business needs. 

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But they're also that the team 
has enough capacity to do the 

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sustainably over time. 
Sometimes this means enough time

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to pay back technical debt, time
to invest in Learning and 

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Development, you know, a sort of
sustainable approach. 

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Hey everyone. 
My name is Henry Surya, we 

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Robin. 
And you're listening to the 

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technology, you know, podcast 
the show where I'll be bringing 

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you the greatest technical 
leaders practitioners and 

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thought leaders in the industry 
to discuss about their Journey 

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ideas and practices that we all 
can learn and apply to build a 

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highly performing technical team
and to make an impact in your 

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personal work. 
So let's dive into our Journal. 

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Hello, to all of you. 
My friends and my Semester, 

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welcome again to the technology.
Now, podcast the show where you 

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00:02:08,500 --> 00:02:11,500
can learn about technical 
leadership and Excellence from 

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my conversations, with great 
thought, leaders out there. 

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And today's episode is the 
episode number 94. 

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Thank you for tuning in and 
listening to this episode. 

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00:02:21,700 --> 00:02:23,800
If this is your first time 
listening to technology, you 

43
00:02:23,808 --> 00:02:27,600
know, make sure to subscribe and
follow the show on your podcast 

44
00:02:27,600 --> 00:02:30,700
app and social media on 
LinkedIn, Twitter, and 

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Instagram. 
And for those of you who enjoy 

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00:02:33,300 --> 00:02:36,600
this podcast, And wanting to 
contribute to the creation of 

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00:02:36,600 --> 00:02:39,100
the future. 
Episodes support me by 

48
00:02:39,100 --> 00:02:42,500
subscribing as a patron at 
technology, not Dev slash 

49
00:02:42,500 --> 00:02:45,600
Patron. 
The engineering manager role is 

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relatively new in the tech 
industry, probably over the last

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10 years. 
The role and title have become a

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lot more popular especially in 
the startup world and from my 

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experience the engineering 
manager roles and 

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responsibilities are not 
clearly. 

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Well defined and can be very 
different between one company. 

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The others, a few of the 
engineering managers. 

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I know sometimes also asked me 
how to assess, whether they have

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done their job properly, and 
what are the success criteria in

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order to help us get more 
clarity about the engineering 

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manager, robe. 
I'm happy to share this episode 

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with all of you. 
My guest for today's episode is 

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Patrick qua, also known as Pat 
Kwa path. 

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Is a seasoned technology leader 
with almost 20 years of 

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experience with a personal 
passion to accelerate the 

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growth. 
And success of tech 

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organizations and Technical 
leaders. 

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He was previously the CTO and 
chief scientist of M26 and the 

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technical principal consultant 
at thoughtworks pad. 

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Also writes a popular newsletter
called level up and offers an 

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online training for Tech leaders
called tekhelet Academy. 

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This is Pets, second appearance 
on technology, not podcast, and 

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in his previous episode 9. 
We discussed in depth about the 

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tech lead role. 
So, if you're also interested to

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learn, More about the tech lead 
role make sure to also check out

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episode number nine in this 
episode. 

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We discussed Pat's latest course
offering called engineering 

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manager Essentials which covers 
all the building blocks required

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to Be an Effective engineering 
manager. 

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We first discussed what an 
engineering manager role is how 

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it differs from the tech lead 
role and a common engineering 

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career track these days, which 
is the manager versus individual

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contributor or icy track pad. 
And shared his view on why being

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an engineering manager is not a 
promotion. 

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And what are some of the success
criteria of a good engineering 

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manager towards the en pad also 
shared a number of anti patterns

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that an engineering manager 
should avoid to become 

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successful. 
I really enjoyed my conversation

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with Pat learning about the 
engineering manager role. 

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And it's different archetypes, 
the success criteria and some of

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the anti patterns that an 
engineering manager should 

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avoid. 
If you also enjoyed this 

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00:05:03,800 --> 00:05:06,900
episode, Please share it with 
your friends and colleagues who 

93
00:05:06,900 --> 00:05:09,400
can also benefit from listening 
to this episode. 

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Leave a rating and review on 
your podcast app and share your 

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00:05:13,500 --> 00:05:16,800
comments or feedback about this 
episode on social media. 

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It is my ultimate mission to 
make this podcast available to 

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more people. 
And I need your help to support 

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me towards fulfilling my 
mission. 

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Before we continue to the 
conversation. 

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Let's hear some words from our 
sponsor. 

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Hi everyone. 

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Welcome back to the new episode 
of the package, you know, 

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podcast today I have a repeat, 
guess he was part of the podcast

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journey in the single-digit, 
episode 9. 

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In fact that requires back here 
again to talk with me about 

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engineering manager. 
So last time we covered about 

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technical leadership or Tech 
lead per se and And it was one 

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and a half years ago, and one 
pandemic apart. 

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So it's been a while since I met
pads after that time. 

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So really looking forward to 
have this conversation, Pat and 

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may be talking more about 
engineering manager in general. 

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Yeah, thanks again for having 
me. 

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I repeat a lot of things have 
happened since last time we 

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spoke both globally as well as 
personally. 

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So, I am also excited to share 
updates and talk a little bit 

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about a different topic than we 
talked about last time. 

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So maybe just a little bit 
background. 

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What have you been up to since 
last time? 

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Spoke last time you were 
predominantly focusing. 

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A lot on technical leadership. 
Now, you have gone into multiple

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areas. 
So tell us more. 

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What are you up to these days? 
Yeah, so last time we spoke, I 

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guess like everyone was sort of 
adjusting to full pandemic. 

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At that time, it was about 
rebuilding training material to 

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run technical leadership courses
online and since then I've it 

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sort of expanded this a little 
bit more. 

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So I've now sort of produced 
some self-driven courses on the 

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tech lead Academy. 
These Are aimed deeper, dive 

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single topics. 
So a very common topic for 

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instance is time management. 
So getting people to find out 

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how to be more productive with 
their own time. 

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Another one around learning how 
to communicate like a CTO. 

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Something that will technically 
does know that they need to do, 

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but haven't necessarily been 
supported and another topic 

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around systems thinking I've 
been since then. 

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Also working with many 
different, technical leaders at 

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the sort, upper echelons of a 
company. 

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So, ciccio's VPS of engineering.
Watching them 121 through 

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coaching and mentoring. 
It really helps me sort of stay 

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in touch with a pulse of how 
tech companies are going. 

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The challenges that all senior 
leadership people are facing 

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since. 
I've been running these 

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technical leadership courses 
online. 

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I've had a lot of requests on 
supporting entering managers in 

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particular and that's kind of 
one of the reasons I've ended up

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building specific material 
around this and trying to 

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compliment other training 
programs out there. 

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So there's General people 
management or leadership type 

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courses out there really Great 
sort of resources, but really 

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trying to fill the gap between 
technical leaders, General 

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people, and Leadership 
management, and in training 

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managers, as well. 
Yeah, and not to mention your 

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great newsletter level up, think
one of your subscriber every 

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Sunday or Monday ish, I think, 
yeah, depending on time zone. 

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So that is also one great 
resource. 

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I think for all the engineering 
managers or technical leads out 

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there, you mentioned, you just 
publish a new course, 

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engineering manager. 
Essential, tell us more a little

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bit. 
How do you come up with this 

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course itself? 
You mentioned that many People 

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asking about it, is it in the 
tech industry, these days that 

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people having very short amount 
of resources available to be a 

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good engineering manager, or 
maybe tell us more little bit. 

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What kind of problem are you 
trying to solve? 

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Yeah, I think it's interesting 
because like the technical lead 

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role. 
The interim manager role, I 

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would say is relatively new toy 
industry, probably over the last

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say 10 years, that name and 
title has become a lot more 

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popular before that you might 
have had things like team leader

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or delivery manager. 
Depending on if you were to 

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project or Consulting type of 
world line, manager or people 

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manager is another type of title
that comes through. 

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But this engineering manager 
role has sort of surfaced over 

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the last, I guess, decade with 
anything. 

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That's new. 
I think everyone always 

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struggles to answer the question
of what is expected of me. 

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In this particular role the 
wonderful blurriness that comes 

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along with any sort of role and 
people who have not done it 

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before. 
I've been studying this over the

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last five years to try to 
explore. 

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What does this mean? 
How do organizations support? 

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And Managers or maybe not 
support, engineering managers, 

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depending on the type of 
company. 

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And also, how does it differ 
from perhaps other technical 

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leadership roles in general? 
I've been running the course for

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technical leaders who may or may
not be doing say people 

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management. 
And sometimes there's some 

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overlap and sometimes there's 
not I really wanted to provide 

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some complimentary training for 
entering managers to help them 

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answer this question around. 
What might be expected of me? 

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How do I know I'm doing a really
great job? 

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How do I prepare for this? 
Particularly if I'm thinking 

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about Maybe stepping into this 
injury management role. 

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So that's kind of the intent 
behind the training which is 

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really to provide support to 
relatively either new people or 

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people who are considering 
stepping into this role in the 

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future. 
So they have some opportunity to

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actually prepare and practice 
some of the skills before they 

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find themselves in that interim 
manager role. 

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So you mentioned that people are
not clear. 

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What is expected of them. 
Maybe if you can give a little 

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bit of clarity, what is the 
definition of engineering 

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manager role and what kind of 
job scope or responsibilities 

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that Should care about. 
So I'm going to start with a 

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typical consultant answer, if it
depends but one of the articles 

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I have my blog was talking about
five different archetypes of 

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being an entering manager. 
I think the role scope does it 

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depend because it kind of also 
relates to an organization if 

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they have other roles, they're 
also in terms of timing so 

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sometimes teams lose a 
particular role. 

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So the shape of your role splits
and then there's also just 

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general expectations and 
associations with what do they 

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mean? 
So concretely, what are the 

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archetypes that I talked about 
is like the tech lead 

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engineering manager archetype, 
this is kind of combining the 

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technical leadership role with 
the people and team leadership 

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management responsibilities. 
So, you're kind of merging those

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two things into the same role 
and, therefore, person not every

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company has this. 
So sometimes you have the power.

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So sometimes you have an injury 
manager and a tech lead who are 

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expected to partner with each. 
Other one is focus, perhaps 

243
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around the team and delivery and
people management side and then 

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the other side is Really focus 
on technical leadership terms of

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making sure that the team is 
using good up-to-date technology

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paying down technical debt. 
Choosing good architectural 

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design patterns to meet and 
accomplish whatever business 

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system that they're trying to 
build. 

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That's one type of archetype. 
So, let's set lead entry manager

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00:12:50,500 --> 00:12:53,400
words in one. 
And then if you split them, then

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that injuring manager, starts to
look a little bit more. 

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Like, what I call the team lead 
and hiring manager where they 

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can focus a little bit more on 
people management working as a 

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team because they They have 
somebody, they can partner with 

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so somebody where they don't 
necessarily need to be the 

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expert technologist for that 
particular team as such. 

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There's five different times 
archetypes, I won't go into all 

258
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of them but another one, which I
think is very useful because I 

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know a lot of technologists will
find themselves in this. 

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Place is companies who tend to 
do a little bit more projects 

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entered work. 
So either in an Enterprise where

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people run projects, or if you 
work for consultancy where nor 

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working for external clients and
you're effectively not really a 

264
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product team. 
We are an extension to somebody 

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else's product team but you're 
there for a project, a certain 

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amount of time to help a product
team. 

