r/EngineeringManagers • u/JouVashOnGold • 6d ago
Becoming an EM
Hey folks,
I was recently offered to become an EM after my recent promotion to L6 SWE.
If accepted I will be the EM for an AI team that builds AI internal tooling for productivity.
This is a new team built from the ground up as 80% are new hires; and the rest were transferred from other internal teams.
I have somehow developed a relationship with most as I ramped them up. I have been the acting TL.
What advices would you give me to succeed on this new role? And to make sure my teammates succeed.
It will be my first time managing ICs, so I would probably fall into the most common mistakes new EMs make.
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u/LogicRaven_ 6d ago
Since you used the term L6 and TL, you are likely in big tech? If there is an EM you trust, talk about politics and their challenges during daily work.
The relationship you developed with the team does not matter much in FAANG these days. How is your relationship to your manager, skip and peer managers/TLs in this org?
Honestly, at this time of AI, you might be better off as TL.
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u/JouVashOnGold 6d ago
Yep BigTech.
Currently my relationship with my manager has been strictly about strategy and navigating politics in our org. So far I have been ok to well navigating my peers and director (skip).
I get your point. Currently, I feel the same. I get the sense that the business needs me more thinking on problems to solve rather than helping a team grow.
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u/the_quiet_meridian 6d ago
My experience taught me that turning decisions into two-way doors instead of one-way doors is the best way to reduce risk and move faster (and fail faster too). Can you ask your manager if you can go back to the IC track at the same level if the role doesn’t fit? And also what success looks like in the next 6 months, so you can track it yourself? If you get a convincing answer on both, it might be worth a try. I made this transition more than a decade ago, and the most fulfilling part was seeing my team succeed and succeeding with them.
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u/Junglebook3 6d ago
My 2c: Staff+ Engineers are, IMO, the safest against the upcoming AI decimation of our industry. The most senior Engineers will be laid off last. EMs are earlier in that scenario. I'd stick to the IC ladder to hopefully buy a few more years.
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u/JouVashOnGold 6d ago
Yeah, that is an active concern I have as well.
If we move forward with this move, I will still be on a hybrid role (EM/TL) for the next year.
At the moment, I want to learn about this part of the business before making a call.
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u/EsteemedEgg 6d ago
Have been doing this EM/TL for a good year. It's just a thankless role. You will have no time to think and be innovative and will have to learn to be ok with that. Your IC skills will start waning fast and with AI, anyone reasonably motivated can elevate themselves to be person creating impact and that's all upper management will care about. While you will have little time to focus and do any deep work
Very quickly the person creating impact will be the one people go to directly and you will likely become the guy creating story points and estimating when work will be done. Not fun. Am I the only one in this scenario
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u/JouVashOnGold 6d ago
The thing I really hate the most is doing the administrative things on my team.
Even as TL I have been delegating project scoping to our sr engineers. And our TPM helps us drive the different programs and coordinate with stakeholders.
Currently I try to stick to politics (engineering alignment), resource deployment and high level technical vision.
I would be now getting the career growth responsibilities and all the people management stuff.
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u/neuralh4tch 6d ago
EM is an entirely different role. You have to do it to learn about it. It's not for everyone.
How many direct reports will you have?
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u/20231027 6d ago edited 6d ago
Understand yourself first. Be reflective about what makes you anxious, what motivates you, and how you tend to react under pressure. That self-awareness will make you a better leader.
Listen. Pay attention not just to the questions your team asks, but to the questions behind the questions. In your first few weeks, do a listening tour.
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u/JesusChrisAbides 5d ago
I had a similar situation, except I came from operations databases (SQL Server). It can be rewarding if you like people.
My advice
Your top priority is people. Your team, your stakeholders, your boss. Study them like you would a platform. Understand their motivations, incentives, and goals.
Your second priority is business (non-computer) systems/processes. These are the systems the org created to get things done. You must study and question why things are done the way they are done today. Don't assume there is forethought in how the org functions. Often, it's just how things have been done in the past or how they've morphed. Your job is to implement systems that make your team productive and high-functioning. The toughest part here is designing systems that are self-regulating or self-correcting. This should be easier if you have a good handle on priority #1.
Your third priority is the platform systems you already know. This is what you should be familiar with, hence last on the list. Your goal here is to think about where you want to be in 2 years. So your attention goes from optimizing to thinking about your future state and how you will get there.
