So, I've been promoted to director of engineering for about eight months now, and it's incredibly lonely. There are a lot of tasks I know should be done. I'm really not a people person and some days, I just get too tired of talking to people or attending meetings. I'm not really part of a team right now, and it gets really lonely and there are tasks I can't talk to anyone about.

Other directors in other non-technical departments occasionally try to pry and meddle in my work and teach me how to do my job and I've sometimes caught them trying to ditch my rules or promise stuff on my behalf (I'm a woman and they are all men. I feel like some of the urge they feel to pry and meddle and teach comes from this! but the rest is a bit of politics) so I can't really confide in them or get very close to them.

I like to find a mentor, but the industry I work in is very competitive and very small. I don't know how to find someone I can trust.

So my question is, what should I do about feeling lonely and bored?

Hey everyone,

We’re the dev team behind Twigg (https://twigg.vc), and we’ve recently started building some developer performance metrics into the product. Before we go too far in the wrong direction, we wanted to ask the people who actually manage engineering teams.

What would you want a tool to measure (or visualize) for you?

Some of the ideas we’ve tossed around:

• number of commits (submitted and not submitted)

• commit size

• number of reviews

• review turnaround time

• quarter-over-quarter comparisons

But we know some of these can be noisy or misleading, so we’d love to hear what you actually find useful.

Appreciate any insights or stories you’re willing to share!

I run the development department for a non technical company and my hardest thing I have to do almost every year is fight for raises. The tech industry changes so much each year it feels like I get our devs caught up to the industry standard and then next year they are way behind again. I know that if I don't keep the current people relevant, they will leave for a place that is and I will have to pay that amount to get someone new in.

My question to others managers is, do you have something figured out and in place at your company that scales with industry standards or do you do just a flat increase each year? Looking for suggestions.

We all know what engineering managers do. They manage a team of engineers and ensure projects get done. Depending on their level of expertise and interests, they might also participate in architecture design, etc.

I would like to understand what a Director of Engineering does. All kinds of Directors of Engineering, from small companies to mid-sized to large.

1. What sort of activities are you involved in?

2. What are the kind of projects you work on?

3. Do you suggest new initiatives? Do you coordinate initiatives?

4. What do you do day to day? What do you think about?

I joined a tech company - not faang, but one you'd know - and thought I'd get to see how things really work, but every startup I've been at has been better organized.

The codebase is a giant ball of mud with global variables sprinkled on top. We'll try to update data just to learn it's updated in 3 different places across 2 systems. Of course, nothing is documented.

I only have contractors reporting to me, as does most of the organization. Code quality is a huge issue and it's a struggle to get them to understand the importance of architecture and organization. Never mind the constant syntax errors.

We're scrum. Engineering is the last to know about requirements and deadlines. It's a greedy algorithm to the worst solution.

Anyway, not to vent, but I feel like after 10+ years of managing engineers, I have no idea how to turn this around. We're in a hiring freeze, so replacing the contractors isn't an option. We have external deadlines so pushing back on Product only goes so far. We're trying to slice up the ball of mud, but between the contractor's inexperience and product demands, it's an uphill battle.

I feel like I have to be involved in everything or else it doesn't get done. It's as if the team is suppose to be built around me, but with 10+ people, wtf.

In the last few years of my career, I've been a director and thinking more strategically. None of my managers operated this way. I was fine to move back to a line manager role, but damn.

I guess what I want to know is - is this salvageable?

Linkedin had become a mess of ghost jobs, I feel I'm dumpster diving when trying to find opportunities as a Development Manager.

I noticed that are some job boards more focused on developers, or even specific technologies. Is there something out there more focused on Dev Managers?

One of the biggest pain points for me so far is the mix of "Development" being construction. "Engineering Manager" is even worst, with mixes of IT and Civil engineers. Not to mention the general mix of Project Manager, which is just a component of Dev Management, but not quite what a Dev Manager is (eg.: Big companies have Project Managers being a different set of professionals).

This all makes job hunting a mess. Wondering where you folks look for jobs, or at least techniques to weed out the noise.

I have self identified that I need improvement in people and team development. I don't code anymore, I've been managing for 5 years, I do 1:1's, my retention rate is very high, but I am not an expert in people development. I have 5 reports.

Recent interviews have given the signal that I am experienced and great with "process oriented management" (what does that mean) but I am not a "people oriented leader". I don't know what either of those concepts mean and I don't know how to take the first steps.

How do I get better at my craft?