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Achieve a certain type of goal. 
They entering a manager isn't 

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necessarily always responsible 
for the people. 

269
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They're more a little bit more 
focus on the delivery. 

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To make sure that client 
expectations are met that the 

271
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team is productive connected in 
with whatever client or customer

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that they're sort of engaging, 
with to make sure that things 

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are smooth because you're often 
working with two different 

274
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organizational cultures one, 
which is your consulting or 

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Contracting type of culture, but
don't obviously, you have to 

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adapt and work smoothly with the
client organization processes 

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00:14:13,100 --> 00:14:16,000
might call it bureaucracy or 
other type of cultural things to

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make sure that you work smoothly
as a single unified team, thanks

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00:14:20,300 --> 00:14:21,900
for sharing these five 
archetypes. 

280
00:14:22,100 --> 00:14:25,200
So I think, for people who want 
to refer more, you can check it 

281
00:14:25,200 --> 00:14:27,700
out in pets, block. 
Now, wonder that people are 

282
00:14:27,700 --> 00:14:30,600
sometimes not clear eye because 
they are so many variants of the

283
00:14:30,600 --> 00:14:33,500
engineering manager role. 
The responsibilities can be 

284
00:14:33,500 --> 00:14:35,700
quite different As well. 
You mentioned just now, maybe 

285
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one is more project, driven. 
One is a mix of both Technical 

286
00:14:39,200 --> 00:14:42,400
and people management. 
One is predominantly team of 

287
00:14:42,400 --> 00:14:44,700
people management. 
You mentioned, a lot of times 

288
00:14:44,700 --> 00:14:47,300
about tech lead in this 
competition so far for people 

289
00:14:47,300 --> 00:14:49,500
who may not have heard our first
episode. 

290
00:14:49,600 --> 00:14:51,900
Maybe you can you give us a 
little bit of a brief 

291
00:14:51,900 --> 00:14:54,600
description. 
What is a tech lead and how 

292
00:14:54,600 --> 00:14:57,300
should it be different with the 
engineering manager role? 

293
00:14:57,900 --> 00:15:01,400
If you split them, let's say you
have a tech lead plus a team 

294
00:15:01,400 --> 00:15:04,200
lead entering manager archetype 
that in classically. 

295
00:15:04,200 --> 00:15:07,300
I would be thinking that the 
tech lead role probably isn't 

296
00:15:07,300 --> 00:15:09,100
going to be doing people or line
management. 

297
00:15:09,100 --> 00:15:11,300
Some of the other 
responsibilities for attacked. 

298
00:15:11,300 --> 00:15:14,600
Lead are effectively about 
aligning and guiding the team 

299
00:15:14,600 --> 00:15:17,800
around the technical direction 
to make sure they're all working

300
00:15:17,800 --> 00:15:20,100
in the same direction. 
So this means that they 

301
00:15:20,100 --> 00:15:22,700
understand what the system 
architecture that they're 

302
00:15:22,700 --> 00:15:26,300
building is working towards to 
make sure that the team are 

303
00:15:26,300 --> 00:15:28,700
using wood tools and That 
technical debt. 

304
00:15:28,700 --> 00:15:31,100
So they could continue to evolve
that sort of system. 

305
00:15:31,300 --> 00:15:33,800
The tech lead in that sort of 
scenario tends to be a lot more 

306
00:15:33,800 --> 00:15:36,500
Hands-On as such. 
So you need to be able to 

307
00:15:36,500 --> 00:15:39,000
understand and mitigate 
technical risk and that's kind 

308
00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:41,100
of impossible to do. 
If you're like, literally not 

309
00:15:41,100 --> 00:15:43,300
looking at any code that people 
are producing. 

310
00:15:43,600 --> 00:15:46,100
So the tech lead tends to be a 
little bit more Hands-On and 

311
00:15:46,100 --> 00:15:49,700
probably a lot more aware in 
terms of Industry Trends in 

312
00:15:49,700 --> 00:15:52,300
terms of tools libraries 
Frameworks and development 

313
00:15:52,300 --> 00:15:55,400
practices, the interim manager 
and that sort of role can 

314
00:15:55,400 --> 00:15:57,700
effectively delegate or partner 
with the tech lead and they 

315
00:15:57,900 --> 00:16:00,200
don't have to be as Hands-On as 
a result. 

316
00:16:00,300 --> 00:16:02,100
So that's one of those 
interesting debates that 

317
00:16:02,100 --> 00:16:04,400
everyone always asked about how 
technical shouldn't entering 

318
00:16:04,400 --> 00:16:08,200
manager be like, how Hands-On. 
Well, once again, it depends if 

319
00:16:08,200 --> 00:16:11,000
you have a tech lead, that means
that the engineering manager can

320
00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:14,400
be less hand off because they 
have somebody who is guiding and

321
00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:17,500
making sure that people are 
making good decisions to make 

322
00:16:17,500 --> 00:16:20,100
sure that technical decisions 
are tie break through that Tech 

323
00:16:20,100 --> 00:16:22,200
lead. 
But if you don't have that Tech 

324
00:16:22,200 --> 00:16:24,900
lead role, that kind of gets 
absorbed by the entry manager. 

325
00:16:25,300 --> 00:16:27,500
And so, you do need somebody to 
do that, and they playing both 

326
00:16:27,500 --> 00:16:30,000
hats. 
That perspective these days in 

327
00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:32,800
the technology world or at least
in the startups. 

328
00:16:33,100 --> 00:16:35,700
What I have seen the most is 
that we will have these two 

329
00:16:35,800 --> 00:16:38,900
tracks within engineering. 
One is people management part, 

330
00:16:38,900 --> 00:16:41,400
the engineering manager path, 
and also the individual 

331
00:16:41,400 --> 00:16:44,100
contributor part which is 
probably Tech lead, stop 

332
00:16:44,100 --> 00:16:45,700
software, engineer principal 
engineer. 

333
00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:48,300
So maybe you can give us a 
little bit of guide. 

334
00:16:48,300 --> 00:16:52,200
Here is this the proper way of 
structuring the engineering 

335
00:16:52,200 --> 00:16:56,600
roles within a company. 
So it's a popular way of 

336
00:16:56,600 --> 00:16:59,000
structuring and hearing about 
Social roles particularly in the

337
00:16:59,000 --> 00:17:02,300
u.s. to have two tracks. 
Firstly, I think it's important 

338
00:17:02,300 --> 00:17:07,099
to have more senior tracks or at
least roles supported from the 

339
00:17:07,099 --> 00:17:10,200
technical perspective because 
let's be fair, not every 

340
00:17:10,200 --> 00:17:13,700
technologists wants to have to 
deal with people topics, right? 

341
00:17:13,700 --> 00:17:16,900
So to have hard performance 
review conversations to be 

342
00:17:16,900 --> 00:17:20,000
responsible, for driving 
improvements in their recruiting

343
00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:23,900
process, going through all your 
HR paperwork when it comes to 

344
00:17:23,900 --> 00:17:26,900
performance, reviews and 
promotions and appraisals, these

345
00:17:26,900 --> 00:17:29,000
are difficult things to do. 
It's already history them and 

346
00:17:29,000 --> 00:17:31,600
not everyone wants to do them to
because some people like to be a

347
00:17:31,600 --> 00:17:34,800
little bit more Hands-On. 
I do have an issue with kind of 

348
00:17:34,800 --> 00:17:38,500
the icy verse management track 
though, because I think people 

349
00:17:38,500 --> 00:17:41,900
do see higher level roles like a
tech lead stuff or a principal 

350
00:17:41,900 --> 00:17:44,600
engineer on the icy track. 
Poor individual contributor 

351
00:17:44,600 --> 00:17:46,800
track. 
But I think that is a really bad

352
00:17:46,800 --> 00:17:49,300
name, right? 
Because it emphasizes individual

353
00:17:49,300 --> 00:17:53,000
contribution, and in my 
experience, higher level roles 

354
00:17:53,000 --> 00:17:57,000
like a tech lead and stuff and 
principal engineer, they need to

355
00:17:57,000 --> 00:18:02,100
have Strong leadership skills. 
And so I actually prefer to what

356
00:18:02,100 --> 00:18:04,600
I described a trident model of 
career development. 

357
00:18:04,600 --> 00:18:07,500
And this is what I think is a 
healthy thing for organizations 

358
00:18:07,800 --> 00:18:10,600
where you have roles at higher 
levels but on the technical 

359
00:18:10,600 --> 00:18:13,100
leadership /. 
So they're not necessarily 

360
00:18:13,100 --> 00:18:16,200
responsible for managing people,
so not the management 

361
00:18:16,200 --> 00:18:20,100
responsibilities, but they 
should be leading technical 

362
00:18:20,100 --> 00:18:23,000
topics. 
So, let's give you example. 

363
00:18:23,200 --> 00:18:26,300
Let's say you have a company. 
Let's say that there are five or

364
00:18:26,300 --> 00:18:29,300
six independent product team. 
What is very common is? 

365
00:18:29,300 --> 00:18:32,200
You probably have a tech lead on
each product team, trying to 

366
00:18:32,200 --> 00:18:34,800
make sure that whatever 
application or system or 

367
00:18:34,800 --> 00:18:37,500
products that team is producing 
is well aligned. 

368
00:18:37,700 --> 00:18:39,500
But if you're in the same 
company, you're probably going 

369
00:18:39,500 --> 00:18:43,100
to be sharing interfaces 
dependencies a very common thing

370
00:18:43,100 --> 00:18:44,900
here. 
Today might be using something 

371
00:18:44,900 --> 00:18:47,700
like Africa. 
A common messaging interface to 

372
00:18:47,700 --> 00:18:50,400
raise events and communicate 
between different points. 

373
00:18:50,700 --> 00:18:53,700
Now, what can quite happen, if 
tech leads on all the teams 

374
00:18:53,700 --> 00:18:55,500
don't necessarily get along very
well together? 

375
00:18:55,600 --> 00:18:59,400
Is you end up with a very messy 
Messaging infrastructure, many 

376
00:18:59,400 --> 00:19:01,100
different ways of raising 
events. 

377
00:19:01,100 --> 00:19:04,200
People are just very confused 
about what style and things, 

378
00:19:04,200 --> 00:19:06,500
get, lost contracts and utterly 
greed. 

379
00:19:06,500 --> 00:19:10,000
This is where you need somebody 
or a role that's typically, 

380
00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:13,600
trying to align technical 
decisions across multiple teams 

381
00:19:13,600 --> 00:19:16,500
in a lot of organizations that 
might be either a show for a 

382
00:19:16,500 --> 00:19:18,900
principal engineer. 
They need to be quite technical 

383
00:19:18,900 --> 00:19:22,000
because they need to understand 
the different needs the 

384
00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:24,700
technical details of the 
technology, some of the 

385
00:19:24,700 --> 00:19:27,300
trade-offs, and different 
options, but they really need 

386
00:19:27,308 --> 00:19:29,000
leadership. 
Skills because they need to be 

387
00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:32,800
able to influence and get buy-in
and get agreement with say. 

