Engineering managers (EMs) provide an essential function for organizations.
But sometimes, those who recruit EMs come from non-technical backgrounds. This is often the case with non-technical founders or C-suite executives from areas such as finance.
When you’re not in the thick of the technical world, it can be hard to understand the role and value they provide. Especially when you aren’t entirely sure what they do.
So, to help, let’s start with what one actually is.
What is an engineering manager?
An engineering manager is a functional manager – meaning they’re responsible for a team of engineers and how they work. They’re also responsible for the engineering process and ensuring the technical direction aligns with business goals. As a result, they provide a combination of:
- People management
- Technical expertise
- And business alignment
Depending on the size of the company, an EM may report to the VP of engineering, CTO, or CEO. They are also likely to have cross-functional collaboration with other teams within the organization.
The value they bring to your organization
Imagine you’re building a new house.
You hire a construction firm and a project manager (PM) to take care of
- Planning
- Hiring
- Budget
- And ensuring the project stays on track
Then, imagine if one day the painters say it’s going to take them two weeks to finish one room. They give lots of technical reasons about:
- The drywall
- Issues with the surfaces
- And the type of paint they’re using
While the PM can handle the scheduling or budgeting, they don't have the expertise to know if the painter’s estimate is accurate.
This is where the foreman comes in – they are a functional manager. They have the technical knowledge to correctly evaluate the work. As such, they can tell if the work is delayed for a genuine reason or if the painters are overestimating.
EMs, like foremen, are able to:
- Motivate their engineers to meet their estimations and deadlines
- Advocate for their engineers if the expectations are unreasonable
- Keep the business and technical sides aligned
- And improve processes to keep projects running smoothly
Without a functional manager like an EM, projects are likely to come in over budget and time. They are critical to the technical side of them running smoothly, managing the engineers, and ensuring the quality of their work. As a result, the PM can take care of the bigger picture.
Key responsibilities
It’s tempting to think EMs oversee and handle the technical aspects of what they do and nothing else. However, their role extends well beyond these areas.
Team management
This aspect of an EM’s role includes:
- Recruitment: interviewing, hiring, and onboarding engineers
- Career development: coaching engineers, providing support, and mentoring them
- Supervision: conducting performance reviews and implementing Performance Development Plans (PDPs) if necessary
- Processes: building, overseeing, and improving the engineering process
- Workload: setting expectations and ensuring engineers meet them
- Quality: evaluating the quality of engineering work and maintaining quality levels
- Conflict resolution: managing and resolving interpersonal problems within the team
In addition to the general management of the team, an EM is also responsible for creating its culture. They’re essential not just in providing functional support but also emotional support when needed. In other words, they look after their team’s well-being and work-life balance.
If they lead by example, they can create a collaborative, trusting, and efficient working environment. This, in turn, increases their engineers’ enjoyment of what they do and the retention rate.
Cross-functional communication
A key part of an EM’s job is to bridge the gap between the technical and business worlds.
As such, they need clear communication skills so they can translate complex technical information to non-technical stakeholders. They also act as an advocate for the engineering team, making sure the expectations are realistic and feasible.
But they translate the other way, too: turning business goals into strategic technical direction for the engineering team. This often means having to make the call when good is good enough.
This is because, many times, engineers fixate on perfection – it’s the goal driving them. Which is great in an ideal world! But EMs have to balance both sides of the equation, including:
- Budgets
- Time constraints
- And external expectations
Otherwise, both worlds fall apart.
Project management
While they may not be responsible for the overall project, an EM does oversee the technical execution. They work with other peer managers, PMs, and teams to set goals, priorities, and timelines.
In addition, because they know the skill sets and abilities of their team, they’ll also ensure the right engineers get the right tasks by recommending those people to the PMs. Depending on the size of the company, they’ll also do code reviews or delegate them accordingly.
In short, they guide the technical side of the project from start to finish.
Technical guidance
A good EM has a strong technical background and a wealth of knowledge to draw upon. With this, they are able to:
- Steer their team
- Provide assistance when needed
- Help problem solve
- Make technical decisions
- Remove obstacles/blocks if needed
- And monitor team progress
It’s unlikely they’ll be doing hands-on technical work, and they shouldn’t, but that depends on the size of the company. However, their experience means they are well-positioned to guide the team to successfully complete their work.
Strategic planning
EMs are also responsible for long-term strategy and setting technical goals.
Take AI – it’s everywhere now. So, for example, an EM might say, “Our product needs AI integrated everywhere in the next three years.” They would then:
- Take this direction into account when planning future work
- Ensure the whole team is aware of the direction
- And plan for it in every task going forward
It’s their responsibility to stay on top of industry trends and future changes that may affect the organization. They’ll work with their team to explore, experiment, and implement any new potentially beneficial areas.
