How to fail as a new engineering manager
I as a manager “kept coding” and it made me a better manager 100% of the time. It allowed me to understand low level issues team had been facing that I couldn’t have from 35,000ft. Team members didn’t felt need to dumb down complex concepts so I “get it”. People didn’t had to prep PowerPoints all the time because I could only grasp pretty pictures. I much better understood the complexity of workitems, costs, collaboration opportunities, scheduling and skills required which allowed me to do much better estimates and task assignments. I didn’t had to find “deputy” who I delegate everything while I am just busy in meetings and emails. Ancient Greeks like called this type of management as “leading from the front”. Chinese called it working shoulder to shoulder with your team mates instead of trying not to get your hands dirty because, you know, you are too “busy” and a level up high. Being able code (not in just imagination, but really code) puts “Engineering” in the “Engineering Manager”.