388
00:19:32,800 --> 00:19:36,600
In this example, six tech leads 
who may or may not get along and

389
00:19:36,600 --> 00:19:39,700
so you need somebody who can 
help facilitate and mediate and 

390
00:19:39,700 --> 00:19:42,900
basically the create alignment 
across that and that's not about

391
00:19:42,900 --> 00:19:47,000
individual contribution at all. 
That person is not writing the 

392
00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:49,100
speck in the contract that 
everyone needs to follow. 

393
00:19:49,100 --> 00:19:51,400
They're not going to really get 
a little back in very quickly 

394
00:19:51,400 --> 00:19:54,400
from that perspective, they need
to be able to leap and this is 

395
00:19:54,400 --> 00:19:58,200
where I think the I see is a 
really bad name, which is Why I 

396
00:19:58,200 --> 00:20:00,700
prefer to talk about technical 
leadership tracks. 

397
00:20:00,900 --> 00:20:03,600
There are some places where you 
do need some specialist 

398
00:20:03,600 --> 00:20:06,700
individual contributors most 
companies, don't need them. 

399
00:20:06,900 --> 00:20:10,800
Like if your Facebook or Google,
you need somebody who can 

400
00:20:10,800 --> 00:20:14,000
rewrite the PHP compiler, like 
you need somebody who can write 

401
00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:17,900
a new programming language, most
companies don't need that level 

402
00:20:17,900 --> 00:20:22,200
of specialization and so that 
deep expertise what I would 

403
00:20:22,200 --> 00:20:25,100
really consider it very much on 
the individual contributor line.

404
00:20:25,400 --> 00:20:28,000
Most organizations don't need 
people in that role but Do you 

405
00:20:28,008 --> 00:20:30,700
need strong technical leadership
particularly, when you are 

406
00:20:30,708 --> 00:20:34,300
trying to align across other 
strong, technical leaders to 

407
00:20:34,300 --> 00:20:36,700
make sure that there's some 
alignment from an organizational

408
00:20:36,700 --> 00:20:39,400
perspective. 
Thanks for sharing that scenario

409
00:20:39,500 --> 00:20:41,700
because they are. 
You do agree that sometimes this

410
00:20:41,700 --> 00:20:44,300
stuff software engineer 
principal, they think that their

411
00:20:44,300 --> 00:20:47,100
focus is actually to solve one 
particular problem with that 

412
00:20:47,100 --> 00:20:48,800
actually aligning with different
teams. 

413
00:20:49,100 --> 00:20:51,400
So, I think I like the Trident 
model that you mentioned. 

414
00:20:51,500 --> 00:20:54,500
I think that kind of gives a 
framework that people at that 

415
00:20:54,500 --> 00:20:57,300
particular level, even though 
it's individual contributor, 

416
00:20:57,300 --> 00:21:00,300
they still need to kind of like 
have leadership and influence 

417
00:21:00,300 --> 00:21:03,000
among the other Engineers within
different teams. 

418
00:21:03,300 --> 00:21:06,300
One common phrase that I always 
hear about engineering manager. 

419
00:21:06,400 --> 00:21:09,700
It's not a promotion, because 
sometimes what happens is that, 

420
00:21:09,700 --> 00:21:12,800
as you go along in your career, 
Journey after five, six to ten 

421
00:21:12,800 --> 00:21:15,900
years, you get promoted as an 
engineering manager but people 

422
00:21:15,900 --> 00:21:18,200
refers to it as a not a 
promotion but it's just a 

423
00:21:18,208 --> 00:21:20,900
different role. 
So can you give us a little bit 

424
00:21:20,900 --> 00:21:24,500
more about your thought on this?
If it's not a promotion? 

425
00:21:24,700 --> 00:21:27,600
Then when should we nurture 
people to go into this? 

426
00:21:27,800 --> 00:21:31,600
Engineering Management role. 
My conceptual model with Rawls 

427
00:21:31,600 --> 00:21:34,500
is it's like a container. 
There's things that your group 

428
00:21:34,500 --> 00:21:37,200
together in a container and 
these are simply a set of 

429
00:21:37,200 --> 00:21:40,300
responsibilities. 
So I think this is interesting 

430
00:21:40,300 --> 00:21:43,300
because if we think about, let's
say a developer, a senior 

431
00:21:43,300 --> 00:21:46,300
developer is kind of doing more 
of the same type of 

432
00:21:46,300 --> 00:21:49,300
responsibilities. 
So a lot of the skills and 

433
00:21:49,300 --> 00:21:52,500
experiences translate into the 
next level of scope. 

434
00:21:52,700 --> 00:21:55,600
You take a problem, you know, 
how to park that problem down. 

435
00:21:55,600 --> 00:21:57,600
You know, how to design code and
modularized. 

436
00:21:57,700 --> 00:22:00,700
Is that code, you know how to 
apply good having so you can 

437
00:22:00,700 --> 00:22:02,600
break it up. 
Keep it maintainable. 

438
00:22:02,600 --> 00:22:05,900
Have some good tests and deploy 
a really nice product that's 

439
00:22:05,900 --> 00:22:07,900
working. 
So a senior engineers and to be 

440
00:22:07,900 --> 00:22:11,300
able to take slightly more 
complex problem, do more of that

441
00:22:11,300 --> 00:22:13,500
and apply a lot of the same sort
of skills. 

442
00:22:13,800 --> 00:22:16,600
The reason why I think a lot of 
people describe this as not a 

443
00:22:16,608 --> 00:22:18,800
promotion is because 
fundamentally a lot of the 

444
00:22:18,800 --> 00:22:21,100
responsibilities. 
In this new container of being 

445
00:22:21,100 --> 00:22:24,900
an entering manager, 
fundamentally different type of 

446
00:22:24,900 --> 00:22:30,300
activities and so you may not 
Have built many of the skills 

447
00:22:30,300 --> 00:22:33,500
and experience necessary to 
fulfill the responsibilities 

448
00:22:33,500 --> 00:22:36,900
that come associated with that 
particular role, a good mental 

449
00:22:36,900 --> 00:22:38,500
model. 
I also like to use here is a bit

450
00:22:38,500 --> 00:22:41,900
like role playing games. 
So a very common thing in RPGs 

451
00:22:41,900 --> 00:22:44,300
is you get like skill points 
that you consider allocate 

452
00:22:44,300 --> 00:22:47,600
across stuff, maybe as a 
developer, let's call them. 

453
00:22:47,600 --> 00:22:49,900
The warrior class is that you 
are allocating. 

454
00:22:49,900 --> 00:22:53,700
All your points to attack and 
all these kind of things that go

455
00:22:53,700 --> 00:22:56,500
with worry class, but actually 
the interim manager role is a 

456
00:22:56,508 --> 00:22:59,000
bit more like a Priest kind of 
class, right? 

457
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:02,200
It's like a support class whose 
job is to help support all the 

458
00:23:02,200 --> 00:23:04,600
team. 
You've not allocated any points 

459
00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:08,300
to Healing type of Magic's, or a
safety type of, Magic's, or 

460
00:23:08,300 --> 00:23:11,700
mediation, very important, as a 
result, when you step into that 

461
00:23:11,700 --> 00:23:13,700
new role. 
You're basically starting again 

462
00:23:13,700 --> 00:23:16,000
from scratch. 
I think kind of a big thing is 

463
00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:18,400
that there's not a lot of 
overlap sometimes. 

464
00:23:18,400 --> 00:23:21,100
There is, if you're that Tech 
lead entering manager, but 

465
00:23:21,100 --> 00:23:24,300
there's a whole bunch of new 
skills and responsibilities that

466
00:23:24,300 --> 00:23:27,900
you may not have built skills 
and experience it as a Kurt 

467
00:23:27,900 --> 00:23:30,600
example, as an engineer. 
It's quite common. 

468
00:23:30,600 --> 00:23:34,000
That many people might get by in
their career without having to 

469
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:38,300
deliver very difficult feedback 
like to tell somebody about 

470
00:23:38,300 --> 00:23:41,900
their behavior to deliver in a 
way such that they're receptive 

471
00:23:41,900 --> 00:23:44,800
to this and that they 
acknowledge perhaps the impact 

472
00:23:44,800 --> 00:23:47,500
that their behavior is having so
that they have an option to 

473
00:23:47,500 --> 00:23:50,300
actually change that behave. 
If you've never practiced that, 

474
00:23:50,300 --> 00:23:52,500
of course, the first time you 
do, that is probably going to be

475
00:23:52,500 --> 00:23:55,000
bad and awful, right? 
It's going to be not great for 

476
00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:57,300
the person, receiving it, and 
not great for you because 

477
00:23:57,400 --> 00:23:59,900
probably you're going to also 
react badly to how that other 

478
00:23:59,900 --> 00:24:03,200
person is reacting badly. 
But that example of a skill is 

479
00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:05,800
something that interim managers 
need to be able to do all the 

480
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:08,200
time. 
Maybe you're lucky, you work in 

481
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:11,200
a team where somebody else has 
taught you how to give effective

482
00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:13,400
feedback. 
It's a very common thing that 

483
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:16,900
you swap and exchange feedback 
to other team members in my 

484
00:24:16,900 --> 00:24:19,600
experience, that's not 
necessarily a key responsibility

485
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:21,500
that you see on a job 
description for developers. 

486
00:24:21,500 --> 00:24:25,300
So, a lot of people might go in 
their career without having to 

487
00:24:25,300 --> 00:24:27,800
go through that experience and 
therefore, when they fall, In 

488
00:24:27,900 --> 00:24:30,900
that interview manager of all, 
they maybe haven't built up that

489
00:24:30,900 --> 00:24:33,000
skill and experience. 
I think this is one of the 

490
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:36,300
things with that, not a 
promotion, but a role change 

491
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:39,300
because you probably be building
a lot of new skills and 

492
00:24:39,300 --> 00:24:41,800
responsibilities to fulfill them
very well. 

493
00:24:42,300 --> 00:24:44,800
Now I think a lot of people 
might feel a bit scared about 

494
00:24:44,800 --> 00:24:47,400
this but I like to also view it 
as it's a good growth 

495
00:24:47,400 --> 00:24:50,300
opportunity. 
I think if you're a developer 

496
00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:53,200
you've built a certain type of 
system at some point. 

497
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:55,200
You kind of go. 
Well, all I'm doing is really 

498
00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:57,200
like moving data from one place 
to another. 

499
00:24:57,400 --> 00:24:59,100
That's All I'm really ultimately
doing. 

500
00:24:59,300 --> 00:25:02,100
This is actually an interesting 
challenge of dealing with some 

501
00:25:02,100 --> 00:25:04,500
new skills, and a good learning 
opportunity and growth 

502
00:25:04,500 --> 00:25:05,200
opportunities. 
Well. 

503
00:25:05,200 --> 00:25:07,800
So there's a good reason to be 
able to do that if you want to 

504
00:25:07,900 --> 00:25:11,200
move in that direction. 
By the way, I like your RPD 

505
00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:13,000
analogy. 
I think that kind of like 

506
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:14,800
resonates well with Gamers, I 
guess. 

507
00:25:15,100 --> 00:25:17,100
If this is the case, right, 
there are so many new 

508
00:25:17,100 --> 00:25:20,800
responsibilities that you need 
to be aware of and maybe Master 

509
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:23,800
along the way when you switch, 
let's say assume that someone 

510
00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:26,300
who just graduated becomes an 
engineer. 

