Otávio Machado @Otavio@qoto.org

How do you see the Engineering Manager role? What have been your challenges when transitioning from IC into Management and what advice would you give to someone that’s going through this process now? #engineering #engineeringmanagement

When thinking about this, I tend to remember my previous EM saying that he saw this as a servant-leadership role, where his responsibility was to identify gaps in their team, temporarily fill them and identify team members to develop into filling those gaps for longer terms, and that seems like a statement I could back up.

2. The engineering manager archetypes, by Pat Kua: https://www.patkua.com/blog/5-engineering-manager-archetypes/

1. Every tech team has four fronts (usually called the 4 “P”s): Product, People, Processes and Programming. Engineering is all about programming. Possible Product Managers/Project Managers share some responsibility around Product and Processes. The Engineering Manager helps in all fronts, depending on their traits and skills.

I’m not sure exactly where to go from here right now, so I’m living the moment without making any decisions. But two things are helping me, at least, understand what is in front of me.

I have been talking to some Engineering Managers to understand their experience, especially when transitioning from an Individual Contributor role into a Management role. The ones closer to me would tell me to never lose sight of the Engineering craft. Another told me that trying to keep actively focusing on the Technology was just a fear mechanism, and he should have dived sooner into management and dropped technology as soon as possible.

Starting this thing out. Intend to share my journey of learning, some interesting articles and other works. #learning #engineeringmanagement #nodejs