1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,000 Hey, a quick message, for those of you who are listening to this 2 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:07,500 episode on Spotify, I have a small favor to ask Spotify. 3 00:00:07,500 --> 00:00:11,000 Now allows mobile users to rate podcast, I would really 4 00:00:11,000 --> 00:00:13,500 appreciate it. If you can take a quick pass to 5 00:00:13,500 --> 00:00:16,100 go to the technique Journal podcast page, and leave your 6 00:00:16,100 --> 00:00:18,700 favorite show, your best rating on Spotify. 7 00:00:19,200 --> 00:00:21,800 It will help me a lot to get this podcast to reach more 8 00:00:21,800 --> 00:00:24,300 people on the platform. Thanks a lot. 9 00:00:26,900 --> 00:00:29,800 Today's clip is from technology, you know, episode 94. 10 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:34,300 With Patrick qua in this clip we discussed Pat's latest course. 11 00:00:34,400 --> 00:00:38,100 Engineering manager Essentials, we discussed what an engineering 12 00:00:38,100 --> 00:00:41,700 manager role is how it differs from a tech lead role and the 13 00:00:41,708 --> 00:00:45,800 common manager forces, I see career track pad, also, shared 14 00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:48,900 his view on why being an engineering manager is not a 15 00:00:48,900 --> 00:00:51,900 promotion. You mentioned, you just publish 16 00:00:51,900 --> 00:00:53,400 a new course, engineering manager. 17 00:00:53,400 --> 00:00:55,600 Essential, tell us more a little bit. 18 00:00:55,800 --> 00:00:57,800 How do you come up with this course itself? 19 00:00:57,800 --> 00:01:00,700 You mentioned that many people asking about it, is it in the 20 00:01:00,700 --> 00:01:03,800 tech industry these days at people, having very short amount 21 00:01:03,800 --> 00:01:06,800 of resources, available to be a good engineering manager, or 22 00:01:06,800 --> 00:01:09,200 maybe tell us more little bit. What kind of problem are you 23 00:01:09,200 --> 00:01:12,800 trying to solve? Yeah, I think it's interesting 24 00:01:12,800 --> 00:01:14,800 because like the technical lead role. 25 00:01:14,900 --> 00:01:17,800 The interim manager role, I would say is relatively new to 26 00:01:17,800 --> 00:01:21,200 our industry. Probably over the last Ten years 27 00:01:21,200 --> 00:01:25,000 that name and title has become a lot more popular before that you 28 00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:28,600 might have had things like team leader or delivery manager 29 00:01:28,600 --> 00:01:30,200 depending on. If you were to project or 30 00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:33,200 Consulting type of world line, manager or people manager is 31 00:01:33,200 --> 00:01:34,900 another type of title that comes through. 32 00:01:34,900 --> 00:01:37,100 But this engineering manager role has sort of surfaced over 33 00:01:37,100 --> 00:01:39,200 the last, I guess, decade with anything. 34 00:01:39,200 --> 00:01:41,300 That's new. I think everyone always 35 00:01:41,300 --> 00:01:44,500 struggles to answer the question of what is expected of me. 36 00:01:44,500 --> 00:01:47,700 In this particular role, the wonderful blurriness that comes 37 00:01:47,700 --> 00:01:51,300 along with any sort of roll and Who have not done it before. 38 00:01:51,600 --> 00:01:54,700 I've been studying this, over the last five years to try to 39 00:01:54,700 --> 00:01:56,600 explore. What does this mean? 40 00:01:56,700 --> 00:01:59,300 How do organizations support engineering managers? 41 00:01:59,300 --> 00:02:02,600 Or maybe not support the engineering managers, depending 42 00:02:02,600 --> 00:02:05,100 on the type of company. And also, how does it differ 43 00:02:05,100 --> 00:02:08,199 from perhaps other technical leadership roles in general? 44 00:02:08,500 --> 00:02:10,699 I've been running the course for technical leaders who may or may 45 00:02:10,699 --> 00:02:12,900 not be doing say people management. 46 00:02:12,900 --> 00:02:15,300 And sometimes there's some overlap and sometimes there's 47 00:02:15,300 --> 00:02:18,900 not I really wanted to provide some complimentary training for 48 00:02:18,900 --> 00:02:21,800 entering managers to help them and Answer this question around. 49 00:02:21,800 --> 00:02:25,000 What might be expected of me? How do I know I'm doing a really 50 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:27,300 great job? How do I prepare for this? 51 00:02:27,300 --> 00:02:29,500 Particularly if I'm thinking about maybe stepping into this 52 00:02:29,500 --> 00:02:32,500 injury management role. So that's kind of the intent 53 00:02:32,500 --> 00:02:35,200 behind the training, which is really to provide support to 54 00:02:35,200 --> 00:02:38,800 relatively either new people or people who are considering 55 00:02:38,800 --> 00:02:40,400 stepping into this role in the future. 