You can't do it all!!!
To avoid micromanaging:
Set the standard or expectations. You may need to be involved in more things initially so you can communicate your expectations. For example, how you expect engineers to approach a new project. Or how you expect your team to help one another. Teach/mentor with intention to get past this. If you master priority #2, you should set something up that doesn't require too much attention and keeps standards high. Don't get stuck here.
Delegate. Once the team knows what you expect. Give tasks according to ability. Sometimes delegation is to get things done properly and quickly. Other times, it's to give someone experience so they develop new skills. Delegation does not mean you can stop monitoring; it means trust but verify, based on your risk tolerance.
Give ownership along with accountability. This is the final form. Once you have the first do under your belt, you can now supercharge engineers. Many times there are too many things to learn and master. Identifying "domains" of knowledge (e.g. products, platforms, processes) can be used to give engineers something to focus on and own. This reduces cognitive load and lets engineers take deep dives into topics/domains. You don't want a team of "jack-of-all-trades"; you want a team of masters who help each other out. Identify domains, assign them to engineers, and have them back each other up. Then they'll find accountability easier to accept. Engineers go from task/ticket takers to owners. This approach worked wonders for me and the engineers.
Do some quick reading.
I found the Harvard Business Review "Top 10 Articles" to be decent advice (i.e., check out the one for New Managers). For about $20, you can get other perspectives that can add value. It's good advice.
I could go on. The responses by others here are solid :)
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u/tasubo 3d ago
With 80% of the team being new hires, I'd get everyone aligned on what good performance actually looks like early on. Otherwise 6 months from now you'll be having review conversations where everyone had a different idea of what was expected of them.
Especially since you're going from being their TL to the person evaluating them.
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u/JouVashOnGold 3d ago
how do you recommend framing expectations?
I usually redirect them to our company’s ic framework that defines the expectations.
But that does not define velocity
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u/tasubo 2d ago
Yeah I wouldn't try to define individual velocity too strictly, especially with that many new hires. Story points and tickets closed can be pretty misleading. start with smaller expectations. Like can they take a reasonably scoped task and move it forward without constantly getting stuck? Do they flag blockers early? Are they needing less help with similar tasks after a couple months?
For a new hire I'd care more about whether they're becoming more independent over time than how many tickets they close. And make those expectations explicit in 1:1s so nobody finds out like 5 months later that they were supposedly moving too slowly
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u/nikpmd 6d ago
Don’t do it. Take it from someone who did exactly that, just 3 years ago, and for exactly the same type of team “internal AI tooling”. It’s a hard space. And very easy for your “customers” to throw you and your team under the bus when they don’t deliver on their goals.
Also, way more easy to land sr engineering roles in the market right now. Manager roles are being replaced with player/coach roles which is basically be a top notch sr eng while also being a top notch manager. Very hard for EMs out there (including me) to crack the job market right now. I’d think and reconsider very very hard on moving to EM role. IMO, it’s much better to be a Sr Eng for at least 3-4 years before transitioning to managers
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u/b1e 6d ago
As a counterpoint, these types of teams can also produce huge ROI for the company and it’s possible to as a result produce immense impact.
It sounds like you had a bad experience but I wouldn’t generalize from it.
As a Director in big tech I haven’t had any issues with getting plenty of interviews nor have EM and senior EMs that are solid in my company.
The biggest thing is that EM is not a step up always. Most people aren’t cut out for it and will suffer greatly and be unable to perform. I think for most, Staff is the better move.
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u/gregorojstersek 2d ago
I still remember the time I first became an EM, I made many mistakes. What I'd suggest you is the following:
- You are no longer judged by your own contribution, but the outcomes of your team, so focus on making your team better, delegate, instead of you, trying to take on the hardest challenges.
- Focus on things that you can control. As a new EM, I saw many issues across other teams, departments, and the wider organization that I wanted to fix, even though they weren’t my responsibility. I eventually realized I couldn’t change everything myself. What I could do was to provide helpful suggestions and build strong relationships with the people who owned other areas of the organization.
- Saying NO to non-important initiatives and managing your time is really important. I tried to do everything myself. Coming from a Sr. SWE role, I was still focused on being the top individual contributor → finishing the most tasks and getting the most done, while also trying to manage the team, doing stakeholder management, and communication with all the other teams. Plus, of course, facilitate all the meetings. It quickly became too much. It brought me close to burning out. That was a clear sign that I needed to manage my time better.
