You’re Not Managing a Team of Software Engineers, You’re Managing Writers

Re:You’re Not Managing a Team of Software Engineers, You’re ... by ilovecaching on Sunday November 04, 2018 @04:35PM (#18378185)

Managers shouldn't be writing code or architecting at all. A manager's job is to manage people or a product. If it's people, she should be completely focused on unblocking the engineers and keeping them out of meetings. If it's the product, she should be completely focused on gathering the requirements and constraints and communicating with the customer and getting estimates from the engineers.

The architecture and implementation is a hidden detail for a manager. Either the team lead, architect, or team as a whole should design and move on the code.

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Re:You’re Not Managing a Team of Software Engineers, You’re ... by poof131 on Sunday November 04, 2018 @05:57PM (#18378513)

The problem is the architecture is intertwined with the product is intertwined with the people. Believing that these things can easily be broken apart is an illusion. It’s how product believes one thing and engineers believe another, resulting in quick hacks, missed deadlines, and a mediocre product, if it’s released at all. Meanwhile the manager is a “people person”.

Teams need leadership, not three leaders. Dev managers should be able to understand the architecture, and the product, and the team. Product advises on the direction. Tech leads argue for the implementation. But the dev manager needs to bring these things together and provide direction. Otherwise all three people will just point fingers when the results suck—diffusion of responsibility. Teams need leaders and leaders need to be accountable for results.

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Re:You’re Not Managing a Team of Software Engineers, You’re ... by ilovecaching on Sunday November 04, 2018 @06:30PM (#18378642)

> Believing that these things can easily be broken apart is an illusion.

It works really well were I work. It's led to an extremely bottom up culture were engineers want to stay forever, because they feel like management isn't getting in their way or compromising technical decisions.

> Teams need leadership, not three leaders.

I'm not advocating for shared responsibility. What I'm advocating for is separating responsibility such that each person knows exactly what they are expected to deliver. The manager is expected to help his team perform and be happy. The TPM is responsible for delivering the product the users want. The tech team is responsibility for delivering a product as quickly as possible that is maintainable and bug free and meets the requirements set by the TPM.

In your model, managers argue with the tech team, which causes people on the tech team to quit or become frustrated because the managers can't understand all of the details and still fulfill all their managerial duties.

> It’s how product believes one thing and engineers believe another

The role of the TPM is to make sure the tech team is building what the user wants. the TPM should be synchronizing with the user and the tech team, making sure this doesn't happen. It's their responsibility.

> Teams need leaders and leaders need to be accountable for results.

Agreed, teams need leaders who are focused on doing one thing, and one thing well. They should not be backseat architecting or leading the technical direction, unless they are the tech lead.

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Re:You’re Not Managing a Team of Software Engineers, You’re ... by darkerside on Sunday November 04, 2018 @09:21PM (#18379391)

I'm sure it works well in terms of making the engineers happy because it sounds like the inmates are running the asylum. You're right that managers should be dictating the what and not the how, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't understand the "how" their report has chosen.

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