56 00:02:40,500 --> 00:02:43,200 So they have some opportunity to actually prepare and practice 57 00:02:43,200 --> 00:02:45,600 some of the skills before they find themselves in that interim 58 00:02:45,600 --> 00:02:48,700 manager role. So you mentioned that people are 59 00:02:48,700 --> 00:02:50,900 not clear what is expected of them. 60 00:02:51,100 --> 00:02:53,800 Maybe if you can give a little bit of clarity, what is the 61 00:02:53,800 --> 00:02:56,500 definition of engineering manager role and what kind of 62 00:02:56,500 --> 00:02:59,600 job scope of responsibilities that they should care about. 63 00:03:00,100 --> 00:03:02,700 So I'm going to start with a typical consultant answer, if it 64 00:03:02,700 --> 00:03:07,000 depends but one of the articles I have my blog was talking about 65 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:10,600 five different archetypes of being an engineering manager. 66 00:03:10,800 --> 00:03:14,000 I think the role scope does it depend because it kind of also 67 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:17,200 relates to an organization if they Have other roles. 68 00:03:17,200 --> 00:03:20,800 They're also in terms of timing, so sometimes teams lose a 69 00:03:20,808 --> 00:03:23,600 particular role. So the shape of your role splits 70 00:03:23,900 --> 00:03:26,100 and then there's also just general expectations and 71 00:03:26,100 --> 00:03:28,200 associations with what do they mean? 72 00:03:28,600 --> 00:03:31,500 So concretely, one of the archetypes that I talk about is 73 00:03:31,500 --> 00:03:34,700 like the tech lead engineering manager archetype, this is kind 74 00:03:34,700 --> 00:03:38,700 of combining the technical leadership role with the people 75 00:03:38,700 --> 00:03:41,300 and team leadership management responsibilities. 76 00:03:41,600 --> 00:03:44,500 So, you're kind of merging those two things into the same role 77 00:03:44,500 --> 00:03:46,500 and therefore, person not every company. 78 00:03:46,600 --> 00:03:48,000 She has. This is sometimes you have the 79 00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:51,100 pair, so sometimes you have an injury manager and a tech lead 80 00:03:51,200 --> 00:03:53,100 who are expected to partner with each. 81 00:03:53,100 --> 00:03:56,300 Other one is focus, perhaps around the team and delivery and 82 00:03:56,300 --> 00:03:58,600 people management side. And then the other side is 83 00:03:58,600 --> 00:04:01,200 really focused on technical leadership terms of making sure 84 00:04:01,200 --> 00:04:04,500 that the team is using good up-to-date technology paying 85 00:04:04,500 --> 00:04:07,300 down technical debt. Choosing good architectural 86 00:04:07,300 --> 00:04:10,600 design patterns to meet and accomplish whatever business 87 00:04:10,600 --> 00:04:12,800 system that they're trying to build, but one type of 88 00:04:12,800 --> 00:04:14,600 archetype. So the tech lead entering 89 00:04:14,600 --> 00:04:18,300 manager words in one and then if split them then that injuring 90 00:04:18,300 --> 00:04:20,200 manager starts to look a little bit more. 91 00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:23,200 Like what I call the team lead and hiring manager where they 92 00:04:23,200 --> 00:04:27,200 can focus a little bit more on the people management working as 93 00:04:27,200 --> 00:04:30,200 a team because they have somebody they can partner with. 94 00:04:30,200 --> 00:04:32,500 So somebody where they don't necessarily need to be the 95 00:04:32,500 --> 00:04:34,600 expert. Technologists on that particular 96 00:04:34,600 --> 00:04:37,100 team of such, there's five different times archetypes. 97 00:04:37,100 --> 00:04:39,900 I won't go into all of them, but another one, which I think is 98 00:04:39,900 --> 00:04:42,600 very useful because I know a lot of Technologies for find 99 00:04:42,600 --> 00:04:45,300 themselves in this place is companies who tend to do a 100 00:04:45,300 --> 00:04:48,900 little bit more projects in What so either in an Enterprise where 101 00:04:48,900 --> 00:04:53,300 people run projects, or if you work for consultancy where nor 102 00:04:53,300 --> 00:04:57,400 working for external clients and you're effectively not really a 103 00:04:57,400 --> 00:05:00,900 product team or an extension to somebody else's product team, 104 00:05:00,900 --> 00:05:04,700 but you're there for a project. So no matter of time to help a 105 00:05:04,700 --> 00:05:06,800 project team, achieve a