511
00:25:26,500 --> 00:25:29,100
When should they think? 
Trying out to be this 

512
00:25:29,100 --> 00:25:32,400
engineering manager or when 
should the company decides, 

513
00:25:32,400 --> 00:25:33,900
okay? 
This person should actually 

514
00:25:33,900 --> 00:25:36,700
become an engineering manager or
should this person continue 

515
00:25:36,700 --> 00:25:39,100
along with that? 
Individual contributor track. 

516
00:25:39,900 --> 00:25:43,200
Yeah, it's a great question. 
I think what I tend to see is 

517
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:47,100
very common in careers worth 
Frameworks, is you kind of need 

518
00:25:47,100 --> 00:25:50,400
some experience building 
software in different types of 

519
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:52,600
teams. 
And so this is where I think. 

520
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:55,300
Sometimes in startup lands, you 
have somebody that's been 

521
00:25:55,300 --> 00:25:57,800
working in technology, is there 
for like a year and then the Get

522
00:25:57,800 --> 00:25:59,000
pushed into an interim manager 
role. 

523
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:01,100
I think that's a little bit too 
early and I think part of that, 

524
00:26:01,100 --> 00:26:04,000
is because it's difficult to 
understand the complexity of 

525
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:06,000
software less you've seen a 
number of different. 

526
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:09,300
Scenarios worked with different 
types of teams, you can do, 

527
00:26:09,300 --> 00:26:11,200
okay? 
But you're probably going to 

528
00:26:11,200 --> 00:26:13,700
struggle to really understand 
the variance and the difficulty 

529
00:26:13,700 --> 00:26:16,800
of nature of that. 
What I do see quite commonly is 

530
00:26:16,800 --> 00:26:19,900
spending some good time, being 
an individual contributor. 

531
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:22,700
So, you're a team member, you've
maybe seen different types of 

532
00:26:22,700 --> 00:26:24,200
teams. 
Worked on different types of 

533
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:27,600
systems so you get a good flavor
to understand what possible. 

534
00:26:27,700 --> 00:26:29,600
Areas people might find 
themselves. 

535
00:26:29,900 --> 00:26:32,000
And so, if I think about this 
growth path from that side, 

536
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:35,300
let's say, you start off as 
being a socio software engineer 

537
00:26:35,500 --> 00:26:37,800
moving into a software engineer 
into a senior engineer. 

538
00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:40,900
And that's typically the sort of
movement path, where you might 

539
00:26:40,900 --> 00:26:43,600
decide to go more into technical
leadership so stay more 

540
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:46,300
Hands-On. 
Guiding architecture, technology

541
00:26:46,300 --> 00:26:48,700
choice, or maybe to move into an
engineering manager. 

542
00:26:48,700 --> 00:26:51,600
Particular role focusing a 
little bit more on the people 

543
00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:53,900
development and team 
development, and the 

544
00:26:53,900 --> 00:26:56,200
environment. 
I think that's a good level 

545
00:26:56,200 --> 00:26:59,100
because it means that you can 
better empathize with the 

546
00:26:59,100 --> 00:27:01,800
challenges that your team. 
We're going to have, I think 

547
00:27:01,800 --> 00:27:04,200
it's very difficult if you move 
too quickly, engineering manager

548
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:06,500
role to really understand the 
problems that your team are 

549
00:27:06,500 --> 00:27:08,500
face. 
Of course, empathy is like 

550
00:27:08,500 --> 00:27:11,400
something, some of you might be 
really, really good at but I 

551
00:27:11,408 --> 00:27:13,400
think it's a lot easier if 
you've actually lived through 

552
00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:16,200
some of those scenarios and when
people come to you about these 

553
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:19,800
situations you just instantly 
know exactly what challenge 

554
00:27:19,800 --> 00:27:21,700
they're sort of facing. 
There's something about having 

555
00:27:21,700 --> 00:27:24,300
lived some of those themes 
scenarios that you could know 

556
00:27:24,300 --> 00:27:27,200
how to solve it. 
I think the other perspective is

557
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:29,500
you know as Individual 
contributor, sometimes you get 

558
00:27:29,500 --> 00:27:32,400
to work with really bad and 
training managers and this is 

559
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:35,100
actually I think what helps 
form, good engineering managers 

560
00:27:35,300 --> 00:27:37,900
because people go, oh, I don't 
want to ever work in a team 

561
00:27:37,900 --> 00:27:40,900
environment like that. 
If I'm that role, I can avoid 

562
00:27:40,900 --> 00:27:42,600
that. 
I can intentionally think about 

563
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:44,400
these people that I've had to 
work with and go. 

564
00:27:44,500 --> 00:27:47,000
Ah, this is really painful. 
I can actually create a great 

565
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:50,900
environment for Mac team so they
can imprint the opposite pattern

566
00:27:51,100 --> 00:27:52,800
and therefore be a lot more 
effective. 

567
00:27:53,100 --> 00:27:55,900
If you've never experienced a 
bad injury manager, that's going

568
00:27:55,900 --> 00:27:59,200
to be really hard to do. 
Well me, one way that I always 

569
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:01,600
advise for people who are 
thinking of becoming injury 

570
00:28:01,600 --> 00:28:04,400
manager, is the first test will 
be, do you like working with 

571
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:06,700
people? 
Because sometimes yeah, managing

572
00:28:06,700 --> 00:28:08,500
people is different than 
managing code. 

573
00:28:08,500 --> 00:28:11,300
Bases, you mention about Bap 
engineering manager. 

574
00:28:11,500 --> 00:28:14,200
A lot of engineering managers 
that I know especially people 

575
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:17,100
who asked me for feedback advice
and all that, they actually 

576
00:28:17,100 --> 00:28:19,800
don't know whether they are 
performing well or they are 

577
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:22,000
performing bad. 
So this is sometimes, the 

578
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:24,700
abstract things are becoming an 
engineering manager where you 

579
00:28:24,700 --> 00:28:27,100
are being spread into multiple 
areas, right? 

580
00:28:27,100 --> 00:28:30,000
Sometimes you juggle between 
multiple things, maybe from your

581
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:33,500
point of view as a tip, should 
we as an engineering manager, 

582
00:28:33,500 --> 00:28:37,300
assess the success of our role, 
It's a good question. 

583
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:43,700
So I think one indicator of this
is making sure that the team is 

584
00:28:43,700 --> 00:28:46,100
delivering value. 
So, one purpose of the interim 

585
00:28:46,100 --> 00:28:48,000
manager is to make sure it's 
aligned with whatever the 

586
00:28:48,008 --> 00:28:50,500
organization goal is. 
Let's give you a counter 

587
00:28:50,500 --> 00:28:53,400
example. 
I remember observing a team that

588
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:55,500
was nearby when I was in 
Consulting. 

589
00:28:55,700 --> 00:28:58,300
They had a tech lead entering 
manager and because there are a 

590
00:28:58,308 --> 00:29:00,200
little bit more biased. 
What's the technology? 

591
00:29:00,300 --> 00:29:02,800
They just basically use their 
team as an excuse to play around

592
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:05,500
with technology. 
Like let's use a graph database.

593
00:29:05,500 --> 00:29:07,800
Let's do this one. 
Here at some point. 

594
00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:10,300
Then manager came in and was 
saying what are you actually 

595
00:29:10,300 --> 00:29:12,600
deliver? 
We don't really see any output. 

596
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:14,700
Yeah but we just need some more 
time to play around with 

597
00:29:14,700 --> 00:29:17,000
whatever. 
That's not a great ensuring 

598
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:19,700
manager and ensuring manager is 
trying to make sure that it's 

599
00:29:19,700 --> 00:29:22,000
aligned with whatever the 
organization needs. 

600
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:24,900
Now, of course, it depends on 
your team so you might be part 

601
00:29:24,900 --> 00:29:26,900
of your platform, team serving 
other teams. 

602
00:29:26,900 --> 00:29:30,100
So it's about then perhaps 
developer productivity across 

603
00:29:30,100 --> 00:29:32,400
your organization. 
Smoothing out the pain points 

604
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:35,100
for the team's. 
Most people will probably be on 

605
00:29:35,100 --> 00:29:37,500
a product team. 
And then it's a question of 

606
00:29:37,500 --> 00:29:39,900
like, what product area are you 
working on? 

607
00:29:40,100 --> 00:29:42,200
Are you helping to smooth out 
customer issues? 

608
00:29:42,200 --> 00:29:44,900
So you reduce the number of 
repeated types of customer 

609
00:29:44,900 --> 00:29:46,800
issues that pop up. 
Are you working on? 

610
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:50,100
Say customer registration and 
working on the growth Channel 

611
00:29:50,100 --> 00:29:53,700
there, you know, I think there 
are good concrete goals 

612
00:29:53,700 --> 00:29:56,500
depending on which part of a 
business, you're working in an 

613
00:29:56,500 --> 00:29:58,600
engineering manager should be 
making sure that whatever the 

614
00:29:58,600 --> 00:30:01,700
team is working on. 
Has a good balance of delivering

615
00:30:01,700 --> 00:30:04,300
things that the business needs. 
It's naturally going to be 

616
00:30:04,308 --> 00:30:06,200
biased towards product if you 
have a strong product. 

617
00:30:06,300 --> 00:30:08,000
A jar. 
But they're also that the team 

618
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:10,700
has enough capacity to do the 
sustainably over time. 

619
00:30:10,900 --> 00:30:14,200
Sometimes this means enough time
to pay back technical debt, time

620
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:16,900
to invest in Learning and 
Development, you know, a sort of

621
00:30:16,900 --> 00:30:20,500
sustainable approach. 
So I think any extreme is really

622
00:30:20,500 --> 00:30:22,700
bad. 
Where if a team is always just 

623
00:30:22,700 --> 00:30:25,900
being pushed to produce features
of the features and they don't 

624
00:30:25,900 --> 00:30:29,300
get a chance to actually work on
some technical infrastructure. 

625
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:33,100
Then at some point, their 
productivity really slow down or

626
00:30:33,100 --> 00:30:35,900
the quality will be affected 
whenever they make a change. 

627
00:30:35,900 --> 00:30:38,900
You get Explosions bugs in 
production and so that's going 

628
00:30:38,900 --> 00:30:42,100
to be a long-term consequence. 
So the injury Mentor, I think is

629
00:30:42,100 --> 00:30:43,900
thinking about, Are you 
delivering value in a 

630
00:30:43,900 --> 00:30:47,000
sustainable way? 
And that's for me a nice little 

631
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:49,600
rest. 
I still remember last time when 

632
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:52,400
you mention about one of the 
characteristics of a good 

633
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:56,000
technical lead is actually to 
become more multiplier instead 

634
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:58,600
of maker. 
Is it still the same case where 

635
00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:01,800
engineering manager has to be a 
multiplier for the individual 

636
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:05,200
team members and also maybe 
other engineering teams maybe as

637
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:07,300
a sister team of people. 
As within the company. 

