How to keep solid engineering skills as an Engineering Manager?

How do I know the right level for me?
Which KPIs should I measure or “management smells” to look for?

How to fight FOMO? Which books/posts should I read now? Why are they a better fit?

1. How to keep solid engineering skills as an Engineering Manager? Oren Ellenbogen VP Engineering at Forter and maker of potentially useful stuff: SoftwareLeadWeekly, LeadingSnowflakes, ManagerREADME, Downleft
2. So much to know... Handling the basics (code, OS, network, etc.) Coding techniques (TDD, DDD, etc.) Tools (IDEs, CLI, etc.) Pair programming, Code/Design Reviews CI, tests, deployments, CD Ops (debugging, monitoring, alerts, etc.) Distributed systems concepts (queues, back pressure, etc.) System design (composability, DX, etc.) The hottest and latest languages, libs & tools! Effective Communication Project Management Product thinking Development Processes Business understanding Org design
3. “I’m still hands on” You manage a team of: 1. 1-2 engineers 2. 2-4 engineers 3. 5+ engineers 4. Manager of managers (+different seniority ratio) Should you be hands on?
4. Legit concerns 1. “Nobody will hire me (for my next job) if I cannot write code” 2. “I won’t be able to provide good feedback if I cannot understand how things work and do it myself. People won’t trust me or my opinion” 3. “I won’t understand new technologies” 4. “It will be harder to have empathy for my teammates without knowing how easy it is to do or understand something in our systems” Right? Anything else?
5. “Solid” engineering skills The framing is a bit misleading. Desirable engineering skills is maybe a better way to look at it? Useful engineering skills? The question is - to whom? For what?
6. Complement, don’t compete As Engineering Managers, what is our biggest LEVERAGE to help our team? What’s in it for them to have us as their managers? 1. Design requirements, trade offs, risks, teach 2. Operate sustainability, quality of life, focus 3. Hire puzzle, level up, momentum 4. Envision pitch, alignment, personal growth
7. Investing time in your eng skills “It will be harder to have empathy for my teammates without knowing how easy it is to do or understand something in our systems” 30% in the present: Write code in areas you’ll gain insights and feel pains → Level up Design & Operate 70% in the future: Research for missing knowledge your team is lacking → Level up Envision & Hire A day per week? More? Less? Hours should fluctuate, keep the ratios
8. How to do X → How X works (and why was it invented) Seek to understand how things work. fundamentals. How to choose the right level of data consistency for the app’s reads/writes? Who invented Spark? What was missing at the time? How is it different? How Virtual DOM works? What should I worry about when using event-loop based framework? Why Kafka is using append-only log? What becomes more difficult when using microservices?
9. Design Great talks & posts: - Dan North - Decisions, Decisions - Replicated Data Consistency Explained Through Baseball - Silence is Golden: Coordination-Avoiding Systems Design - Turning the database inside out
10. Operate Great talks & posts: - How to Write Documentation for People that Don't Read - Practicalities of Productionizing Distributed Systems - How NOT to Measure Latency - Stability Patterns & Antipatterns
11. Hire Great talks & posts: - There is no talent shortage - https://staffeng.com - The Accidental Diminisher
12. Envision Great talks & posts: - How to Move Beyond Gamification - Streams as the team interface - https://www.useronboard.com/
13. Is it working? The EM’s technical skills time Team’s technical skills Common end result Desired end result But they still seek your opinion and respect it Envision → Hire
14. How to keep solid engineering skills as an Engineering Manager? Would you like to go much deeper into the 70%? Ping me for a workshop I plan... Feedback? Questions? Say hello 👋 oren.ellenbogen@gmail.com oren@forter.com Build empathy. Understand the fundamentals. Live in the future.