Decision-making
EMs either make or influence the decisions that affect their teams and the projects they work on, such as:
- Technical decisions: they don’t make all of them, but they provide guidance on direction and help engineers make choices
- Prioritizing: a key part of their role is to ensure tasks are completed on schedule
- Delegation: they assist with appropriate resource allocation, helping ensure the right engineers get the right tasks
- Improvement: an aspect of their role is to look for areas to implement changes to increase productivity
- Recruitment: they help select new engineers and build successful teams – they also decide when to fire underperforming team members
- Timelines: they set realistic and achievable deadlines for their engineers’ tasks
- Crisis management: they will make tactical decisions to mitigate problems
Technical debt
Another area they are responsible for is technical debt. Every piece of functionality you create automatically creates technical debt. This debt needs to be managed and addressed in a controlled, planned way.
To understand this, imagine you’re renovating a house (instead of building one like before). Over time, you’ll accumulate a large pile of trash outside as you remove the parts from the old:
- Kitchen
- Bathroom
- Fixtures
- Flooring
- And more
You can’t just leave it there to keep growing, though! Someone has to keep track of it and make sure it’s taken away. While it isn’t part of the final product, it would be very problematic to just leave it all outside the newly renovated house.
However, you can’t send everyone on the team to take care of it, either. Otherwise, renovations aren’t moving forward on schedule!
So, an EM might assess the technical debt and then allocate 30% of their engineers’ time to addressing it. This way, the project’s technical debt is appropriately managed and not left to get out of control.
What to look for when hiring
When looking for a candidate, here’s what you want to find:
- Previous leadership experience
- Clear communication skills
- Excellent problem-solving
- Great decision-making abilities
- And a strong technical background
But that’s like finding a unicorn!
While these are all excellent things to possess and definitely areas to look out for, it’ll be tough to find them all in one person. So, in the very likely case you find a candidate who doesn’t have all of them, assess their ability to learn and develop.
For me, one of the biggest qualities I look for in EMs is a proactive mindset and an innate desire to change and improve things.
As an example, if you’re considering promoting an engineer from within, you’ll want to think about how they work. Do they just complete the tasks given to them, or do they continually look for ways to improve? You can assess this simply by observing them. Do they have the drive to:
- Make processes more efficient?
- Help the team work better?
- Have ideas and work to implement them?
- Take ownership and responsibility for changes?
If you have an engineer who is proactive, then they are likely to make a better manager. It’s a rare but very valuable quality in leadership and makes for an amazing EM.
Common pitfalls when hiring
This desire for continuous improvement also needs to translate to people management. It is the most important part of the role.
This means that good engineers don’t always make good EMs.
Sometimes, you have people who have the desire to lead but not the skills to do so. For example, you may have an engineer who is good at changing code, systems, and processes but can’t do the same with the people. They may struggle with talking, giving feedback, or letting someone go.
A successful manager needs to be able to (or have the ability to):
- Manage conflict
- Have and make effective use of emotional intelligence
- Manage themselves
- Deal with the pressures of the role
- And the confidence to make unpopular decisions
Unfortunately, all management requires an element of ruthlessness, as you may well know. Managers need to have the courage to be able to tell other people when things are not working out. They have to confront problems head-on and give direct, constructive feedback if needed. After all, a pivotal part of being a manager is ensuring the business needs are met.
So, don’t rely on their technical expertise alone. A good manager will also have – or have the ability to develop – people skills.
What you can do to support your EM
Hopefully, now, as a non-technical manager, you have a clearer understanding of the complexities of an EM’s role. And you can see why they can quickly become overwhelmed, especially if they are new to the job. Here are some ways you can help support them:
- Be a sounding board: Sometimes, people just need someone to listen and bounce ideas off – provide this space for them, and make sure you don’t look too bored when they go into too much technical detail!
- Prevent feelings of isolation: Because they are the conduit between the technical and non-technical worlds, it can lead them to feel isolated. Sometimes, they feel they’re not fully part of either side. So, let them know they are a valuable member of the leadership team.
- Be clear on their autonomy: Make sure you are explicit about the extent of their authority when it comes to decision-making and team management. This helps avoid instances where their authority is undermined, which lessens their leadership and motivation.
- Provide emotional support: Just as they provide emotional support to their team, you need to provide it for them. Look out for signs of overwhelm and potential burnout. Pay particular attention to any introverted EMs, as they are less likely to come forward for help.
The short version: they’re critical members of your team
Engineering managers are not just technical experts. They are leaders who manage both people and technology to successfully deliver on technical projects. They do this by:
- Managing the team of engineers
- Providing essential translation between the technical and non-technical sides of the organization
- Overseeing the technical side of a project
- Providing technical guidance
- Strategic planning and keeping up to date with industry trends
- And managing technical debt
The best engineering managers have a proactive approach, the desire to improve processes, and the ability to manage people. By understanding the complexities of their role, you can successfully work with them, know when they are being successful, and take the appropriate action if they aren’t.
Want more tips on leading effective software engineering teams?
Join my newsletter if you’ve found this content useful
Originally published on Medium.com
Content in this blog post by Alex Ponomarev is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