638
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:10,800
Yeah, absolutely. 
So I think all leadership roles 

639
00:31:10,900 --> 00:31:15,200
need a multiplayer type of idea 
or mindset and I think in this 

640
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:18,200
case, the injury manager and the
tech lead might be doing it 

641
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:20,500
differently. 
So the tech lead might be able 

642
00:31:20,500 --> 00:31:24,400
to say, teach people Concrete 
technical skills to help 

643
00:31:24,400 --> 00:31:28,000
multiply people. 
They can spot, perhaps design 

644
00:31:28,100 --> 00:31:31,200
errors, early and help people 
learn from them. 

645
00:31:31,200 --> 00:31:33,500
Rather than having to respond to
an incident, outage can then 

646
00:31:33,500 --> 00:31:35,600
that helps multiply the 
technical knowledge. 

647
00:31:35,900 --> 00:31:37,800
I think What are the key 
responsibilities that almost 

648
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:40,400
always falls onto the 
engineering manager is people 

649
00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:42,600
development. 
And so the way that an interim 

650
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:44,800
manager multipliers their people
is probably a little bit 

651
00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:48,200
different because for instance, 
one of the traits that I would 

652
00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:51,000
expect from a good engineering 
manager as they have regular one

653
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:53,600
ones with people in their team 
very early on. 

654
00:31:53,600 --> 00:31:56,700
They should be working with that
person to build a personal 

655
00:31:56,700 --> 00:31:59,400
development plan. 
Where do you want to be in a 

656
00:31:59,408 --> 00:32:02,400
year or two years time? 
Do you want to be a tech lead? 

657
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:03,400
You want to be detrimental to 
do? 

658
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:05,000
You want to do something very 
different? 

659
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:08,200
Let's start working. 
On a plan to start building new 

660
00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:11,400
skills to get there. 
Now some of those things on that

661
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:14,400
personal development plan might 
align very well with how we're 

662
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:16,200
technically can actually support
somebody. 

663
00:32:16,500 --> 00:32:19,500
But often it's more about 
thinking about junie's. 

664
00:32:19,500 --> 00:32:22,600
It might be about a specific 
project that a person might be 

665
00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:26,200
able to join at some points that
pops up or a rotation on to a 

666
00:32:26,208 --> 00:32:28,900
different team. 
Which requires a manager to work

667
00:32:28,900 --> 00:32:32,200
with other managers to plan a 
good rotation cycle. 

668
00:32:32,500 --> 00:32:35,600
So that no team is suddenly 
stopping in productivity and it 

669
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:37,700
helps to set satisfy some of 
these needs. 

670
00:32:37,900 --> 00:32:40,400
It might be about working with 
somebody to find external 

671
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:44,200
training to support someone in 
building new skills because you 

672
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:46,400
may not necessarily have the 
opportunity in your team. 

673
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:49,800
Environment to allow somebody to
immediately practice or learn 

674
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:53,000
those sort of skills, or maybe 
it's a completely new skill, set

675
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:55,600
that nobody has any real team, 
so they need to go externally to

676
00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:57,100
do that. 
And so, that's a some of the 

677
00:32:57,108 --> 00:33:00,700
multiplier sort of side that I 
see interim managers take, which

678
00:33:00,700 --> 00:33:04,800
is a little bit more broader and
less focus on Technical 

679
00:33:04,800 --> 00:33:07,400
Solutions in order. 
Help multiply people? 

680
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:10,800
Yeah, it makes it slightly more 
difficult as well in my view 

681
00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:14,200
because again it's more abstract
and there's no clear definition.

682
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:17,000
It's like in technology. 
There's a test that you can do 

683
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:20,300
whether it passes or not. 
But this time is really not the 

684
00:33:20,300 --> 00:33:23,400
case where it's not binary. 
So maybe let's go a little bit 

685
00:33:23,400 --> 00:33:25,900
on what you offer in your 
course, engineering managers and

686
00:33:25,900 --> 00:33:28,500
sell us more. 
What will people learn from this

687
00:33:28,500 --> 00:33:30,100
course? 
How do you structure it? 

688
00:33:30,900 --> 00:33:34,300
So, there are four parts. 
The course here, one, which is 

689
00:33:34,300 --> 00:33:37,300
really focused on exploring. 
The interim manager role. 

690
00:33:37,300 --> 00:33:40,900
This is really about trying to 
make sure that people have a 

691
00:33:40,900 --> 00:33:44,100
good understanding about where 
my very the different sort of 

692
00:33:44,108 --> 00:33:47,200
ideas around this. 
A very common key 

693
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:49,100
responsibilities. 
I tell you, it's like clear and 

694
00:33:49,100 --> 00:33:52,100
say, 90% of the cases, the 
interim manager is managing 

695
00:33:52,100 --> 00:33:53,800
people. 
So they're responsible for 

696
00:33:53,800 --> 00:33:56,800
people in line management. 
So we do touch upon managing 

697
00:33:56,800 --> 00:34:00,100
people but I tend not to focus 
on it too much because there is 

698
00:34:00,100 --> 00:34:03,300
a lot more resources about 
General people management out 

699
00:34:03,300 --> 00:34:05,200
there. 
So any manager from any 

700
00:34:05,200 --> 00:34:08,100
Department should Share some 
level of people management 

701
00:34:08,100 --> 00:34:10,400
skills. 
Now once again a lot of 

702
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:13,000
technical people may not have 
had the chance to build some of 

703
00:34:13,007 --> 00:34:15,100
the skills or allocate those 
skill points. 

704
00:34:15,199 --> 00:34:17,500
So it's important to invest in 
it but there's also a lot of 

705
00:34:17,500 --> 00:34:20,699
resources out there. 
I think one failing for a lot of

706
00:34:20,699 --> 00:34:23,500
entering managers that I see is 
that they do Focus only on 

707
00:34:23,500 --> 00:34:27,199
managing people and so the next 
part that I include is talking 

708
00:34:27,199 --> 00:34:30,900
about managing the system. 
What I think about this is there

709
00:34:30,900 --> 00:34:35,199
are systems of how people work 
as a team in software that are 

710
00:34:35,199 --> 00:34:38,400
more productive. 
It and there are also systems in

711
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:41,800
working with teams that are less
productive, which means you will

712
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:44,300
probably be maybe working as a 
bunch of individuals rather than

713
00:34:44,300 --> 00:34:47,400
as a team, this is a very key 
entering management 

714
00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:49,699
responsibilities. 
If you have that delivery 

715
00:34:49,699 --> 00:34:53,100
manager, interim manager 
archetype is explicitly there. 

716
00:34:53,100 --> 00:34:56,699
But for the other ones, you 
should be considering what's the

717
00:34:56,699 --> 00:34:58,700
environment or how do people 
collaborate? 

718
00:34:58,700 --> 00:35:01,300
This is where, if you've worked 
as an individual contributor, 

719
00:35:01,300 --> 00:35:04,400
you should have a better sense 
about what practices and setups 

720
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:07,800
work really well for you. 
You, we talk about managing the 

721
00:35:07,808 --> 00:35:10,600
system and this is really about,
you know, if we think about 

722
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:13,200
people working as a team, the 
engineering manager is 

723
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:16,900
responsible for effectively the 
team process and to make sure 

724
00:35:16,900 --> 00:35:18,800
that you're continually 
improving that as well. 

725
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:21,500
And so, I think a lot of people 
were enjoying my - forget about 

726
00:35:21,500 --> 00:35:24,100
that and they just focus on 
people management but actually 

727
00:35:24,100 --> 00:35:27,600
the system produces the results 
and so it's useful to focus on 

728
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:30,300
managing the system. 
Deliberately the final section 

729
00:35:30,300 --> 00:35:33,900
that I Do cover is personal and 
this is really about managing 

730
00:35:33,900 --> 00:35:36,500
yourself. 
This is a very common Ogle that 

731
00:35:36,500 --> 00:35:40,400
everyone goes through, which is 
I'm new to this, or like time. 

732
00:35:40,400 --> 00:35:42,000
How do I deal with all of this 
stress? 

733
00:35:42,300 --> 00:35:44,400
You know, I'm having tough 
conversations with people, I'm 

734
00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:46,200
not getting out of this sleep, 
right? 

735
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:49,500
These are all very normal. 
Human reactions may be as a 

736
00:35:49,500 --> 00:35:52,300
templating to avoid some of the 
more difficult people management

737
00:35:52,300 --> 00:35:54,400
topics, but as an interim 
manager, you can't. 

738
00:35:54,400 --> 00:35:57,600
It's part of your respect your 
accountable and so you can't 

739
00:35:57,600 --> 00:35:59,700
really avoid some of these tough
conversations. 

740
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:03,700
A really key part here I think 
which is more important as a 

741
00:36:03,700 --> 00:36:05,100
manager. 
It's because you're going to be 

742
00:36:05,107 --> 00:36:07,300
accountable for it. 
As you can't give this to 

743
00:36:07,300 --> 00:36:08,700
somebody else. 
You have to have these 

744
00:36:08,700 --> 00:36:11,200
conversations. 
So if somebody is not performing

745
00:36:11,200 --> 00:36:14,000
on your team, you need to be 
able to give them some radically

746
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:17,000
candid feedback to give them 
opportunities, to change that 

747
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:19,600
behavior, you can't simply skirt
around the issue. 

748
00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:21,900
It's going to be not great for 
that person and it's not great 

749
00:36:21,900 --> 00:36:24,800
for your team, but that's going 
to add to a certain level of 

750
00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:26,700
stress. 
So learning how to manage 

751
00:36:26,700 --> 00:36:29,500
yourself, is also really key 
part to the course. 

752
00:36:29,700 --> 00:36:32,200
It's a four-hour course, and it 
covers a lot of these light 

753
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:34,600
touch, but hopefully gives 
people a good sense about a good

754
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:37,500
balance or things that they can.
Focus on a lot of practical 

755
00:36:37,500 --> 00:36:40,000
things they can do. 
I like the three different 

756
00:36:40,000 --> 00:36:42,600
categories that you mentioned, 
just now managing people. 

757
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:45,200
Of course, there's the first and
foremost, you will have direct 

758
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:47,800
reports that you will be 
managing and then you will need 

759
00:36:47,800 --> 00:36:51,100
to manage system, which I agree 
that many managers probably 

760
00:36:51,100 --> 00:36:54,700
don't think so hard in improving
the systems or even visualizing 

761
00:36:54,700 --> 00:36:57,600
how the system look at the 
moment, they just go into the 

762
00:36:57,600 --> 00:37:00,000
motion and think that, this is 
always how we do. 

763
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:03,000
It starting managing system 
agrees to really important. 

764
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:05,500
And the last one, of course, 
don't forget to manage yourself.

765
00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:08,300
Maybe. 
More mindful, exercise have more

766
00:37:08,300 --> 00:37:11,500
coaches to help you guide you 
along, maybe read books, 

767
00:37:11,500 --> 00:37:13,800
training, whatever that is I 
think managing yourself is so 

768
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:16,900
critical as a manager because if
the manager actually is in bad 

769
00:37:16,900 --> 00:37:20,600
shape, all the people will get 
affected as well until it later.

770
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:23,800
So I think this kind of course 
will definitely help a lot of 

771
00:37:23,808 --> 00:37:26,400
people to upskill the 
engineering manager management 

772
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:28,400
skill. 
I know that this role is self is

773
00:37:28,400 --> 00:37:31,000
currently in demand in the tech 
industry. 

774
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:34,200
Hiring engineering managers is 
actually very hard from your 

775
00:37:34,200 --> 00:37:36,000
views maybe last time and you 
work inside out. 

