Ask HN: Going from Developer to Manager. What should I know or learn?
In the past 13 years have gone from dev -&gt; tech lead -&gt; manager -&gt; director -&gt; VP&#x2F;CTO at startups (50-250 people).<p>Here are my tips:<p>- Your job is to provide effective technical solutions to business problems via managing a team(s) of engineers, everything else is an extension to that.<p>- Managing is nothing like coding and requires a completely different mindset and skill set.<p>- Authority comes through respect and understanding, not rank&#x2F;title.<p>- When you are pressured or stress reverting to what you know (coding) is almost always the wrong answer.<p>- You should take all the blame but distribute all the credit to those under you.<p>- Code quality in itself is meaningless, you must learn to balance quality and hitting deliverables.<p>- Say no &#x2F; only agree to what you know your team can deliver on... and always double your estimate. In the long-term reliability is valued over agreeableness.<p>- Culture above all, a team that likes working together and takes pride in the product they work on can overcome most obstacles&#x2F;issues&#x2F;failures.<p>- At least once in your career, you will face a direct who is very smart and very productive... but is a complete toxic asshole to everyone around him. Fire them... by the time you have seen the true damage they have done its too late.<p>- Managing people is hard, each person is unique and you need to tailor your approach in a case by case situation. You will get a lot more out of people if you understand them and they trust&#x2F;respect you.<p>- You should always allow your team(s) to grow&#x2F;learn&#x2F;try new things. However, engineers are always looking to learn the latest fad&#x2F;tech to grow their resume. Building things with tools your team does not understand is a risk, attempt to minimize that risk.