certain type of goal. 106 00:05:06,900 --> 00:05:09,800 They entering a manager isn't necessarily always responsible 107 00:05:09,800 --> 00:05:11,300 for the people. There are more a little bit more 108 00:05:11,300 --> 00:05:14,800 focus on the delivery to make sure that client expectations 109 00:05:14,800 --> 00:05:18,500 are met that the team is, Is productive connected in, with 110 00:05:18,500 --> 00:05:22,200 whatever client or customer that they're sort of engaging, with 111 00:05:22,400 --> 00:05:25,000 to make sure that things are smooth because you're often 112 00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:28,300 working with two different organizational cultures one, 113 00:05:28,300 --> 00:05:32,300 which is your consulting or Contracting type of culture, but 114 00:05:32,300 --> 00:05:35,100 then, obviously, you have to adapt and work smoothly with the 115 00:05:35,100 --> 00:05:39,000 client organization processes might call it bureaucracy or 116 00:05:39,000 --> 00:05:42,200 other type of cultural things to make sure that you work smoothly 117 00:05:42,200 --> 00:05:46,400 as a single unified team, thanks for sharing this 5 archetypes. 118 00:05:46,600 --> 00:05:49,800 I think, for people who want to refer more, you can check it out 119 00:05:49,800 --> 00:05:52,100 in pads block. Now, wonder that people are 120 00:05:52,100 --> 00:05:54,000 sometimes, not clear. I because there are so many 121 00:05:54,000 --> 00:05:56,400 variants of the engineering manager role. 122 00:05:56,600 --> 00:05:59,100 The responsibilities can be quite different as well, you 123 00:05:59,100 --> 00:06:01,700 mentioned, just now, maybe one is more project-driven. 124 00:06:01,900 --> 00:06:05,100 One is a mix of both Technical and people management. 125 00:06:05,100 --> 00:06:08,000 One is predominantly team of people management. 126 00:06:08,100 --> 00:06:10,400 You mentioned, a lot of times about tech lead in this 127 00:06:10,400 --> 00:06:13,300 competition so far for people who may not have heard our first 128 00:06:13,300 --> 00:06:15,400 episode. Maybe, can you give us a little 129 00:06:15,400 --> 00:06:17,200 bit of brief? Description. 130 00:06:17,400 --> 00:06:20,000 What is a tech lead? And how should it be different 131 00:06:20,000 --> 00:06:21,700 with the engineering manager role? 132 00:06:22,500 --> 00:06:25,900 If you split them, let's say you have a tech lead plus a team 133 00:06:25,900 --> 00:06:28,800 lead entering manager archetype that in classically. 134 00:06:28,800 --> 00:06:31,700 I would be thinking that the tech lead role probably isn't 135 00:06:31,700 --> 00:06:33,900 going to be doing people or line management. 136 00:06:34,100 --> 00:06:36,000 Some of the other responsibilities for Tech, lead 137 00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:40,000 are effectively about aligning and guiding the team around the 138 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:43,000 technical direction to make sure they're all working in the same 139 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:44,600 direction. So this means that they 140 00:06:44,600 --> 00:06:46,400 understand what the system architecture. 141 00:06:46,600 --> 00:06:49,800 Show that they're building is working towards to make sure 142 00:06:49,800 --> 00:06:52,900 that the team are using wood tools and paying back technical 143 00:06:52,900 --> 00:06:54,600 debt. So they could continue to evolve 144 00:06:54,600 --> 00:06:57,300 that sort of system, the tech lead in that sort of scenario 145 00:06:57,300 --> 00:06:59,600 tends to be a lot more Hands-On as such. 146 00:06:59,600 --> 00:07:02,100 So you need to be able to understand and mitigate 147 00:07:02,100 --> 00:07:04,300 technical risk and that's kind of impossible to do. 148 00:07:04,300 --> 00:07:07,000 If you're like, literally not looking at any code that people 149 00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:09,000 are producing. So the tech lead tends to be a 150 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:12,200 little bit more Hands-On and probably a lot more aware in 151 00:07:12,200 --> 00:07:15,400 terms of Industry Trends in terms of tools libraries 152 00:07:15,400 --> 00:07:18,800 Frameworks and element practices the interim manager and that 153 00:07:18,800 --> 00:07:21,500 sort of role can effectively delegate or partner with the 154 00:07:21,500 --> 00:07:24,500 tech lead and they don't have to be as Hands-On as a result. 