Ask HN: How to prepare for an Engineering Manager interview?
Two things that I always advise new managers when I promote them or hire them.First, (for new managers) managing people is a completely different skill set from engineering, expect to suck at it when you start and let go of your hard won pride that you developed becoming an awesome software engineer.One of the "failure" modes of new managers is that they are so uncomfortable doing these new things, and so comfortable in the software engineering role that they find excuses to write code and do development which makes the team wonder why the 'boss' is trying to do their job, and it takes your eye off actual things you should be looking out for and fixing (like team mates getting conflicted, people who are having trouble but not asking for help, etc.)Second, your success is entirely in your team's hands. It is their ability to do the work and make the deliverable and their production that shows you that you are doing a good job. This is so challenging for people who are used to being on the development team and measuring their success by comparing their "production" to that of the team. Now "they" haven't accomplished anything, but the folks writing code, they built all sorts of cool things to brag about.So understanding that your success is tied to keeping your team understanding where they need to be, and knocking down any roadblocks in their way, is critical. It's also a different way of thinking for a lot of developers.