5 Reasons Engineering Management Misconceptions Exist

If you’re like many non-managers, your beliefs about the engineering management role likely include (or included) one of the following:

It’s a technical role
The transition is easy
You don’t have to serve anyone anymore
You’ll be another useless manager
You need to be the best on your team
You have to do everything yourself

If so, you have fallen victim to one of the many misconceptions surrounding the role.

All are problematic and highly detrimental to your chances of success in the role. So, it’s natural to wonder if they’re so bad, why do they exist at all?

Unfortunately, there are many reasons for this, too. But learning what they are improves how you avoid and deal with them.

While you can’t solve these problems on a global or company-wide scale, you can ensure you don’t fall victim to them.

1. The role is not clearly or easily defined

Roles like engineering management sit at the intersection of various skills, combining the technical with the personal. There’s nothing wrong with this combination — it’s a necessity in those roles — but it means explaining them can be challenging at best.

This is especially relevant to the tech industry, where those roles’ responsibilities aren’t just complex but also vague, especially the balance between them. Even more, the balance and duties can and often do differ from person to person and company to company.

With so much room for interpretation, people start making assumptions as they try to make sense of the roles and expectations. And those assumptions lead to some of the misconceptions mentioned above.

The three steps to clarity

Solving this problem requires three steps:

Knowing the role is somewhat vague
Learning what you can about the parts that aren’t
And embracing the learning curve

The first step lies firmly outside your control, but the second lies firmly within it.

Know the role is more people-oriented than technical, and start developing the appropriate skills, such as communication, empathy, and leadership.

If you haven’t yet transitioned to the role, speak with your current (or former) engineering manager (EM) as soon as you can. If you have them, speak with your peer managers and supervisors. Ask each of them questions and seek their insight into the position.

When needed, get help from your team. Being honest about what you don’t know isn’t a weakness — it builds trust and shows your willingness to learn.

In that same vein, embrace the role’s challenges and the mistakes you’ll make while taking them on. No matter how prepared you are, they will happen, but you can react appropriately, grow, and do better next time.

2. We want them to be true

Have you ever thought how easy it must be for managers? How they’ve got it “made?”

Maybe not, but many do carry these beliefs, hoping one day to reach such heights. They view managers such as EMs as having reached the top, so they don’t have to serve anyone anymore.

It’s tough doing what others tell you to do, so it’s tempting to believe a promotion to management and above means less hard work and more giving commands.

But this is simply not true.

They aren’t, and that’s a good thing

The key to avoiding this misconception is redefining what you think serving somebody means — think of it as supporting them. Doing so doesn’t make you any less important — in fact, it makes you more important, and it’s a necessary and productive part of your role as an EM.

To be more specific, serving someone means:

Assisting them
Listening to them
And helping them excel

It’s a symbiotic relationship: you support your team, and your team supports you. When you realize serving your team in this way is an essential part of your role, you become a more effective EM, and they become a more effective team. Combined, you become one unit that gets results.

Although you are free to use this approach only in the workplace, I recommend applying it to the rest of your life as well. Supporting each other is the key to success. But don’t try to take this all on at once — start with your EM role, then add this new mindset to other areas of your life.

3. Tunnel vision

As an engineer, how often did (or do) you question the following:

Who assigned you a task or feature
What that person’s role is
Why they gave you that work
Or what will happen to the work after you’ve finished with it

Perhaps you ask these questions daily, and with the right mindset, asking questions can bring a lot of added value to the work. But they can also distract from and delay your progress, so it becomes a careful balance of knowing when to ask and when to work.

Many tilt the balance in favor of the latter, preferring to just do their job and go home — many engineers are introverts and prefer solitude, after all. And this focus allows them to churn through tasks, work on what they love, and do it at a high level.

This is also a helpful mindset because, as you know, the work of ICs is busy and intense. There is so much work to do, so many details to be aware of, and it is quick-paced. Juggling many different tasks leaves little room to look outside of your role’s expectations.

But this lack of perspective also means you don’t have an understanding about other parts of the business. So, if you ever transition from an engineer to an EM (if you haven’t already), you’re less prepared for the role because you don’t know what to expect.

Stop and look around

The true problem with this misconception is that, as an engineer, you have (or had) the luxury of tunnel vision. It doesn’t affect your work, and you’re comfortable with the way things are (or were).

Unfortunately, you don’t have this same luxury as an EM. You have to be aware of and manage the bigger picture.

To do so, take the following steps:

Understand the roles of other stakeholders
Educate yourself on their goals and perspectives
Learn about yours

The above requires meeting with those people, asking questions as soon as possible, and using that information to make decisions not just for yourself but for everyone.

4. Lack of communication

As an EM, you manage many tasks and people simultaneously, so it is easy to neglect communication.

Unfortunately, this leads to the misconception of “another useless manager.” The lack of communication equates with the invisible work you do and encourages engineers to think EMs don’t do anything.