155 00:07:24,700 --> 00:07:26,500 So that's one of those interesting debates that 156 00:07:26,500 --> 00:07:28,800 everyone always asked about how technical shouldn't injuring 157 00:07:28,800 --> 00:07:32,600 manager be like, how Hands-On. Well, once again, it depends if 158 00:07:32,600 --> 00:07:35,500 you have a tech lead, that means that the engineering manager can 159 00:07:35,500 --> 00:07:38,800 be less handle because they have somebody who is guiding and 160 00:07:38,800 --> 00:07:42,000 making sure that people are making good decisions to make 161 00:07:42,000 --> 00:07:44,600 sure that technical decisions are tie break through that Tech 162 00:07:44,600 --> 00:07:46,800 lead. But if you don't have that, Lead 163 00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:50,000 role that kind of gets absorbed by the entry manager and so you 164 00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:52,500 do need somebody to do that, and they playing both hats from that 165 00:07:52,500 --> 00:07:56,600 perspective, these days in the technology world or at least in 166 00:07:56,608 --> 00:07:58,800 the startups. What I have seen, the most is 167 00:07:58,800 --> 00:08:01,600 that we will have these two tracks within engineering. 168 00:08:01,700 --> 00:08:04,700 One is people management part, the engineering manager path, 169 00:08:04,800 --> 00:08:07,200 and also the individual contributor part which is 170 00:08:07,200 --> 00:08:09,600 probably Tech lead, stop software, engineer principal 171 00:08:09,600 --> 00:08:11,800 engineer. So maybe you can give us a 172 00:08:11,808 --> 00:08:15,100 little bit of guide. Here is this the proper way of 173 00:08:15,100 --> 00:08:18,000 structuring the engine. During roles within a company. 174 00:08:18,700 --> 00:08:22,400 So it's a popular way of structuring entering a manager 175 00:08:22,400 --> 00:08:24,900 roles, particularly in the u.s. to have two tracks. 176 00:08:25,200 --> 00:08:30,000 Firstly, I think it's important to have more senior tracks or at 177 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:33,500 least roles supported from the technical perspective because 178 00:08:33,500 --> 00:08:36,200 let's be fair, not every technologists wants to have to 179 00:08:36,200 --> 00:08:39,700 deal with people topics, right? So to have hard performance 180 00:08:39,700 --> 00:08:43,100 review conversations to be responsible for driving 181 00:08:43,100 --> 00:08:46,400 improvements in their recruiting process, going through all your 182 00:08:46,500 --> 00:08:49,500 HR paperwork when it comes to performance reviews and 183 00:08:49,500 --> 00:08:52,100 promotions and appraisals. These are difficult things to 184 00:08:52,100 --> 00:08:54,500 do, somebody needs to do them. And not everyone wants to do 185 00:08:54,500 --> 00:08:57,200 them because some people like to be a little bit more Hands-On. 186 00:08:57,600 --> 00:09:00,800 I do have an issue with kind of the, I see verse management 187 00:09:00,800 --> 00:09:04,500 track though because I think people do see higher level roles 188 00:09:04,500 --> 00:09:07,600 like a tech lead stuff or a principal engineer on the icy 189 00:09:07,600 --> 00:09:09,500 track or individual contributor track. 190 00:09:09,600 --> 00:09:12,100 But I think that is a really bad name, right? 191 00:09:12,100 --> 00:09:15,300 Because it emphasizes individual contribution and in my 192 00:09:15,300 --> 00:09:19,600 experience, Higher level roles like a tech lead and stuff and 193 00:09:19,600 --> 00:09:22,800 principal engineer. They need to have very strong 194 00:09:22,800 --> 00:09:26,600 leadership skills. And so I actually prefer to what 195 00:09:26,600 --> 00:09:29,100 I described a trident model of career development. 196 00:09:29,100 --> 00:09:31,900 And this is what I think is a healthy thing for organizations 197 00:09:32,200 --> 00:09:35,100 where you have roles at higher levels but on the technical 198 00:09:35,100 --> 00:09:37,600 leadership /. So they're not necessarily 199 00:09:37,600 --> 00:09:40,600 responsible for managing people, so not the management 200 00:09:40,600 --> 00:09:44,500 responsibilities, but they should be leading technical 201 00:09:44,500 --> 00:09:48,100 topics. So, Give you example, let's say 202 00:09:48,100 --> 00:09:51,100 you have a company, let's say that there are five or six 203 00:09:51,100 --> 00:09:53,700 independent product teams. What is very common is? 204 00:09:53,700 --> 00:09:56,600 You probably have a tech lead on each product team, trying to 205 00:09:56,600 --> 00:09:59,200 make sure that whatever application or system or 206 00:09:59,200 --> 00:10:01,900 products that team is producing is well aligned. 207 00:10:02,200 --> 00:10:03,900 But if you're in the same company, you're probably going 208 00:10:03,900 --> 00:10:06,100 to be sharing interfaces to penance. 