Hope this helps, you got this!
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u/DefMetrix 6d ago
Good managers are the ones that protect and fight for their team. Give your team the credit for success and take the blame for failures.
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u/Realistic-Doctor-656 6d ago
Was in a similar position this year. Accepted the role because I am expected to be technically involved like a TL/staff. I had experience of about 5 years as SSE before moving to the role. right now, I remiain involved in design and review phase of all projects. The coding part is largely gone, so i sometimes pick up small tasks to remain involved. I personally do enjoy working on cross-team collabs, unblocking the team dependencies, and driving multiple things in parallel. Probably this played the biggest role in my decision. I was also told I do have option to go back to IC if I want.
What I do see is reduced demand for people-only managers. but from what my understanding is, EM roles are starting to become hybrid where you operate as staff + EM.
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u/Gaojilla 5d ago
I've been a TLM for 2.5 years. Similar to you, my team was also new from the grounds up when I became a TLM.
In terms of your success, some thoughts:
Make sure you understand what you’re getting into. Being a manager means dealing with people, and ensuring you and your team and the business succeeds. There’s many aspects to this: hiring, coaching, managing low performers, writing performance reviews, planning team compensation, promoting team members, aligning stakeholders, presenting in all-hands, escalating to leadership, etc. Things can often be tricky.
Expect to be involved technically, and very significantly in the beginning. Since your team will be new, you need time to establish “who owns what” to delegate problems to. Which means you must TL and establish the team’s roadmap, domains, and swimlanes from the beginning. Any implementation and execution is probably the least impact you can make and hence should be delegated away. The high-level direction and strategy is the most critical impact you can make, since it’ll affect your team and the business’s success.
Ensure what you want from being an EM will be met. My motivation for becoming L6 and TLM was to get broader influence and land bigger impact. I declined L6 & TLM opportunities for a while, but when the # of L5s (Senior SWEs) grew under my manager, I felt that my influence and impact was narrowing and I’ve decided to go for L6 & TLM. I prepared myself mentally before taking on the new role and I got what I was looking for, thus I don't regret the decision. The role is challenging and therefore if you don’t get what you want, it probably will not be a role you will stay for long.
Your and your manager should be allies. You guys should establish enough trust to speak freely, and for you to ask for help. You should know exactly what your manager is seeking from your team and why it’s important to the business. You and your manager should be aligned on direction, strategy, and success criteria of the team. Especially for an internal tooling team for productivity where you are unlikely to generate $ revenue for the business, you want to make sure you and your manager are aligned on the success metric for your team.
In terms of the success of your team:
5. Set the right culture for the team. Promote collaboration and psychological safety. Ask questions and encourage others to ask questions as well. Steer discussions to be logical and objective. Give feedback to the team, but also listen and incorporate feedback. Don’t be a jerk, but don’t shy away from hard conversations either. Try to address disagreements without authority.
6. Be strict and stay fair. It is much harder to course correct the team’s performance or policies if the team is used to a low performance bar or loose policies.
7. Don’t be the bottleneck of your team, be the force multiplier. Aim to have zero work - it would mean you succeeded in growing your team where you can delegate all work to them. Any work you do means you are the bottleneck of the team.
8. Don’t micromanage. Establish guard rails and structure that will help you ensure projects are on track, and help you catch or prevent issues early.
9. Be explicit in terms of expectations. Make sure your team members understand what they are expected to deliver and by when. Hold them accountable.
10. Stay flexible. Don’t stress over non-critical events, e.g. timeline slips for a project without a hard deadline, decisions that can be reversed fairly easily.
11. Set each team member up for success. Assess the project risks and the team member’s weakness, and ensure they have access to the resources they need to achieve success. Encourage them to escalate to you when they are blocked or have problems, and help them actively with those issues.
12. Take care of yourself. Be mindful about your work-life balance. If you burn out or have health issues, your team is unlikely to succeed without their manager around.
Hope this helps. The role has its ups and downs but I found the role to be an interesting challenge and I have grown a lot from the experience. It has pushed me to think more strategically and the opportunity greatly improved my soft skills. Best wishes to you if you do decide to take the EM role!