No two weeks are the same as an engineering manager (EM).
You may have experienced this yourself, but if you haven’t yet – you soon will! As much as our role is about fixing problems – whether that’s technical issues, team dynamics, or project problems – being agile is definitely an asset.
That said, I do aim for a general structure for my week. Though this is not an exhaustive list, the week of an EM tends to involve these components:
- Meetings
- Administrative tasks
- Strategic planning
- Preparation
- Prioritizing and delegating
- Team management
- And code reviews
What you’ll read below is unique to me. But I acknowledge this is not the case for every EM. Your week will also be unique to you and is very much dependent on:
- The size of the company you work for
- How many team members you have
- If you’re working for a start-up
- If you’re nearing the end of a big project
- If you’re facing any crises
- And myriad other variables
It is based on a 40-hour working week. Again, in reality, we know that 40 hours isn't always typical for an EM. But, with these assumptions made, here’s an example of what a typical week might look like.
Monday
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM: Planning and prioritizing
- Review to-do list
- Review feature statuses
- Set priorities for the day (and into the week)
- Review emails, Slack, Fibery (our project management tool), and other team tools like Notion
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Team meetings
- Lead or participate in meetings
- Address any immediate blockers or clogs in the workflow
- Help the team with decisions requiring my involvement
- Set goals for the week
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM: One-on-one meetings
- Check-ins with individual contributors (ICs)
- Discuss:
- Goals
- Progress
- Challenges
- Answer any questions
- Review career development
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM: Lunch break
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM: Feature review
- Review feature’s status
- Update other managers on potential blockers and issues
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM: Technical work
- Assist with technical issues
- Technical discussions
5:00 PM - 6:00 PM: End of day
- Review progress
- Correspondence
- Plan for tomorrow
Tuesday
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM: Planning and prioritizing
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Sprint planning
- Postmortem previous sprints
- Define what can be achieved
- Assess team capacity
- Assess availability
- Help project managers (PMs) to set goals
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM: Lunch break
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM: One-on-one meetings
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM: Strategy
- Plan for upcoming features
- Research
5:00 PM - 6:00 PM: End of day administrative work
Wednesday
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM: Planning and prioritizing
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM: One-on-one meeting
11:00 AM - 1:00 PM: Cross-functional meetings with design teams
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM: Lunch break
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM: Meeting prep
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM: Meeting with stakeholders
5:00 PM - 6:00 PM: End of day administrative work
Thursday
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM: Planning and prioritizing
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Operations
- Resource allocation
- Improvements
- Procedures
- Documentation
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM: Lunch break
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM: One-on-one meetings
3:00 PM - 6:00 PM: Reviews
- Security
- Infrastructure
- Code
Friday
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM: Planning and prioritizing
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Meeting prep
11:00 AM - 1:00 PM: Review automated reports
- Status reports from the team
- Performance reports
- Weekly digest
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM: Lunch break
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM: One-on-one meeting
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM: Stakeholder meetings
- Project updates
- Expectations
- Requests
- Feedback
5:00 PM - 6:00 PM: End of day admin
A note on this schedule
To clarify, the above schedule is what an EM’s week might look like and is in no way set in stone.
Our role is unpredictable, and so are our weeks. For example, you may set all your goals for the week on Monday only to be faced with a feature not working on Tuesday morning. Or you may have finished all your sprint planning only to have an IC take sick leave.
Whatever you’re facing, be flexible and able to pivot as and when needed.
The key to managing your week is delegation
This schedule highlights the importance of delegation because – as you can see – the majority of your time is spent in meetings.
So, as an EM, learning how to delegate effectively will improve your weekly schedule immeasurably. For example, you could:
- Delegate meetings to lead engineers so that you don’t have to be on each one
- Pair engineers so that they review code for each other so that you don’t have to
- Have team members research options and make recommendations for technical decisions
By doing this, it lightens your load a little and allows you to focus on other areas of your role.
The short version: plan, delegate, and expect the unexpected
While it definitely varies week-by-week, in general, the breakdown of an EM’s week might look like this:
- 20 hours for meetings: one-on-ones, cross-functional, team, and with supervisors and stakeholders
- 5 hours for communication: answering emails, Slack messages, and project management tool updates
- 5 hours planning and prioritizing: managing timelines, setting goals (long-, mid-, and short-term), and prioritizing tasks
- 5 hours prepping: preparing for meetings and reviews
- 5 hours of team management: ensuring the team remains aligned with company goals, dealing with any interpersonal issues, and providing support
But I cannot stress enough how changeable this can be. What doesn’t change, though, is the need to leverage the support of your team. Effectively delegating is the key to success here, as it helps you better manage the workload.
So, when you’re looking at planning your week, set some structure, delegate to your team, and remember to factor in the unknown.
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Originally published on Medium.com
Content in this blog post by Alex Ponomarev is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