209 00:10:06,100 --> 00:10:09,300 He's a very common thing here. Today might be using something 210 00:10:09,300 --> 00:10:12,200 like Africa. A common messaging interface to 211 00:10:12,200 --> 00:10:14,800 raise events and communicate between different points. 212 00:10:15,200 --> 00:10:18,100 Now, what can quite happen In if tech leads on all the teams 213 00:10:18,100 --> 00:10:19,900 don't necessarily get along very well together. 214 00:10:20,100 --> 00:10:23,900 Is you end up with a very messy messaging infrastructure, many 215 00:10:23,900 --> 00:10:25,700 different ways of raising events. 216 00:10:25,900 --> 00:10:28,700 People are just very confused about what style and things, 217 00:10:28,700 --> 00:10:31,000 get, lost contracts and utterly greed. 218 00:10:31,300 --> 00:10:34,500 This is where you need somebody or a role that's typically, 219 00:10:34,500 --> 00:10:38,200 trying to align technical decisions across multiple teams 220 00:10:38,500 --> 00:10:40,900 in a lot of organizations that might be either a show for a 221 00:10:40,900 --> 00:10:43,300 principal engineer. They need to be quite technical 222 00:10:43,300 --> 00:10:46,200 because they need to understand the different needs. 223 00:10:46,500 --> 00:10:49,100 Technical details of the technology, some of the 224 00:10:49,100 --> 00:10:51,900 trade-offs, some different options, but they really need 225 00:10:51,900 --> 00:10:55,200 leadership skills because they need to be able to influence and 226 00:10:55,200 --> 00:10:57,300 get buy-in and get agreement with say. 227 00:10:57,300 --> 00:11:01,000 In this example, six tech leads who may or may not get along and 228 00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:04,100 so you need somebody who could help facilitate and mediate and 229 00:11:04,100 --> 00:11:07,400 basically the create alignment across that and that's not about 230 00:11:07,400 --> 00:11:11,500 individual contribution at all. That person is not writing the 231 00:11:11,500 --> 00:11:13,500 speck in the contract that everyone needs to follow, 232 00:11:13,500 --> 00:11:15,800 they're not going to really get a lot of buy-in very quickly 233 00:11:15,800 --> 00:11:17,000 from that perspective. Effective. 234 00:11:17,100 --> 00:11:19,900 They need to be able to lead, and this is where I think the I 235 00:11:19,900 --> 00:11:23,600 see is a really bad name, which is why I prefer to talk about 236 00:11:23,600 --> 00:11:26,600 technical leadership tracks. There are some places where you 237 00:11:26,600 --> 00:11:29,900 do need some specialist individual contributors most 238 00:11:29,900 --> 00:11:33,300 companies, don't need them. Like if your Facebook or Google, 239 00:11:33,500 --> 00:11:37,200 you need somebody who can rewrite the PHP compiler, like 240 00:11:37,200 --> 00:11:40,300 you need somebody who can write a new programming language, most 241 00:11:40,300 --> 00:11:44,900 companies don't need that level of specialization and so that 242 00:11:44,900 --> 00:11:47,500 deep expertise what? I would really consider it very 243 00:11:47,500 --> 00:11:49,600 much on the individual contributor line. 244 00:11:49,800 --> 00:11:52,400 Most organizations don't need people in that role but you do 245 00:11:52,400 --> 00:11:54,500 need strong technical leadership. 246 00:11:54,500 --> 00:11:57,600 Particularly when you're trying to align across other strong, 247 00:11:57,600 --> 00:12:00,300 technical leaders to make sure that there's some alignment from 248 00:12:00,300 --> 00:12:03,800 an organizational perspective. Thanks for sharing that scenario 249 00:12:04,000 --> 00:12:06,100 because they are. You do agree that sometimes this 250 00:12:06,100 --> 00:12:08,700 stuff software engineer principal, they think that their 251 00:12:08,700 --> 00:12:11,500 focus is actually to solve one particular problem with that 252 00:12:11,500 --> 00:12:13,200 actually aligning with different teams. 253 00:12:13,500 --> 00:12:15,800 So, I think I like the Trident model that you mentioned. 254 00:12:16,000 --> 00:12:19,000 I think, That kind of gives a framework that people at that 255 00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:21,700 particular level even though it's individual contributor, 256 00:12:21,700 --> 00:12:24,700 they still need to kind of like have leadership and influence 257 00:12:24,700 --> 00:12:27,400 among the other Engineers within different teams. 258 00:12:27,700 --> 00:12:30,800 One common phrase that I always hear about engineering manager. 