776
00:37:36,100 --> 00:37:38,200
Before as well. 
How do you actually gauge 

777
00:37:38,200 --> 00:37:41,700
someone who is good engineering 
manager for someone who is just 

778
00:37:41,700 --> 00:37:43,700
maybe as a title, only? 
Right? 

779
00:37:44,500 --> 00:37:47,300
Good question. 
So if you're hiring for the 

780
00:37:47,300 --> 00:37:50,300
engineering manager, the first 
thing you need to ask yourself 

781
00:37:50,300 --> 00:37:52,800
is what type of injury manager, 
do I need? 

782
00:37:52,900 --> 00:37:54,900
I think that's the first thing 
is that you don't want to just 

783
00:37:54,900 --> 00:37:57,100
go and title alone, for 
instance. 

784
00:37:57,100 --> 00:38:00,800
If you're hiring a tech lead 
entering manager, you probably 

785
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:03,500
need to test how well can 
actually make architectural 

786
00:38:03,500 --> 00:38:05,100
decisions. 
That's where some of the 

787
00:38:05,100 --> 00:38:08,600
Hands-On stuff comes. 
But if you're not hiring a tech 

788
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:11,000
lead in Ruidoso, you're focusing
on the team leader, engineering 

789
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:14,000
manager, you're going to attract
the wrong sort of people, or 

790
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:17,400
you're going to probably waste 
people's time by giving people 

791
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:19,900
technical tests and they're 
like, why am I doing this? 

792
00:38:19,900 --> 00:38:22,500
Because you want me to manage 
people and the system not 

793
00:38:22,500 --> 00:38:24,500
necessarily about making 
technical decisions. 

794
00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:28,000
So I think the first thing is 
unusual, work out what type of 

795
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:29,300
entering manager? 
Do you need for your 

796
00:38:29,300 --> 00:38:33,000
organization or your context? 
And then like with everything 

797
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:35,700
once, you know, what sort of 
hyper venturing manager you 

798
00:38:35,700 --> 00:38:38,400
want. 
Then I will be posing questions 

799
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:41,700
to test some of those particular
elements training, ask for 

800
00:38:41,700 --> 00:38:44,700
concrete examples of scenarios. 
They've dealt with. 

801
00:38:44,700 --> 00:38:47,200
Based on the types of 
characteristics, you're trying 

802
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:50,400
to test one of the topics that I
didn't quite cover as a 

803
00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:52,600
archetype was the product 
manager, engineering manager 

804
00:38:52,600 --> 00:38:55,800
type. 
So if they're expected to do the

805
00:38:55,800 --> 00:38:59,000
product planning type processes,
you might have some questions. 

806
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:02,200
Particularly focus on how do 
they run product? 

807
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:05,000
What do they think about when 
they're building product for 

808
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:07,400
others, their product? 
Our relation process been in the

809
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:08,900
parts. 
However they said no to 

810
00:39:08,900 --> 00:39:11,800
stakeholders when you've got 12 
different people saying this 

811
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:13,200
thing needs to be built 
tomorrow. 

812
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:14,600
You know. 
It's testing a little bit more. 

813
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:17,200
The product management type and 
trying to get an understanding 

814
00:39:17,200 --> 00:39:20,400
about how they think about 
product priorities but that's 

815
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:22,300
very different. 
If you're trying to focus on 

816
00:39:22,300 --> 00:39:24,200
that team lead entering manager 
type. 

817
00:39:24,300 --> 00:39:26,800
So try to look for concrete 
examples where maybe the 

818
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:30,500
transformed a low performing 
team to a high performing team 

819
00:39:30,700 --> 00:39:33,000
by trying to get a sense about 
what their experience is and if 

820
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:35,900
it's matching to what you're 
actually looking for as well. 

821
00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:38,900
So yeah, that's how I interview 
for the. 

822
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:41,600
So again, is the case of it 
depends, right? 

823
00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:44,100
The first is actually, to 
understand what kind of 

824
00:39:44,100 --> 00:39:46,700
archetype that you are looking 
for in the engineering manager, 

825
00:39:46,900 --> 00:39:50,400
there are plenty of various yet,
look for concrete examples and 

826
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:52,900
behaviors or past experience 
that they have done. 

827
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:55,200
So, thanks for the tip. 
Sad for people who are hiring 

828
00:39:55,200 --> 00:39:57,800
engineering manager, so maybe 
you can improve your interview 

829
00:39:57,800 --> 00:40:00,100
process. 
So you wrote a number of blog 

830
00:40:00,100 --> 00:40:02,300
posts lately. 
As part of maybe, this launch of

831
00:40:02,300 --> 00:40:04,700
a course. 
The title is like anti patterns 

832
00:40:04,700 --> 00:40:07,700
for engineering managers. 
You can cover a few of those 

833
00:40:07,700 --> 00:40:10,900
anti patterns for people who 
probably are stuck in the center

834
00:40:10,900 --> 00:40:13,100
button so that they realize and 
they change. 

835
00:40:13,100 --> 00:40:17,300
So maybe let's cover the first 
one continuing as maker instead 

836
00:40:17,300 --> 00:40:20,600
of becoming a multiplier. 
What kind of anti-pattern is 

837
00:40:20,600 --> 00:40:22,800
this? 
How do people actually identify 

838
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:27,200
if they are being in this mode? 
So, I think one example of this 

839
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:30,600
is, I can think of an interim 
manager who had transitioned 

840
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:33,200
into this role from being an 
individual contributor. 

841
00:40:33,500 --> 00:40:37,300
They still spend the majority of
their time I'm writing features 

842
00:40:37,300 --> 00:40:40,000
and code. 
They saw their role as you know,

843
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:43,400
I now get to tell people to do 
so, I will first, take the 

844
00:40:43,400 --> 00:40:45,100
story. 
I will break this up or this 

845
00:40:45,100 --> 00:40:48,500
feature into tasks and I will 
give these tasks to people in my

846
00:40:48,500 --> 00:40:50,500
team. 
Nobody really wants to be told 

847
00:40:50,500 --> 00:40:53,500
he's a task, that's not very 
creative problem, solving type 

848
00:40:53,500 --> 00:40:55,900
of process. 
I think some of this stems from 

849
00:40:55,900 --> 00:40:59,000
a little bit of insecurity about
not quite sure how to maybe 

850
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:01,200
create an environment where 
people can pull work or maybe 

851
00:41:01,200 --> 00:41:04,100
I'm worried about the quality of
that work and so they default to

852
00:41:04,100 --> 00:41:07,200
their original mode of wanting 
to Write things down, so they're

853
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:09,500
very comfortable. 
It's how they would do it. 

854
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:12,200
They're not really thinking with
that multiplier mindset around. 

855
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:15,200
What can I actually do when 
people fall into this trap? 

856
00:41:15,200 --> 00:41:18,500
Because they're spending so much
time still being very Hands-On, 

857
00:41:18,500 --> 00:41:21,300
they tend to neglect number of 
the other injury management 

858
00:41:21,300 --> 00:41:23,900
responsibilities. 
This is very common for the tech

859
00:41:23,900 --> 00:41:26,300
lead entering manager because 
they need to be typically a 

860
00:41:26,308 --> 00:41:29,500
little bit more Hands-On than a 
number of the other archetypes. 

861
00:41:29,700 --> 00:41:32,100
They're a little bit of 
Hands-On, just continues to be 

862
00:41:32,100 --> 00:41:35,700
very Hands-On to the point where
I and everyone's like, let's do 

863
00:41:35,700 --> 00:41:37,200
that next. 
What we call, let's do that week

864
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:38,500
after. 
They just kind of keep 

865
00:41:38,500 --> 00:41:41,300
postponing all of the other 
things that do need to be done 

866
00:41:41,300 --> 00:41:44,100
as an entry manager, because it 
gives them a lot of 

867
00:41:44,100 --> 00:41:46,200
satisfaction. 
As it's what you're used to, 

868
00:41:46,200 --> 00:41:48,500
it's where you feel comfortable.
It feels like you're adding 

869
00:41:48,500 --> 00:41:50,700
value. 
But also, your kind of 

870
00:41:50,700 --> 00:41:53,600
neglecting a whole bunch of 
responsibilities that is 

871
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:56,600
associated with your role and 
you probably don't realize it. 

872
00:41:56,700 --> 00:41:59,900
And I think that's the danger 
with these leadership roles as 

873
00:41:59,900 --> 00:42:01,600
it's a little bit harder to get 
feedback. 

874
00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:04,600
It's a little bit longer. 
People expect you to do the 

875
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:06,800
right thing. 
That's where the Comes from as a

876
00:42:06,800 --> 00:42:09,900
leader, but the flip side is you
get less feedback because you're

877
00:42:09,900 --> 00:42:11,800
expected to know what you should
be doing. 

878
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:14,900
I think the challenge here is 
this will surface in a couple of

879
00:42:14,900 --> 00:42:17,000
different ways. 
I think if you're too much of a 

880
00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:20,800
maker, maybe if you do something
like culture engagement surveys,

881
00:42:20,800 --> 00:42:23,300
you might find that people on 
your team are less engaged 

882
00:42:23,300 --> 00:42:25,900
because they don't really get to
exercise a lot of autonomy. 

883
00:42:25,900 --> 00:42:28,900
Or they're a little bit bored, 
just simply doing tasks, they're

884
00:42:28,900 --> 00:42:31,200
not very satisfied to an extreme
degree. 

885
00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:33,200
You might actually have people 
start to leave your team because

886
00:42:33,200 --> 00:42:34,900
they don't like to be 
micromanage. 

887
00:42:35,100 --> 00:42:36,600
That's another it sort of 
Extreme. 

888
00:42:36,700 --> 00:42:39,300
I hope that you as an injury 
manager, if you're in that role,

889
00:42:39,300 --> 00:42:42,200
also, get some direct feedback 
either from a peer or from your 

890
00:42:42,200 --> 00:42:45,200
manager, which can also be 
neglecting sometimes that you're

891
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:47,300
maybe not doing the right thing 
as an engineering manager. 

892
00:42:47,900 --> 00:42:49,900
I mean, not only neglecting 
responsibilities. 

893
00:42:49,900 --> 00:42:52,900
Sometimes if you are involved in
developing feature, you become 

894
00:42:52,900 --> 00:42:56,400
the bottleneck where people rely
on using the work while you 

895
00:42:56,400 --> 00:42:58,500
actually have to deal with some 
other things. 

896
00:42:58,500 --> 00:43:01,200
Maybe people management or 
aligning with different teams. 

897
00:43:01,500 --> 00:43:04,700
Another thing that you mentioned
as the anti-pattern is that 

898
00:43:04,900 --> 00:43:08,400
assuming everyone Also what you 
do this is interesting to me 

899
00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:11,800
because first of all, how do 
people know what you're doing? 

900
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:14,800
Because your time if you look at
calendar sometimes injuring 

901
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:17,400
magic can be very full right you
have meetings all over the 

902
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:20,100
places so can tell us more about
this anti pattern. 

903
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:24,000
Yeah, Tuscan old book but still 
kind of useful. 

904
00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:27,100
It's called Behind Closed Doors 
by Esther Derby. 

