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Get the O'reilly's book "The Manager's Path - A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change" and READ IT.

1) You will not need to trust others to write better code/systems then you and that you will very likely be unable to code anymore.

2) Establish a good relationship with your team members. Seek for people who you can delegate to and trust. Trust and reliable people are really hard to find. When shit hits the fan - and it absolutely does - you'll need that.

3) You need people who will push and people who will follow. Having just one group and not the others is a recipe for disaster.

4) Establish what things you should care for and what not. The amount of shit is insane and it only gets worse you need to have a threshold on when and on what to react.

5) Do you own research as much as possible on key things.

6) Keep asking "why". It annoys me as f* but also forces you to go deeper with explaining and understanding of the problem. (don't wanna say google "Five whys")

7) Encourage people to go deeper, to learn more to become experts.

9) Have 1-on-1s. Regular. Scheduled. Talk about life/work. Try to find how you can make the place and challenges better. Help them grow in an organisation and professionally.

10) Sketch things out. Write em' down. Otherwise, you'll go insane repeating stuff.

I sincerely wish you good luck.

P.s.: People have more bugs and are sometimes even more broken than software. :D




#9 is insanely important. I've had this in the last two companies I work for and it makes a huge difference. You won't get the details you need in an all hands meeting. In a 1-on-1 people will spill their guts, will tell you what exactly is going wrong in their opinion and how it might get better.

It's also very important to know more about your employees on a personal level. Are they going through a tough time, do they feel unchallenged or bored? Do you have issues between team members that need resolving? All this can come out in these 1-on-1s.


These are the tasks of an Engineering Manager, not a Tech Lead.


Should #1 start, "You will now" instead of "You will not"?


You are absolutely right! Thanks.




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