259 00:12:30,900 --> 00:12:34,100 It's not a promotion, because sometimes what happens is that, 260 00:12:34,100 --> 00:12:37,200 as you go along in your career, Journey after five, six to ten 261 00:12:37,200 --> 00:12:40,400 years, you get promoted as an engineering manager but people 262 00:12:40,400 --> 00:12:42,700 refers to it as a not a promotion that is just a 263 00:12:42,700 --> 00:12:45,300 different role. So can you give us a little bit 264 00:12:45,300 --> 00:12:48,900 more about your thoughts? On this if it's not a promotion. 265 00:12:49,200 --> 00:12:52,200 Then when should we nurture people to go into this 266 00:12:52,200 --> 00:12:56,000 Engineering Management role? My conceptual model with Rawls 267 00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:59,000 is it's like a container. There's things that your group 268 00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:01,600 together in a container and these are simply a set of 269 00:13:01,600 --> 00:13:04,800 responsibilities. So I think this is interesting 270 00:13:04,800 --> 00:13:07,700 because if we think about, let's say a developer, a senior 271 00:13:07,700 --> 00:13:10,800 developer is kind of doing more of the same type of 272 00:13:10,800 --> 00:13:13,700 responsibilities. So a lot of the skills and 273 00:13:13,700 --> 00:13:17,400 experiences translate into the next level of Of scope, you take 274 00:13:17,400 --> 00:13:20,100 a problem, you know, how to break that problem down. 275 00:13:20,100 --> 00:13:23,000 You know, how to design code and modularize that code, you know 276 00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:25,700 how to apply good humming so you can break it up. 277 00:13:25,800 --> 00:13:29,100 Keep it maintainable, have some good tests and deploy a really 278 00:13:29,100 --> 00:13:32,300 nice product that's working. So a senior engineers and to be 279 00:13:32,300 --> 00:13:35,700 able to take a slightly more complex problem, do more of that 280 00:13:35,700 --> 00:13:37,900 and apply a lot of the same sort of skills. 281 00:13:38,200 --> 00:13:41,000 The reason why I think a lot of people describe this as not a 282 00:13:41,008 --> 00:13:43,300 promotion, is because fundamentally a lot of the 283 00:13:43,300 --> 00:13:46,000 responsibilities in this new container of being an interim. 284 00:13:46,300 --> 00:13:51,800 A fundamentally different type of activities and so, you may 285 00:13:51,900 --> 00:13:56,300 not have built many of the skills and experience necessary 286 00:13:56,300 --> 00:13:59,500 to fulfill the responsibilities that come associated with that 287 00:13:59,500 --> 00:14:01,600 particular role, a good mental model. 288 00:14:01,600 --> 00:14:04,100 I also like to use here is a bit like role playing games. 289 00:14:04,300 --> 00:14:07,800 So a very common thing in RPGs is you get like skill points 290 00:14:07,800 --> 00:14:10,700 that you consider allocate across stuff, maybe as a 291 00:14:10,700 --> 00:14:13,600 developer, let's call them. The warrior class is that you 292 00:14:13,600 --> 00:14:16,200 are cleaning all your points to attack. 293 00:14:16,400 --> 00:14:19,500 And all these kind of things that go with worry class, but 294 00:14:19,500 --> 00:14:21,900 actually the interim manager role is a bit more, like a 295 00:14:21,900 --> 00:14:25,200 priest kind of class, right? It's like a support class whose 296 00:14:25,200 --> 00:14:27,300 job is to help support all the team. 297 00:14:27,700 --> 00:14:31,200 You've not allocated any points to Healing type of Magic's, or a 298 00:14:31,200 --> 00:14:34,700 safety type of, Magic's, or mediation, very important, as a 299 00:14:34,700 --> 00:14:36,800 result, when you step into that new role. 300 00:14:36,800 --> 00:14:38,800 You're basically starting again from scratch. 301 00:14:39,200 --> 00:14:41,900 I think kind of a big thing is that there's not a lot of 302 00:14:41,900 --> 00:14:44,100 overlap sometimes. There is, if you're that Tech 303 00:14:44,100 --> 00:14:46,800 lead entering manager, but there's a whole bunch Some new 304 00:14:46,800 --> 00:14:50,600 skills and responsibilities that you may not have built skills 305 00:14:50,600 --> 00:14:53,300 and experience it. As a concrete example as an 306 00:14:53,300 --> 00:14:56,700 engineer, it's quite common. That many people might get by in 307 00:14:56,700 --> 00:15:00,900 their career without having to deliver very difficult feedback 308 00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:04,800 like to tell somebody about their behavior to deliver in a 309 00:15:04,808 --> 00:15:07,500 way such that they're receptive to this and that they 310 00:15:07,500 --> 00:15:11,000 acknowledge perhaps the impact that their behavior is having so 311 00:15:11,000 --> 00:15:13,200 that they have an option to actually change that behavior. 312 00:15:13,400 --> 00:15:15,900 If you've never practiced that, of course, the first time you do 313 00:15:15,900 --> 00:15:18,400 that, Is probably going to be bad and awful, right? 