What Engineering Managers Should Do (and Why We Don’t) • Lena Reinhard • GOTO 2019

This presentation was recorded at GOTO Berlin 2019. #GOTOcon #GOTOber

Lena Reinhard - Director of Engineering at CircleCI

ABSTRACT
Technical leadership. Hands-on coding. Process management. Project management. Delivery. People management. Architecture decisions. Product oversight. Hiring.—With so many things on an engineering manager’s plate, is it any wonder that many great engineers flounder as engineering managers?
Yet, in order to retain engineers in a competitive job market, you have to invest in building and supporting your engineering managers. Individuals don’t leave jobs or companies -- they leave managers who aren’t equipped to support them.
In this talk, I will explain how our organisations currently set engineering managers up to fail, and what we need to change to help them, and their teams, succeed. I'll share personal anecdotes and examples of how I got my teams on the right track through:

• Redesigning team and organisational structure
• Clarifying roles and responsibilities
• Outlining clear paths for growth for engineers and managers (and growth paths that don’t include management)
• Rethinking how to hire engineering managers, and what to look for when [...]

Read the full abstract here:

#HumanFactor #Leadership #TechLeadership

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[w]

Someone's good manager is someone's bad manager - good/bad is relative - It's important to understand whether a manager can really get ahead and look after their team, and make them feel better about the work they are doing, the cause their serving, and the value they are adding - and it's a constant learning/development process.

[anageorgievska]

"When surprised, become curious"
What a great advice!

[illiakailli]

this presenter is nice and all, delivery of this talk is very appealing and it really hurts to write a critical comment … but it has to be done: to effectively manage engineers you have to be an engineer, there is no other way around that, there is no fast-track to become a good manager of this kind. if you don’t understand nuts and bolts of stuff that your team is doing - they simply won’t respect you, or wont take you seriously. you will be an easy target for manipulation, deceit and your view of a situation in a team will be distorted to a great degree. people are territorial creatures and startup environments are often very competitive, so people will fight for power ferociously, but much of it will happen in your blind spots, at places where you can’t see clearly: code, technical documentation, the way infrastructure is configured, etc. People often exercise power in subtle ways through not sharing information or just sharing what’s minimally required for accomplishing specific tasks. this talk is designed to look ‘nice’, but it doesn’t address very important problems related to team power dynamics and manager’s poor levels of technical expertise. I hope that one day presenter starts looking more into what her team members are actually doing on a daily basis, what technical problems they are struggling with, so maybe one day she can come and help … like, for real

[MikeS]

probably the best talk i've heard, biceps model is genius

[antonyschwinn]

Great talk. Kudos to Lena for introducing the biceps concept into the management glossary. I found it helpful and valuable.

[gmanon]

Almost every place I worked, tended to purposely isolate me. Still today, I don't know why. But yes, it is really hard to feel appreciated and even accepted under such conditions. Besides, you have little chances of making connections and even growing in your career.

Yes, the sense of belonging is at the top to perform your best as an employee. Isolation makes you feel like you always have to perform and makes it impossible to be yourself.

[brikken]

A very insightful talk. She covers a lot of ground in a short time and gave me something to think about.

[dariolongo]

Well done Lena, thanks for sharing! 👏

[fringefringe]

Hm, interesting. OKRs, competency matrixes, etc. Is this organization Agile or is it Waterfall?

If everyone gets OKRs and deadlines to meet them, where is Agility in that? They are totally fixed at what they are doing.

[pmorwale]

BICEPS-Core Needs beauifuly explained. Thanks.

[eagix]

Great talk, thank you for sharing your insights!

[khatritariq]

Awesome Presentation ! A booster for me.

[________________]

It would be great if the microphone had noise reduction. Nowadays one is used to that tech, now i cannot focus when i realise of these side breath noises. Also, a post processing audio could be a solution before uploading the video

[lifelover]

21:04 a public gratitude channel is dangerous, despite the good intentions. It incentivizes helping others for something in return, turning favors into a transaction, and allowing a company-wide "social credit" system

[anupjadhav]

That was a great talk - thanks for sharing your insight

[piotrr]

BICEPS - what you should practice and will never experience from your superiors as a manager.

[NickHodges]

That was an outstanding talk. Thank you.

[TheodoreRavindranath]

Very insightful talk packed with the right advice and factors to consider... all essential for white-collar motivation

[jinxblaze]

My manager is more like a people manager and not technical, he gives out the most stupid ideas and expects developers to implement them

[jeffreychongsathien]

What I really hate about these kinds of talks is that they're so divorced from reality, particularly with regards to ignoring the existence of objective 1) narcisstics, 2) sociopaths, 3) incompetent idiots above, 4) incompetent idiots below, 5) bad situations inherited from past mistakes. The best kind of engineering leadership talks reference characters from culture e.g. Dick Winters from Band of Brothers.