Technical People Management is a subspecialty of generic people management. Technical Managers often possess many of the technical skills of their direct reports and in many organizations this is the natural promotion path within the technical career path.
A software engineering leader is responsible for delivering user value and developer experience1. Technical managers often must make or help make larger technical decisions and project planning efforts while coordinating with project managers. Given that much of software engineer is delivering a product, they must also have a functional understanding of product management. Evaluating Technical Managers can be done based on their results, retention, team growth, strategic vision, and organizational influence.
Technical managers face some unique challenges versus generic managers. Their direct reports are:
- well compensated (budget size) and have frothy job prospects (recruiting and retention)
- involved in a creative industry that is difficult to quantify and measure
- often owe their success to their technical talents and therefore may be under-developed in other “business” related areas
(Technical) management is a series of choices centered around striking a balance. Do you move fast and accrue tech debt with the idea that we will try to pay it down quickly later? Do we play for the short because we need to survive or do we play for the long because we can lead?
General advice
Avoid writing code on the critical path, but do not stop writing code2,3. You can write code that helps you do your job, or something that helps your developers do their job (but do not go overboard here).
You must not try to solve all the problems yourself and you do not have to be the best engineer3 on your team.
Resources
- Recommended Books on Technical management
- Newsletters
- Oren Ellenbogen’s Software Lead Weekly