314 00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:20,500 It's going to be not great for the person, receiving it, and 315 00:15:20,500 --> 00:15:22,700 not great for you because probably you're going to also 316 00:15:22,700 --> 00:15:25,600 react badly to how that other person is reacting badly. 317 00:15:25,900 --> 00:15:29,200 But that example of a skill is something that interim managers 318 00:15:29,200 --> 00:15:30,700 need to be able to do all the time. 319 00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:34,300 Maybe you're lucky, you work in a team where somebody else has 320 00:15:34,300 --> 00:15:36,300 taught you how to give effective feedback. 321 00:15:36,400 --> 00:15:39,500 It's a very common thing that you swap and exchange feedback 322 00:15:39,500 --> 00:15:42,300 to other team members in my experience, that's not 323 00:15:42,300 --> 00:15:44,800 necessarily a key responsibility that you see on a job 324 00:15:44,800 --> 00:15:48,400 description for developers. So, A lot of people might go in 325 00:15:48,400 --> 00:15:51,200 their career without having to go through that experience. 326 00:15:51,200 --> 00:15:53,000 And therefore, when they fall into that interview manager 327 00:15:53,000 --> 00:15:56,400 role, they maybe haven't built up that skill and experience. 328 00:15:56,700 --> 00:15:58,900 I think this is one of the things with that, not a 329 00:15:58,900 --> 00:16:02,600 promotion, but a role change because you probably be building 330 00:16:02,600 --> 00:16:05,600 a lot of new skills and responsibilities to fulfill them 331 00:16:05,600 --> 00:16:07,900 very well. Now I think a lot of people 332 00:16:07,900 --> 00:16:11,000 might feel a bit scared about this but I like to also view it 333 00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:12,400 as it's a good growth opportunity. 334 00:16:12,700 --> 00:16:16,200 I think if you're a developer you've built a certain type. 335 00:16:16,300 --> 00:16:19,000 Of system at some point. You kind of going well, all I'm 336 00:16:19,000 --> 00:16:21,600 doing is really like moving data from one place to another. 337 00:16:21,800 --> 00:16:23,500 That's all I'm really ultimately doing. 338 00:16:23,700 --> 00:16:26,500 This is actually an interesting challenge of dealing with some 339 00:16:26,500 --> 00:16:28,900 new skills and a good learning opportunity and growth 340 00:16:28,900 --> 00:16:29,600 opportunities. Well. 341 00:16:29,600 --> 00:16:32,200 So there's a good reason to be able to do that if you want to 342 00:16:32,300 --> 00:16:35,700 move in that direction. By the way, I like your RPD 343 00:16:35,700 --> 00:16:37,400 analogy. I think that kind of like 344 00:16:37,400 --> 00:16:39,200 resonates well with Gamers, I guess. 345 00:16:39,600 --> 00:16:41,600 If this is the case, right, there are so many new 346 00:16:41,600 --> 00:16:45,200 responsibilities that you need to be aware of and maybe Master 347 00:16:45,200 --> 00:16:48,600 along the way when you H+ a assume that someone who just 348 00:16:48,600 --> 00:16:52,300 graduated becomes an engineer. When should they think about 349 00:16:52,300 --> 00:16:55,500 trying out to be this engineering manager or when 350 00:16:55,500 --> 00:16:57,000 should the company decides, okay? 351 00:16:57,000 --> 00:16:59,900 This person should actually become an engineering manager or 352 00:16:59,900 --> 00:17:02,000 should this person continue along with that? 353 00:17:02,000 --> 00:17:05,500 Individual contributor track. Yeah, it's a great question. 354 00:17:05,700 --> 00:17:09,500 I think what I tend to see is very common in careers worth 355 00:17:09,500 --> 00:17:11,700 Frameworks. Is you kind of need some 356 00:17:11,700 --> 00:17:15,900 experience building software in different types of teams and so 357 00:17:15,900 --> 00:17:19,099 this Is where I think sometimes instead of plans, you have 358 00:17:19,099 --> 00:17:21,300 somebody that's been working in technology, is there for like a 359 00:17:21,300 --> 00:17:23,300 year and then they get pushed into an interim manager role? 360 00:17:23,300 --> 00:17:25,500 I think that's a little bit too early and I think part of that, 361 00:17:25,500 --> 00:17:28,400 is because it's difficult to understand the complexity of 362 00:17:28,400 --> 00:17:30,100 software list. You've seen a number of 363 00:17:30,100 --> 00:17:32,100 different. Scenarios worked with different 364 00:17:32,100 --> 00:17:34,400 types of teams, you can do, okay? 365 00:17:34,400 --> 00:17:36,700 But you're probably going to struggle to really understand 366 00:17:36,700 --> 00:17:39,000 the