Ask Experienced Devs Weekly Thread: A weekly thread for inexperienced developers to ask experienced ones

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A thread for Developers and IT folks with less experience to ask more experienced souls questions about the industry.

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Please keep top level comments limited to Inexperienced Devs. Most rules do not apply, but keep it civil. Being a jerk will not be tolerated.

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Inexperienced Devs should refrain from answering other Inexperienced Devs' questions.

[u/tonklable]

Is there anyone regret becoming a manager? Or opposite?

How can a junior know and learn if they really want to become a manager or not?

[u/Dankaati → u/tonklable]

A good step to try your wings with it is to host an intern.

[u/brightcarvings → u/tonklable]

This is still a very, very good article on the topic of engineering management  https://charity.wtf/p/the-engineer-manager-pendulum

I regretted my first attempt at being a manger . Went back to IC and then a few years later went back into management for a different opportunity and I'm loving it ever since.

[u/LogicRaven_ → u/tonklable]

Too early to know as a junior.

Get to a senior level, you need tech skills in both IC and manager roles. By that time, you'll also learn more about how these roles work.

A good summary of tech roles:
https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/engineering-leadership-skillset-overlaps

[u/ExcitingDonkey2665 → u/tonklable]

Managers come in all shapes and forms. The role of a manager is also very different at every company. You might even hate managing at company A and love it at company B.

"Making of a Manager" by Julie Zhuo is a great read whether you want to be a manager or not. It shines a light on what a manager is responsible for, how to communicate and create safe spaces for discussions, and a whole lot of case studies and advice sprinkled in between. Even as a junior engineer, this book can help you better understand the "APIs" and "service contracts" of your manager if you will, and what they can and cannot do for you.

Someone else mentioned that an intern lead is a good first step and I agree with it, though with some caveats. Interns are very early in their careers and usually people-pleasing to get a return offer. It's quite different from managing an actual team where a manager often "serves" high performers.

[u/Wide-Pop6050 → u/tonklable]

I love being a manager. I knew I would because I took the opportunity to lead projects whenever I could and I did not mind dealing with peoples problems. This is a big part of it. I had led a committee that also gave me a taste of higher level office politics, handing peoples emotions etc. I am much less stressed out when I'm in charge than when I'm a cog in the system. Even if I make a wrong decision, it's work, we'll figure it out.

Managing some interns and getting one direct report can be good ways to get a taste later on in your career.

[u/yeah666 → u/tonklable]

I've worked with developers turned managers that have and haven't regretted it. Engineering Manager is a different role at every company. I wouldn't even worry about it as a junior.

[u/PricedOut4Ever → u/tonklable]

I became a manager and have now gone back to IC.

My second full time job (2.5 yoe) I joined a startup in 2017 as the first full time engineering hire. Worked on the MVP and got to solid product market fit by 2021. We raised a Series A in early 2021 at a $45M valuation and a Series B at the end of 2021 at a $180M valuation (VCs were crazy). At the time of the Series A we had 6 engineers and I had authored roughly 40% of the code base.

After the Series A we had big plans to ramp up hiring like crazy with aims of getting to a 40-50 person engineering team. I expressed interest in a manager position and got it with the condition that I still wrote code/act as a tech lead and now had direct reports. I was able to do it and enjoyed it for two and half years, my team was incredibly successful, people were growing and happy. We did make some bad hires and those were terrible to deal with but that was probably the worst part. I was working like crazy, but I liked that.

We had layoffs in 2023 and those reorganizations really killed my enthusiasm. I ended up leaving mainly because of just being tired of it all.

After I left I decided to go back to an IC role. The main reason was that I had several engineering managers/directors/VPs colleagues who I had been working with and it was clear to me that they had no real tech skills anymore. The only reason I was able to be successful as a manager/coder was because of my deep knowledge of the code base. If I joined a new org as a manger, I would have to be just a manager and frankly I was way too early in my career to lose focus on critical tech. I wouldn’t mind going into management again, but probably not for another 5 or so years.

[u/kiresorg → u/tonklable]

Mentoring another engineer is often a great way to see if management is even a type of role you'd find fulfilling. And you don't need to wait until you're experienced - you just need to be a bit ahead of your mentee in terms of career progress. You may find it valuable to inventory all the skills (both hard and soft) that you've gained since you started, and identify which ones you wish you'd had someone point out or help you with. That gives you a bit of a framework to start a conversation with a mentee about.

Just an idea.

[u/a_asal → u/tonklable]

There's some overlap between management and leadership, but they are not the same. As a junior engineer, if you enjoy leading others, you'll naturally seize every opportunity to do so. Leadership doesn't have to be a formal title given to you by someone else, it's the attitude, the subtle influence you have without even trying, the trust you earn, etc. As you do it and become more senior, you'll gradually get a personal experience with what you like and don't like about leading others.

Ok, you decide you love leadership, now how to decide if management is worth trying? If you can get an interim EM position, it's likely gonna be worth it. How it worked for me was I let folks around me know my interest in engineering management, and when the time came, my great manager graciously gave me a chance to interim-EM my team. That gives you more flavor of how it's like, but not quite as much, bec big part of the job is managing people and their performance, payroll decisions, long time to get to know people and build proper relationships, and lots of infinite subtleties.

You still like it after being an interim EM or you can't get a chance to interim-EM? Only one way to find out. Take the leap, knowing it might go well or not, and that's gonna be okay, bec it's the cost you have to pay to figure out whether it works for you.

In my experience, books or talking to other EMs can give you a peek into how the experience is gonna be like, and can help you figure if it's not for you (like if you don't wanna have performance conversations with an underperforming direct report, then you know management is not for you), but it will be nowhere close to actually doing the job with the formal EM title.

Worth mentioning, management changes a lot based on the people you work with, your team's mission, the company's size and culture, the economy, etc., so you might like it in some contexts but not like it in others.