As an example, say it takes an hour to explain a task you have given an engineer — let’s call her Susan. You may have ten engineers on your team, meaning it’s going to take 10 hours to explain those 10 tasks.

Even if it’s helpful, no one has the bandwidth for that, so you take shortcuts. Instead of explaining why this feature needs debugging or why Susan needs to implement this new functionality, you simply tell them what to do. You also don’t explain all the time you spent considering who would be best for which task — you just assign them.

It’s also likely Susan doesn’t say anything in return, even if she disagrees with the task. She probably doesn’t ask questions because she has to focus and prefers to do so.

While much of this is necessary, over time, this lack of communication leads to an aggregation of frustration. Your engineers, including Susan, start to think you just hand off all the work and they view you as just another useless manager.

Open the door

Find positive, efficient, and supportive communication solutions.

Going back to Susan, you notice she doesn’t communicate at all anymore when you give her tasks. You could let this continue — after all, she probably wants to be left alone, and she should just do the task you gave her, right?

But remember, the longer you let a problem like this go on, the more it’s going to grow from something small into something big. By then, it’ll be much harder to deal with, and there’ll be more damage to undo.

Instead, although it takes up time from your already busy schedule, you could communicate. You could arrange a meeting, talk to her, and more importantly let her talk. Then, you might find out what’s wrong, and Susan will realize you care.

For example, you might discover she doesn’t agree with the task you’ve given her. Learning this information gives you the chance to explain why you assigned her that task in the first place (which is due to her expertise).

She might still not agree, but you’ve at least opened the channels of communication. You won’t be the invisible manager, and she will feel more valued.

You still can’t spend all day every day explaining decision after decision, but you need to balance focusing on your tasks with building relationships with your team. It’s hard, but it’s worth it, and your team will have your back once they realize you have theirs.

5. Lack of experience

Challenging authority is a part of human nature, but it’s easy to get caught up in the idea that you know better than your supervisors. It’s easy to say, “If I were in charge, I’d do things differently.”

Unfortunately, the lack of communication I discussed earlier compounds this reason for creating the EM role misconceptions, too. EMs, PMs, and other managers don’t always have the time to explain their decisions or ways of doing things, and engineers don’t always have the desire to ask.

Even with more communication, it can be difficult to truly understand why someone prioritizes certain tasks, communicates in a particular style, or manages performance reviews in a specific way. Most of the time, the best thing you can do is to live in their shoes for a while.

Learn by doing

No matter how much effort you put into researching a role, no matter how many questions you ask or how open-minded you remain, experience tops all.

Say you wanted to start running, and you think, “What can I do to minimize any potential problems?” Well, you can:

Do some research on running techniques
Buy the best running shoes
Choose to run on the ground and not asphalt because it’s better for your joints
Make sure you stretch
And stay hydrated

These are all great efforts to improve your running quality and what you get out of it, but they won’t take away the pain of learning how to run. They won’t stop your muscles from aching, and they won’t get you up to top speed on the first day.

There is no difference with engineering management. You can:

Buy lots of books on engineering management
Do research
Take courses
And ask people for advice

Again, all these are good, but they won’t prepare you for all the difficulties that come with being an EM.

I’m not saying go in with no idea of what you’ll be facing, but you have to work out your own process and find out what works for you (and what doesn’t!). It’s a process of self-reflection.

One final tip: embrace problems

No matter what steps you take, you will face problems, including misconceptions, as an EM. Even with preparation, you’ll also make many mistakes as a result.

The important thing to remember is that it’s okay.

In general, we tend to think problems are bad, but they’re not if you approach them with the right mindset. Experiencing these problems brings them to your attention, you learn how to deal with them, and develop or improve skills along the way.

Still, they can be overwhelming, but none of them are insurmountable. To help, take the following steps:

Approach the problems systematically
Write them down
Do your research
Apply critical thinking
And figure out how to address them

It will be a never-ending cycle, but it is worth your time and the effort. If nothing else, they will help you become a better EM.

The short version: life is hard

Misconceptions are harmful, but they exist for reasons largely outside of your control. Becoming aware of both the misconceptions and the reasons that create them and then taking steps to address both makes you a better EM.

To be more specific, take these steps:

Learn your role: having a clearer picture of your role removes ambiguity, uncertainty, and incorrect assumptions
Realize you’re still supporting others: you support them, and they support you, which creates improved results
Be aware of the big picture: learn as much as you can so you can understand your and your team’s part in it better
Find time to communicate: doing so builds relationships with your team, but you’ll still need to balance this with getting your own work done
Experience it yourself: practical lessons are usually the best way of learning, although you can still prepare with research

Engineering management, like life, is hard. You will meet a lot of challenges, misconceptions, and problems. It requires a lot of effort to overcome them.

But that’s what makes life interesting. Viewing these challenges positively and proactively is essential.

You can be the person who holds their hands up, doesn’t take responsibility, and doesn’t fix the problem. Or you can be the person who embraces the problem, is eager to figure things out, and succeeds in overcoming them.

I know which one I’d rather you be.