New Manager? Say Goodbye to Code!
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 5 авг 2024
- I don't talk about manager things that much on this channel even though I am a manager in my day job.
However a friend recently raised the question of "Should managers code?" ( / 1369675582716272643 ) and I promised him a response to that video.
Funnily enough, I agree with him, so let's hear more of the same!
0:00 Intro
0:54 Should managers code?
3:40 How to transition away from IC work
4:36 How to measure success as a manager?
6:07 Outro
--
DISCORD: / discord
VOTE ON VIDEOS: votey-uppy.vercel.app/
NEWSLETTER: hswolff.com/newsletter/
PATREON: / hswolff
TWITCH: / hswolff11
TWITTER: / hswolff
SITE: hswolff.com/ 
Наука
more like this please
woo!
More management videos please!
Yes! So good to hear! Thank you for the encouragement!
I have been a professional developer/architect since 1997. I have been a "manager" twice since then , but it never worked out. I am a true "engineer" and made to build stuff. I did not function well as a manager as I get really bored and demotivated when everything is about administration, meetings, reporting and so on. I am really satisfied now being just a developer, less responsibility, flexible work hours and I get decent paid. No less than ever before.
I can't help to see a possible case of the Peter Principle for many: If management skills are not necessarily correlated to coding skills, there's the risk of "promoting" a competent developer into an incompetent manager.
Thank you for this great video! Continously measuring success through your code contributions when most of your day isn't coding is a mistake this video made me realize I have been making. It has also been the reason I have been wanting to step back from my managing position again. I do have one question for you though, how do you deal with your interest for coding and new technologies if most of your day is not related to that anymore? Purely outside of work or?
I’m a manager of ~6 years that just turned back to an IC role for a bit. Your videos have been really helpful in getting the recent lay of the land in the JavaScript world!
I’ve been in both management situations: “50/50” IC and manager and 100% management. I definitely agree with the message in this video, but in the latter situation I struggled to maintain relevance/familiarity with my team’s work when I had no coding responsibilities and I was never able to fully shake the discomfort that comes with that. My “engineering manager” role was rapidly becoming all people-manager and no engineering as my technical skills rapidly atrophied.
I admire folks like yourself who seem to find some sort of equilibrium there.
Such kind words, thank you!
I make sure to get involved in the planning part of projects, so at the very least I remain in the leap of the architecture and general behavior of the code.
I absolutely cannot tell you what file some functionality resides in, but I can describe to you the high level behavior of the system, which lets me still have technical conversations with the rest of my team.
It is a catch-22. To be an effective manager you have to stop coding, but then to give technical feedback you need to code. It ain't easy!
I’ve only recently stepped into a management focused role, so this content is timely. I would love to see more videos broach the topic
Love this video, Harry! Wasn't sure if you were in code or dont code camp as a manager. Agree with a lot of what you said here as a fellow manager.
Glad you enjoyed Dan!!
I always figured you were having fun getting a chance to code while making these videos. I'm an IC and I really enjoyed the video.
I am! This is my escape from manager land!
This was super helpful! Unfortunately I need to do both for my robotics team, being the lead system+code architect I need to delegate while being able to develop the apis those new coders will use
Yeah that's a tough place to be in. I do think you have it right though, delegate as much as you can to your team so you're left working on what only you can do.
Hi Harry,
I used to be a manager of a small team I now I am back to coding full time and I totally agree. Coding managers unwillingly tend to let down their team as they are still focused on developing features while the team desperately needs people to create plans and guide them and e.g. organise a team event.
I think managers often want to code to keep up to date with technologies etc. How do you deal with the fact that the coding skills of a manager in one way or another will become stale?
To me it often feels that once you are manager there is no turning back and your days of coding are over. 😢
Only way as a Manager you can still semi fresh is work on little tickets on small pieces of code, work on your own toy projects at home. If confronted with a new codebase that you have no idea, ask your team lead or the senior developer in your team to guide you and do your selves few small tickets.
Another time that Managers can code with out interrupting their main responsibilities with the team is write small simple prototypes of major projects to be tackled soon by the team.
Definitely have to embrace that you're focusing on people and not code anymore. You have to get comfortable with that.
I dabble in my free time on here with coding, which keeps me still feel like an IC at heart.
What Giuseppe said is great advice too - take on small pieces of coding that are outside the critical path. Such that you can work on some coding and not block your team at all. Also importantly, make sure that work is interruptible, as a manager is always interrupted so you want some code you can put down and pick up many times.
✋ manager, who coded for too long and burnt out.
Woo! Manager friend! Hellooo!
A Manager (and Director for couple years) here. This video is so on the point.
Too bad is a lot of companies asking for IC-Managers, someone that code 100% while he is at all the meetings important and irrelevant ones and on top takes care of a team of developers.
Yes share with us your Managers experiences once in a while. We all can learn from it, and developers can learn on how difficult can be being a Manager and why sometimes we need to take decisions we take that make no sense from the developer point of view
Thank you for the encouragement! I truly need it! All my manager videos get so few hits haha, it's hard to keep at 'em, but glad you find value in them!
And I love the IC-Manager label. The mythical IC Manager who does it all - it doesn't exist!
Could also be titled "How to transition from being an entrepreneur to being the owner...."
hey harry, does your team watch your video 😆
😇 I believe they do haha. I swear I don't make them!
Sometimes they do 👀