{"id":5784,"date":"2014-02-14T09:30:33","date_gmt":"2014-02-14T01:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/?p=5784"},"modified":"2014-02-14T09:30:33","modified_gmt":"2014-02-14T01:30:33","slug":"good-engineering-managers-arent-just-hard-to-find-they-dont-exist-venturebeat-business-by-juan-pablo-dellarroquelle-medallia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/onthe8spot.com\/index.php\/2014\/02\/14\/good-engineering-managers-arent-just-hard-to-find-they-dont-exist-venturebeat-business-by-juan-pablo-dellarroquelle-medallia\/","title":{"rendered":"Good engineering managers aren't just hard to find — they don't exist | VentureBeat | Business | by Juan Pablo Dellarroquelle, Medallia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone talks about how difficult it is to hire great software engineers in the Valley. And it is. But nobody\u2019s talking about how hard \u2014 really hard \u2014 it is to find good engineering managers. While good engineers might be famously tough to hire, at least they\u2019re easy to find. Good engineering managers, on the other hand, are practically impossible to find.
\nThis is a problem I\u2019ve had to grapple with a lot lately, and I\u2019ve spent a lot of time thinking about the cause. Why is it so difficult to find these people? If there\u2019s a lot of demand for them by so many companies, shouldn\u2019t the supply gradually be going up \u2014 lots of talented people wanting the job? For the longest time, I just assumed I was looking in the wrong places. But recently I\u2019ve come to a different conclusion: They don\u2019t exist.
\nWhy? Well, the implicit aim of most functions in a company is to get further up the hierarchy. To have more influence. To become the \u201cboss\u201d. To lead people. But engineers are\u2026 different. Unlike virtually every other function in a software company, engineers \u2014 particularly the good ones \u2013\u00a0don\u2019t want to move up. This means that the people who want the engineering manager role are unlikely to be very good at it; and those who could be good at it don\u2019t want anything to do with it at all.
\nLet\u2019s dig into this. When you think about where engineering managers can come from, you divide the pool into two.
\nPool one is made up of those engineers that want to become engineering managers because they want to \u201cmove up.\u201d The irony is, these are the people that you don\u2019t want. They fail to understand that going from engineer to engineering manager isn\u2019t a decision to move up \u2014 it\u2019s a decision to move down. Becoming an engineering manager means that you now work for your engineers \u2014 not the other way around. The engineers in this pool are the ones that have never been heard. That were never the leaders inside their teams. They think management is their opportunity to make decisions. Now, they can \u201ccall the shots.\u201d
\nAll the wrong reasons
\nThere are a lot of managers like this out there. How did they become managers in the first place? Well, particularly in big organizations, they did so by being organized, by keeping track of what everyone was working on, by focusing on deadlines. I interview a lot of these individuals. They tend to be weaker technically, and have a condescending way of referring to the engineers they \u201cmanage.\u201d They wear the number of engineers in their organizations with pride: \u201cAt one point, almost 100 engineers reported up to me!\u201d
\nIn pool two, you have the rest of the engineers. If you\u2019re lucky, you have good ones. Within this group hides a breed of engineers that has the potential to be great engineering managers. They tend to be very technically competent. They exert their leadership almost unconsciously through code, through conversations, and by helping others in the team and across the organization. They have a sense of ownership that is broader than their daily tasks. They cannot stand others not caring in the same way. They get pissed when they see people not trying hard \u2014 or going through the motions without understanding why they\u2019re doing what they\u2019re doing.
\nMore than managers, they\u2019re leaders.
\nEven though they don\u2019t have much formal authority, engineers like this have a lot of influence. That dynamic means they have very little motivation to want to move up in an organization. Taking on the role of a manager means giving up time doing what they love \u2014 solving challenging technical problems \u2014 in exchange for what they see as taking out the trash every night. Meetings, performance reviews, managing other people\u2019s deadlines.
\nSo why would they want to do this? Or better yet, how do you help them realize that management can be fulfilling, and not just busywork?\u00a0Good question. And I\u2019d love your thoughts.
\nvia Good engineering managers aren’t just hard to find — they don’t exist | VentureBeat | Business | by Juan Pablo Dellarroquelle, Medallia<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone talks about how difficult it is to hire great software engineers in the Valley. And it is. But nobody\u2019s talking about how hard \u2014 really hard \u2014 it is to find good engineering managers. While good engineers might be famously tough to hire, at least they\u2019re easy to find. Good engineering managers, on the … <\/p>\n

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