905
00:43:27,100 --> 00:43:29,700
And I think China Ruffman it's a
little bit about more 

906
00:43:29,700 --> 00:43:33,700
management, it manager, so feels
a little bit, maybe out of place

907
00:43:33,700 --> 00:43:35,700
because it's a different 
generation of examples. 

908
00:43:35,700 --> 00:43:38,200
It Talking about, but it's still
relevant because I think this is

909
00:43:38,200 --> 00:43:39,800
the thing as an engineering 
manager. 

910
00:43:39,800 --> 00:43:43,000
A lot of what you do is 
literally behind closed doors. 

911
00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:46,400
You're not in a team meeting 
where everyone hears and sees 

912
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:49,100
what you're doing. 
For example, we do want ones, it

913
00:43:49,100 --> 00:43:52,500
shouldn't be 1 to 1 and the rest
of the team here in that would 

914
00:43:52,500 --> 00:43:54,700
be an appropriate and nobody 
would want to talk about 

915
00:43:54,700 --> 00:43:56,200
anything. 
That's very sensitive. 

916
00:43:56,400 --> 00:43:59,400
You might be doing 12 ones with 
people, which eat up the whole 

917
00:43:59,400 --> 00:44:03,100
day for your team, but the other
people might be thinking, oh, 

918
00:44:03,300 --> 00:44:05,800
you're just not there, so people
don't really know. 

919
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:09,500
You're doing a different type of
example, is fuel trying to work 

920
00:44:09,500 --> 00:44:12,600
with internal bureaucracy. 
Often described as smoothing 

921
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:16,000
internal bureaucracy so you have
to work out which team our 

922
00:44:16,000 --> 00:44:18,200
department is responsible for 
some environment because you 

923
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:20,500
want to change to it. 
Once you work out that team what

924
00:44:20,500 --> 00:44:23,400
that process is to forget the 
change that you need. 

925
00:44:23,500 --> 00:44:25,700
So little bit about navigating 
things that maybe answer 

926
00:44:25,700 --> 00:44:29,500
documented or trying to find out
who is the decision maker around

927
00:44:29,500 --> 00:44:32,400
that what your team sees is 
probably? 

928
00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:34,600
Once again, you're away from 
called team. 

929
00:44:34,700 --> 00:44:37,000
You're trying to do something. 
Things that are helpful for your

930
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:39,200
team. 
So that maybe when they work on 

931
00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:41,800
particular work that dependency 
is available. 

932
00:44:41,800 --> 00:44:44,900
So they're not to lose sitting 
around waiting for all of this 

933
00:44:44,900 --> 00:44:48,000
internal stuff to happen. 
You are trying to work ahead and

934
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:50,100
deal with this. 
But once again is kind of behind

935
00:44:50,100 --> 00:44:52,700
closed doors people don't know 
what you're actually doing. 

936
00:44:53,100 --> 00:44:56,500
And so I think this is quite 
important for entering managers 

937
00:44:56,500 --> 00:44:59,500
is to create some visibility and
transparency around. 

938
00:44:59,500 --> 00:45:02,700
What's going to talk about some 
of the things you doing, how it 

939
00:45:02,700 --> 00:45:05,400
relates to the work because the 
other sort of perspective is 

940
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:07,800
other people. 
I have different Alternatives 

941
00:45:07,800 --> 00:45:10,000
ways that can actually also meet
those outcomes. 

942
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:12,700
Just as quickly, I think the 
intention for a good engineering

943
00:45:12,700 --> 00:45:15,100
manager is that idea of to a 
certain degree servant 

944
00:45:15,100 --> 00:45:18,000
leadership of serving the team 
and helping them meet their 

945
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:20,200
needs. 
But you also probably need to 

946
00:45:20,200 --> 00:45:22,600
talk to them about our you 
actually meeting the needs or is

947
00:45:22,600 --> 00:45:23,900
there a different way to solve 
it? 

948
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:26,700
So I think it's very useful to 
create some light on some of the

949
00:45:26,700 --> 00:45:28,800
things that you're doing where 
you're spending your time 

950
00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:32,300
because people will wonder 
because they're doing different 

951
00:45:32,300 --> 00:45:34,900
activities from you. 
And so it's easy for people to 

952
00:45:34,900 --> 00:45:38,000
create a false picture of you 
just because you're not spending

953
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:41,200
time with the team because you 
haven't provided some context 

954
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:43,300
about why you're spending time 
away from the team. 

955
00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:47,400
And when you mention about light
creating more visibility, is it 

956
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:50,700
something like you have to write
something like newsletter status

957
00:45:50,700 --> 00:45:54,300
report or presentation? 
Maybe they can tell us more 

958
00:45:54,300 --> 00:45:56,100
concrete examples. 
How do you do that? 

959
00:45:56,800 --> 00:45:59,400
Yeah, so each entry manager does
it in a different way. 

960
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:02,100
It might be as simple as if you 
have a daily stand-up. 

961
00:46:02,300 --> 00:46:05,000
You also create some visibility 
about what you've been doing, 

962
00:46:05,100 --> 00:46:07,500
maybe some of the meetings. 
Outcomes or discussion so that 

963
00:46:07,500 --> 00:46:09,800
people have some context about 
what's going on. 

964
00:46:10,100 --> 00:46:13,200
You might include it as part of.
As you mentioned status reports 

965
00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:16,600
your team saying here's a weekly
summary of how the team's going.

966
00:46:16,700 --> 00:46:19,400
It's not just the activities of 
what the team has been working 

967
00:46:19,400 --> 00:46:20,900
on. 
But also what you because you're

968
00:46:20,900 --> 00:46:23,400
part of the team about what 
you've been working on a part of

969
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:26,600
that, you know it kind of 
depends on also your style is 

970
00:46:26,600 --> 00:46:29,300
that depending on the topic, 
maybe it makes sense to call a 

971
00:46:29,300 --> 00:46:32,200
special meeting to provide some 
context around stuff. 

972
00:46:32,200 --> 00:46:36,500
So as an example, I can think of
one situation where One entering

973
00:46:36,500 --> 00:46:38,400
manager. 
I was working with their company

974
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:40,900
was being a quiet. 
And so there was this whole 

975
00:46:40,900 --> 00:46:43,700
thing behind the scenes of them 
trying to work through a due 

976
00:46:43,700 --> 00:46:46,700
diligence process. 
They didn't want to necessarily 

977
00:46:46,700 --> 00:46:50,400
A create some tension by going 
through this sort of stuff 

978
00:46:50,600 --> 00:46:53,900
that's a once-off event. 
Once it was very clear that this

979
00:46:53,900 --> 00:46:56,700
process was going to head, it 
made sense to talk about whether

980
00:46:56,700 --> 00:47:00,500
being spending time, why we're 
continually being pulled away 

981
00:47:00,500 --> 00:47:03,300
and the types of information 
just to provide a little bit 

982
00:47:03,300 --> 00:47:05,800
more context, this is another 
key. 

983
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:08,600
Skill and responsibility. 
A lot of people maybe haven't 

984
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:10,900
practice, which is deliberately 
communicating. 

985
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:14,100
This is the hard thing with 
being an interim manager, is 

986
00:47:14,100 --> 00:47:17,400
you're trying to work out the 
right level of information. 

987
00:47:17,700 --> 00:47:20,600
There's no right science or 
formulas to this, but you're 

988
00:47:20,600 --> 00:47:24,000
trying to provide enough context
so people can be aware of things

989
00:47:24,000 --> 00:47:26,100
going on. 
I think it's dangerous to, like 

990
00:47:26,100 --> 00:47:28,900
not provide any information 
because then when something 

991
00:47:28,900 --> 00:47:31,000
comes up, people are often very 
surprised. 

992
00:47:31,200 --> 00:47:33,400
But you're also trying to 
balance out with too much 

993
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:35,700
information like literally no 
filters. 

994
00:47:35,900 --> 00:47:38,500
Because they never ends just 
constantly distracted. 

995
00:47:38,500 --> 00:47:41,100
And then everyone's the key 
about the worst case scenario, 

996
00:47:41,100 --> 00:47:43,400
which erupts into more 
conversations about scenarios 

997
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:45,700
that will never happen. 
That doesn't really help your 

998
00:47:45,700 --> 00:47:48,000
team as well. 
And this is one of the tricky 

999
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:50,800
parts of being an interim 
manager, which is that Judgment 

1000
00:47:50,800 --> 00:47:54,600
of, what's the right level of 
information to help the team. 

1001
00:47:54,900 --> 00:47:57,400
There are some things where you 
probably don't want to talk 

1002
00:47:57,400 --> 00:48:00,300
about stuff because if that 
situation ever happens, then 

1003
00:48:00,300 --> 00:48:02,500
there was no need. 
There was just more distraction 

1004
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:06,500
but for highly uncertain events,
that could be really Maybe it 

1005
00:48:06,500 --> 00:48:08,900
makes sense. 
These are some of the challenges

1006
00:48:08,900 --> 00:48:10,800
of practicing how to 
communicate. 

1007
00:48:11,100 --> 00:48:13,500
I think one other perspective 
here is that you'll often have 

1008
00:48:13,500 --> 00:48:15,900
people in your team that have 
different preferences of how 

1009
00:48:15,900 --> 00:48:17,200
they would like to hear 
messages. 

1010
00:48:17,300 --> 00:48:19,200
So some people would like to 
hear it and want one's very 

1011
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:21,800
personal other people. 
I don't want another beating, 

1012
00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:24,600
like just write it down. 
So this is where you also have 

1013
00:48:24,600 --> 00:48:27,800
to adapt, your communication 
style, which takes practice, and

1014
00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:30,300
it's another one of those skills
definitely worth investing in, 

1015
00:48:30,500 --> 00:48:33,100
but most people have not 
invested in this before they 

1016
00:48:33,100 --> 00:48:35,700
find themselves in these roles, 
if we can cover. 

1017
00:48:35,900 --> 00:48:38,400
One last and d-pad in which I 
find very interesting and 

1018
00:48:38,400 --> 00:48:41,600
related to managing system that 
you measure is optimizing the 

1019
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:44,700
parts instead of the whole. 
Maybe if you can touch on a 

1020
00:48:44,700 --> 00:48:47,600
little bit on, what do you mean 
by optimizing the parts? 

1021
00:48:48,500 --> 00:48:50,700
Let me give you an example. 
Recent example, actually. 

1022
00:48:50,900 --> 00:48:53,600
So I remember in one of my 
courses. 

1023
00:48:53,700 --> 00:48:56,600
Somebody was saying there were 
first time injury manager and 

1024
00:48:56,600 --> 00:48:59,200
there were saying I want every 
person my team to be as 

1025
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:01,500
productive as possible. 
I was kind of their mission. 

1026
00:49:01,700 --> 00:49:04,600
It's very well meaning which is 
fine the way that kind of ended 

1027
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:07,900
up happening is A clay. 
Each person had their own ticket

1028
00:49:07,900 --> 00:49:11,000
queue and then basically, they 
wanted to make sure that each 

1029
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:13,400
person was running through as 
many tickets as possible. 

1030
00:49:13,700 --> 00:49:15,400
So, that's one way, that's 
definitely about. 