variance and the difficulty of nature of that. 367 00:17:39,300 --> 00:17:43,100 What I do see quite commonly is spending some good time, being 368 00:17:43,100 --> 00:17:45,900 an individual contributor. So, you're a team member, you've 369 00:17:45,900 --> 00:17:48,500 Maybe In different types of teams worked on different types 370 00:17:48,500 --> 00:17:50,400 of systems. So you get a good flavor to 371 00:17:50,400 --> 00:17:53,400 understand what possible scenarios people might find 372 00:17:53,400 --> 00:17:55,200 themselves. And so, if I think about this 373 00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:57,500 growth path from that side, let's say, you start off as 374 00:17:57,500 --> 00:18:01,100 being a socio software engineer moving into a software engineer 375 00:18:01,100 --> 00:18:03,500 into a senior engineer. And that's typically the sort of 376 00:18:03,500 --> 00:18:06,600 movement path, where you might decide to go more into technical 377 00:18:06,600 --> 00:18:08,600 leadership so stay more Hands-On. 378 00:18:08,600 --> 00:18:11,800 Guiding architecture. Technology choice, or maybe to 379 00:18:11,800 --> 00:18:13,000 move into an engineering manager. 380 00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:16,000 Particular role focusing a little bit more on the people. 381 00:18:16,300 --> 00:18:19,200 Element and team development and the environment. 382 00:18:19,200 --> 00:18:22,200 I think that's a good level because it means that you can 383 00:18:22,200 --> 00:18:24,600 better empathize with the challenges that your team. 384 00:18:24,600 --> 00:18:27,400 We're going to have, I think it's very difficult if you move 385 00:18:27,400 --> 00:18:29,500 too quickly into the engineering manager role, to really 386 00:18:29,500 --> 00:18:31,400 understand the problems that your team of face. 387 00:18:31,700 --> 00:18:33,500 Of course, empathy is like something. 388 00:18:33,500 --> 00:18:36,100 Some of you might be really really good at but I think it's 389 00:18:36,100 --> 00:18:38,200 a lot easier if you've actually lived through some of those 390 00:18:38,200 --> 00:18:41,600 scenarios and when people come to you about these situations 391 00:18:41,700 --> 00:18:44,500 you just instantly know exactly what challenge they're sort of 392 00:18:44,508 --> 00:18:46,200 facing. There's something about having 393 00:18:46,500 --> 00:18:49,200 Some of those same scenarios that you could know how to solve 394 00:18:49,200 --> 00:18:52,100 that, I think the other suspected is, you know, as an 395 00:18:52,100 --> 00:18:54,500 individual contributor. Sometimes you get to work with 396 00:18:54,500 --> 00:18:56,200 really bad and training managers. 397 00:18:56,500 --> 00:18:58,400 And this is actually I think what helps form, good 398 00:18:58,400 --> 00:19:01,600 engineering managers because people go, oh, I don't want to 399 00:19:01,608 --> 00:19:03,500 ever work in a team environment like that. 400 00:19:03,600 --> 00:19:05,700 If I'm that role, I can avoid that. 401 00:19:05,900 --> 00:19:07,900 I can intentionally thinking about these people that I've had 402 00:19:07,900 --> 00:19:10,300 to work with and go. Ah, this is really painful. 403 00:19:10,300 --> 00:19:13,100 I can actually create a great environment for that team so 404 00:19:13,100 --> 00:19:16,400 they can imprint the opposite pattern and therefore be a lot 405 00:19:16,400 --> 00:19:18,900 more effective. If you've never experienced a 406 00:19:18,908 --> 00:19:22,500 bad injury manager, that's going to be really hard to do balmy. 407 00:19:22,500 --> 00:19:25,300 One way that I always advise for people who are thinking of 408 00:19:25,300 --> 00:19:28,400 becoming injury manager, is the first test will be, do you like 409 00:19:28,400 --> 00:19:30,600 working with people? Because sometimes, yeah, 410 00:19:30,700 --> 00:19:33,500 managing people is different than managing could basis. 411 00:19:36,100 --> 00:19:38,600 I hope you enjoyed this short clip from technology, you know, 412 00:19:38,600 --> 00:19:41,500 favorite playlist. If you find this episode useful, 413 00:19:41,800 --> 00:19:43,400 please help. Share it with your friends and 414 00:19:43,400 --> 00:19:46,400 colleagues who you think would also benefit from listening to 415 00:19:46,400 --> 00:19:49,200 this episode. And if you want to listen more 416 00:19:49,200 --> 00:19:52,200 from this conversation, please go back and listen to the 417 00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:55,900 original full conversation with my guest, stay tuned for the 418 00:19:55,900 --> 00:19:57,500 next technology, you know, episode. 419 00:19:57,500 --> 00:19:59,200 And until then goodbye.