Thank You For A Great 2024

Thank you.

I mean this whether you:

Viewed one post (maybe only this one!)
Read every post
Shared one
Liked one
Subscribed
Recommended my newsletter to someone else
Used one of my strategies
Or did multiple things

No matter what, thank you.

Without you, this newsletter wouldn’t be what it is. It wouldn’t have over 8,000 views, 4,000 users, and reached above 220 subscribers this year. I know you could spend your time elsewhere, which I’m sure is already incredibly limited. I also know there are plenty of other newsletters out there.

So, thank you for choosing to spend even a little bit of whatever time and energy you have available reading my newsletter. I am eternally grateful and glad you’ve found something useful here.

I’ve been in this field for a long time, including engineering management. And I love what I do, including when I was an engineer.

One day, I decided to take the leap into engineering management. This wasn’t an impulsive choice, but it was probably destined to happen. For better and worse, I’m always someone who wants to do more:

More tasks
More R&D projects
More work

And engineering management provided me with the opportunity to do the kind of more I really wanted to do, which was to make a difference in others’ lives.

You can certainly mentor junior engineers as a senior or lead – you can even make others’ jobs easier as a junior by writing good code. But your job isn’t focused on these tasks – they’re supplementary.

As an engineering manager (EM), everything you do is centered around building, training, and supporting your team. Often, this means meeting with them, coaching them, and helping them develop into their best selves. And, while you won’t work on projects directly, through your team, you get to work on far more than you ever did as an engineer.

But as you likely know, engineering management is also extremely demanding. And if you let it, it’ll quickly overwhelm you and make you wish you were an engineer again. There’s also not an exact guide for successful engineering management out there, so it can be hard to know where to start, especially if your company has a poor transition process.

I’ve also suffered in the past from a very poor work-life balance, even severely affecting my health.

I don’t want any of the above to happen to anyone else. Or, if it is, I want to help them escape it as soon as possible. So, I decided to do the kind of more I was doing as an EM – only this time for other EMs.

I especially wanted to help those of you who took on the EM role in a smaller company. From what I’ve seen, much of the information about our job is built around larger companies, which is unfortunate since more of us work in smaller ones.

What I hope you take away from it

No one’s perfect. I’ve found this out the hard way many, many times.

So, I don’t want you to try to do everything I talk about here. It’s impossible.

Even if you do read every post (again, thank you if you do!), you won’t remember all the strategies and advice in them. And that’s okay. My hope is you find at least one thing to make your time as an EM better.

For example, maybe you’re:

Struggling to stay organized
Not sure how to prioritize tasks or even if you should
Wondering what kind of mindset you need to be successful
Trying to build trust with your team
Failing to minimize conflict
Worried about losing your technical edge
And so on

All of us go through these problems – it’s just part of engineering management. But a surefire way to overwhelm yourself even more is to try solving all of them at once.

Instead, do this:

Pick the one you most want (or need) to work on right now
Find a post that’ll help you
Read it
Pick one strategy or piece of advice from that post
And start practicing

Once you’ve gotten where you wanted, pick another piece of information, post, or thing you want to work on. Make it a simple, easy-to-follow routine. Do this, and over time, you’ll find yourself becoming the EM you always wanted to be.

Nothing would make me happier.

As I write this, it occurs to me that I should mention how I write my newsletter so you can get the most out of it. I have no doubt many of you already know what I’m about to say, but just in case, I’ll share it anyway. Here’s what to look for:

The short version: if you’re only interested in a quick summary, you’ll find this at the bottom of every single post
Bolded sentences/paragraphs: after writing, I look for the most important parts of each section and bold them – so you could skim through the post, only read those sections, and get a pretty good idea of what they were about
Links: where it makes sense, I link to other posts or even to other sites – no obligation to click on them, but they’re there in case you’d like to learn more, especially since many posts are about related topics
Examples/experiences: where possible, I include examples and experiences from my life or in general to show how the things I talk about look (or would look) in real life
Steps/actions: also, where possible, I include specific things you can do in the hopes it gives you an idea of how to proceed with various situations

Again, I’m certain most of you have picked up on all of these things already. If not, now you know.

Posts this year

It’s tough to keep up with everything being published every day – I get that. In case you missed anything in my newsletter that would be of use to you, I’ve collected it all below.

I didn’t put these in any particular order other than to group them into categories. That way, you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for easier.

But, ultimately, there’s no requirement to check out any of these posts if you haven’t already. What you need in your journey is up to you.

In other words, don’t feel like you’re missing out on anything or have to look at a particular post. If you think it’ll be useful to you, check it out. If not, that’s okay, too.

Engineering management in general

The below posts cover broad topics related to engineering management. I recommend these if you’re looking for information on the basics:

For introverts

Lots of people assume only extroverts can be good engineering managers. This isn’t true. To help, I started creating some posts for introverts:

Your technical edge

Every EM struggles with transitioning from technical work to working with people. Part of that is worrying about losing your technical skills and how to maintain them:

Work-life balance

If you let it, engineering management will destroy your work-life balance. I know this firsthand. But there are ways to maintain it and still excel in the role:

Transitioning to the role

Becoming an EM is scary, to say the least. There’s so much to know and do, and it’s difficult to know where to start, how to feel, and so on. These posts can help:

Working with people

By far, the biggest part of what you’ll do as an EM (if you don’t know already) is work with people. This is no easy task, no matter how much experience you have with it. Here are some posts that can help:

Challenges and tasks

Many challenges and issues await you as an EM. Learn what they are and what you can do to handle them:

Company stuff

For a general idea about company structure, roles, and size, read the posts below:

What I plan to do in 2025

I don’t want to talk about this too much because I have a problem with being a bit too ambitious with my goals, but I have some big plans for 2025.

Mainly, I want you to know I’m going to continue publishing at least three posts every week. That isn’t going to change except to potentially go up, but not likely by much.

I’m also planning on putting out content in other forms and possibly even content about other (although related) categories. Again, I don’t want to talk about this too much since much of it is still in process, but that’s my little teaser for now.

What have you gotten out of reading this? What would you like to?

Now, I’d like to hear from you. Whether you’ve read a small handful of posts or all of them, what did you get out of reading them? How did they change your work as an engineering manager?

Also, what kinds of topics would you like to see me write about in the future?

Let me know in the comments below!

The short version: thank you

I can’t say it enough times. The fact there are so many of you and I’m able to help you in the way I was hoping is amazing. I’m excited to continue, but to recap 2024, here are a few things to know:

This newsletter’s origin story: I’ve learned the hard way what and what not to do as an EM, and I’ve experienced my work-life balance being severely affected before, so I don’t want the same to happen to you
What I hope you get out of this: pick one area you’d like to work on, find a post you think will help, choose one strategy in it, and practice
Some tips for reading my newsletter: the short version (like this one) summarizes everything, bolded sentences/paragraphs highlight important points in each section, links lead you to related information, and I included examples/experiences and steps/actions throughout
Posts this year: I’ve published a lot of content this year about topics ranging from engineering management in general to work-life balance
2025 plans: I’ll continue publishing at least three posts each week, and I’m planning on doing more
What have you gotten out of this, and what do you want to: let me know in the comments below

And that’s it for 2024. Thank you for an amazing year – I hope yours was amazing as well. I look forward to the exciting things waiting for us in 2025.

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Originally published on Substack.com

Content in this blog post by Alex Ponomarev is licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Why I started this newsletter