1031
00:49:15,400 --> 00:49:17,900
Managing the parts each 
individual to be as productive 

1032
00:49:17,900 --> 00:49:20,100
as possible. 
But if it gets like they're 

1033
00:49:20,100 --> 00:49:23,000
working as a team, I was 
actually working on a team very 

1034
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:25,700
early on similar to this, which 
is like we had individual 

1035
00:49:25,700 --> 00:49:27,400
developer velocity. 
I was awful. 

1036
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:29,900
I actually got allocated higher 
developer velocity. 

1037
00:49:29,900 --> 00:49:31,600
So I actually had to be more 
productive than some of the 

1038
00:49:31,600 --> 00:49:33,900
people at the team. 
It kind of creates a bad 

1039
00:49:33,900 --> 00:49:36,900
incentive system because Is it 
often means. 

1040
00:49:36,900 --> 00:49:38,500
Okay, I'm being measured 
individually. 

1041
00:49:38,600 --> 00:49:42,400
So I will make sure I hit my 
Target and that's going to be a 

1042
00:49:42,400 --> 00:49:44,800
trade-off with helping people in
your tip. 

1043
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:48,200
So in that sort of system, what 
you tend to find is if somebody 

1044
00:49:48,200 --> 00:49:51,800
is blocked, other people will do
the minimum amount of work to 

1045
00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:54,500
kind of support them because 
they're really want to focus on 

1046
00:49:54,500 --> 00:49:56,200
making sure that they hit their 
goals and targets. 

1047
00:49:56,200 --> 00:49:58,100
First, they don't want to 
diminish their own server 

1048
00:49:58,100 --> 00:50:00,200
things. 
This is the optimizing the parts

1049
00:50:00,200 --> 00:50:03,100
rather than the whole is you can
actually diminish the overall 

1050
00:50:03,100 --> 00:50:06,500
team because you're trying to 
push individuals Much. 

1051
00:50:06,700 --> 00:50:09,800
That's a really good example 
that happens quite frequently 

1052
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:12,500
where injury manager is like 
literally trying to manage each 

1053
00:50:12,500 --> 00:50:15,200
single person and their work to 
try to make sure that everyone 

1054
00:50:15,200 --> 00:50:17,800
is as busy as possible. 
And actually a healthy sign of a

1055
00:50:17,800 --> 00:50:20,200
good functioning team is that 
this is a certain amount of 

1056
00:50:20,200 --> 00:50:24,600
slack, the team can dynamically 
adjust their slat to focus on 

1057
00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:27,000
where that team bottleneck is 
and help each other. 

1058
00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:29,500
So that you're actually moving 
work through the entire system 

1059
00:50:29,500 --> 00:50:33,400
of the team rather than having 
to play like all that person's 

1060
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:35,500
waiting around. 
So let's give them more work and

1061
00:50:35,500 --> 00:50:38,100
that person is suddenly 
overloaded, you know, we have to

1062
00:50:38,100 --> 00:50:40,300
do something there. 
But people are waiting around, 

1063
00:50:40,500 --> 00:50:42,600
that's the big difference 
between managing individuals 

1064
00:50:42,600 --> 00:50:46,000
versus Parts first. 
The system will be bow before 

1065
00:50:46,000 --> 00:50:48,300
you in seated a process. 
Although you might have a good 

1066
00:50:48,300 --> 00:50:50,800
intention behind, right? 
Think whether you're actually 

1067
00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:53,300
optimizing a parts versus the 
whole. 

1068
00:50:53,400 --> 00:50:56,400
So the idea here is that you 
need to see the interrelation 

1069
00:50:56,400 --> 00:50:59,000
between people within the team 
is not just individuals. 

1070
00:50:59,300 --> 00:51:02,200
And I like one phrase that I 
found in the blog post itself, 

1071
00:51:02,300 --> 00:51:05,800
you mentioned at our loss at the
bottleneck is an hour loss. 

1072
00:51:05,900 --> 00:51:09,700
Entire system, so it's not just 
one small things that is lost, 

1073
00:51:09,700 --> 00:51:12,600
but actually, it affects the 
whole system's all together. 

1074
00:51:13,500 --> 00:51:15,700
So they, I can't take credit for
that quote because this is 

1075
00:51:15,700 --> 00:51:18,900
coming from eliyahu goldratt, 
the goal and if you want to 

1076
00:51:18,900 --> 00:51:22,100
learn more, you should go and 
study theory of constraints 

1077
00:51:22,300 --> 00:51:23,300
that's where that quote comes 
from. 

1078
00:51:23,300 --> 00:51:25,400
I don't want to take credit for 
that because that's comes from 

1079
00:51:25,400 --> 00:51:28,400
him, the book, The Goal itself, 
I think many mention in the 

1080
00:51:28,400 --> 00:51:31,000
devops world, how do you 
optimize the, our systems? 

1081
00:51:31,300 --> 00:51:33,800
So thanks for your time at due 
to time. 

1082
00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:36,900
I think we need to wrap up soon 
but If you still remember last 

1083
00:51:36,900 --> 00:51:39,800
time in our first chat, I ask 
you this question called the 

1084
00:51:39,808 --> 00:51:41,300
three technical leadership 
wisdom. 

1085
00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:44,300
So I would ask the same question
to you again this time. 

1086
00:51:44,500 --> 00:51:46,900
Not sure whether you have the 
same answer this side. 

1087
00:51:46,900 --> 00:51:49,400
So maybe if you can share, what 
will be your tree technical 

1088
00:51:49,400 --> 00:51:52,200
leadership wisdom? 
So against it really was talking

1089
00:51:52,200 --> 00:51:53,500
about the engineering manager 
role. 

1090
00:51:53,500 --> 00:51:55,500
I probably will have different 
advice here. 

1091
00:51:55,700 --> 00:51:58,700
The first one is, if you're 
going down this path as an 

1092
00:51:58,707 --> 00:52:01,100
engineering manager, and you've 
never done this before, 

1093
00:52:01,100 --> 00:52:04,000
recognize that you do need to 
build different skills. 

1094
00:52:04,200 --> 00:52:06,900
This means that you're going to 
be Learning and studying. 

1095
00:52:07,200 --> 00:52:10,000
It also kind of means you can be
making mistakes very early on 

1096
00:52:10,000 --> 00:52:13,100
which is okay, it feels more 
severe because you're dealing 

1097
00:52:13,100 --> 00:52:15,400
with people. 
Maybe that feels less 

1098
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:17,700
comfortable than when dealing 
with a computer or a test 

1099
00:52:17,700 --> 00:52:20,200
failing, but it's going to be a 
natural part of that. 

1100
00:52:20,500 --> 00:52:23,000
The second part would be to make
sure that you have a support 

1101
00:52:23,000 --> 00:52:25,200
network. 
Make sure that you talk to web 

1102
00:52:25,200 --> 00:52:27,700
here, make sure that you have 
somebody to go to may be 

1103
00:52:27,700 --> 00:52:30,500
external to your company as 
well, to talk about challenging 

1104
00:52:30,500 --> 00:52:33,100
situations that you're gonna be 
in it going to be in many as a 

1105
00:52:33,100 --> 00:52:35,700
entering manager, and it's 
helpful to bounce ideas. 

1106
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:37,800
Has off with other people around
that. 

1107
00:52:38,100 --> 00:52:41,600
Finally, the other bit of advice
here is Andrew managers can have

1108
00:52:41,600 --> 00:52:44,700
such a powerful impact because 
we have so many bad examples of 

1109
00:52:44,700 --> 00:52:47,200
engineering managers out there. 
There is a good reason to go 

1110
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:50,700
down this path because dealing 
with people creating a system 

1111
00:52:50,700 --> 00:52:54,000
where people can be productive 
as a team, not as individuals is

1112
00:52:54,000 --> 00:52:56,100
hard, but it can be really 
fulfilling. 

1113
00:52:56,300 --> 00:52:58,900
I think if you can sort of lean 
into that, there's a lot of good

1114
00:52:58,900 --> 00:53:02,400
reasons to want to go down the 
management track because a, we 

1115
00:53:02,400 --> 00:53:05,300
have a need as an industry for 
that, but be you can have so 

1116
00:53:05,300 --> 00:53:06,600
much fun. 
The Deep Impact, the 

1117
00:53:06,600 --> 00:53:08,400
multipliers. 
You can do it really well, 

1118
00:53:09,300 --> 00:53:11,900
thanks for the message, so for 
people who listen, and if you're

1119
00:53:11,900 --> 00:53:14,100
thinking about becoming 
engineering manager, think about

1120
00:53:14,100 --> 00:53:17,200
the impact that you will make, 
if you can transform different 

1121
00:53:17,200 --> 00:53:20,200
people within your team or maybe
even the organization itself. 

1122
00:53:20,400 --> 00:53:22,800
So the kind of impact that you 
make will be great. 

1123
00:53:23,000 --> 00:53:26,200
So bad for people who would like
to explore what your course, or 

1124
00:53:26,207 --> 00:53:28,100
maybe join. 
Your course, or maybe find out 

1125
00:53:28,100 --> 00:53:30,900
more about you, is there a place
where they can find you online? 

1126
00:53:31,900 --> 00:53:36,000
Yeah, you can follow me on 
Twitter, it's Pat, Kwa Kua on 

1127
00:53:36,000 --> 00:53:39,000
Twitter and then also pack 
quad-cam the website. 

1128
00:53:39,100 --> 00:53:41,900
And then from that website you 
can get a link to the 

1129
00:53:41,900 --> 00:53:45,000
engineering manager Essentials 
link and hopefully I might see 

1130
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:48,000
some of you online some time. 
Thanks again, good luck for your

1131
00:53:48,000 --> 00:53:49,800
course pad. 
Thank you for this time. 

1132
00:53:50,500 --> 00:53:52,300
Thank you very much. 
So I just speaking to you again,

1133
00:53:52,300 --> 00:53:58,400
Henry Thank you for listening to
this episode and for staying, 

1134
00:53:58,400 --> 00:54:01,200
right until the end if you 
highly enjoyed it. 

1135
00:54:01,400 --> 00:54:03,700
I would appreciate if you share 
it with your friends and 

1136
00:54:03,700 --> 00:54:06,700
colleagues who you think would 
also benefit from listening to 

1137
00:54:06,700 --> 00:54:08,700
this episode. 
And if you are new to the 

1138
00:54:08,700 --> 00:54:11,700
podcast, make sure to subscribe 
and leave me your valuable 

1139
00:54:11,700 --> 00:54:14,300
review and feedback. 
It helps me a lot. 

1140
00:54:14,300 --> 00:54:16,300
In order to grow this podcast 
better. 

1141
00:54:16,700 --> 00:54:19,600
You can also find the full show 
notes of this conversation on 

1142
00:54:19,600 --> 00:54:23,700
the episode page, at Tech Legion
o.f website, including the full 

1143
00:54:23,700 --> 00:54:27,100
transcript enter, I think words 
and links to the resources 

1144
00:54:27,100 --> 00:54:31,100
mentioned from the conversation.
And lastly make sure to 

1145
00:54:31,100 --> 00:54:34,700
subscribe to the show's mailing 
list on pack leader dot f to get

1146
00:54:34,700 --> 00:54:36,900
notified for any future 
episodes. 

1147
00:54:37,400 --> 00:54:39,900
Stay tuned for the next 
technology, another episode. 

1148
00:54:40,200 --> 00:54:41,800
And until then goodbye,