<story><title>On being an Engineering Manager</title><url>http://codeplease.io/2018/01/15/on-being-an-engineering-manager/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>gregdoesit</author><text>&amp;gt;On the other hand my ability to focus on a task has dropped considerably. I am no longer able to code for 1h straight. I would say that 15 minutes is a victory. This is a problem I will try to fix somehow during 2018.&lt;p&gt;My suggestion is: don&amp;#x27;t try to fix it. As an engineering manager with a team of more than 5 people, coding is no longer the most impactful thing you&amp;#x27;re doing. Making people and the team do better is far more leverage. As a fellow EM who also loves code, I&amp;#x27;ve stopped coding at work. I find there are many, lot more impactful activities I can do: from hiring activities, onboarding &amp;amp; training, making oncall better, spending more time with my high &amp;amp; low performers and building bridges with fellow EMs, PMs, executives and other stakeholders and so on.&lt;p&gt;Also, you&amp;#x27;ve not mentioned 1:1s. With a team of 12, 1:1s take a lot of my time (I do weekly 30mins - this is a lot, but has been essential to spot issues early and support people better)&lt;p&gt;Good luck for 2018!</text></comment>
<story><title>On being an Engineering Manager</title><url>http://codeplease.io/2018/01/15/on-being-an-engineering-manager/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>gopalv</author><text>I mostly break-down leadership tasks into 4 groups&lt;p&gt;1. delegation&lt;p&gt;2. negotiation&lt;p&gt;3. vision&lt;p&gt;4. inspiration&lt;p&gt;A typical EM only needs to do two of those well, same with higher up the ladder, though not the same two through the ranks - in my experience, great ones hit all 4.&lt;p&gt;Delegation is mostly about tasks, negotiation is about interactions (either salaries with HR, deadlines with PMs or even figuring out what a specific employee wants out of a job, because not everyone responds to just money or prestige).&lt;p&gt;Vision is more complex - a manager needs to be able to guess the rate of funding for the current project, read the way the wind is blowing and navigate the team.&lt;p&gt;Inspiration is so rarely seen, because it is hard to connect the results to the actions (the &amp;quot;be positive&amp;quot; part of the blog) - but I&amp;#x27;ve had engineering managers who&amp;#x27;ve made me feel that I&amp;#x27;m in a &amp;quot;safe space&amp;quot; to do interesting things, instead of the reality that I&amp;#x27;m in a closely watched, judgemental situation with large sums of money attached to each action and reaction.</text></comment>