Untrained Engineering Managers

Published on September 27, 2024, filed under Development and Management (RSS feed for all categories).

As far back as I can remember, our field of web development has had a training issue. It has been a logical problem—when the field began to emerge, in the 90s, there was no training for people to become web designers and web developers.

Although there have been some changes, the effects of this lack of training can still be observed, particularly through metrics like website conformance: For years, almost none of the most popular websites have been free of HTML errors, which means that essentially all of them contain code that is likely dysfunctional or superfluous. Not a sign of good training. Not a sign of professionalism.

As developers progress, this training crisis must extend to technical leadership and management—and it does.

From what I’ve observed over the years, we have two big problems here, because 1) we have fewer metrics to assess engineering leadership quality (which translates to less transparency and accountability), and 2) the consequences are more severe (raise your hand if you’ve left a company because of your manager ✋).

One way you can look at the situation is that there’s close to no formal or informal training for engineering managers (EMs), plus a massive variability of support new managers get on the job (usually on the low end of the scale, meaning little support).

Not surprisingly, we get out at a huge range of EM work quality, where some never become good managers or leaders. Some may in consequence become individual contributors (ICs) again, others keep on managing and leading, making it a game of chance whether they train themselves or get additional training and, more importantly, making it a gamble whether they actually perform well in their role.

(Is this hyperbole? As some statements are inherently hard to measure, you tell me whether the reasoning checks out, or whether the experience is not a shared one!)

This education problem, with no particular body available that trains and certifies managers, means there is no easy solution. We can assume—I assume—this to be a long-term challenge for our industry.

However, there are steps we can take to address this issue:

1. As engineering managers and leaders, we can request and invest in more management, leadership, and specifically HR and people training. This includes that we do so on personal capacity.

   I’m speaking from some experience here, having invested increasingly in HR as a key part of management, and currently going through aPHR certification. This more formal HR training has shown me how as EMs, we do more HR work than we think, and it has been eye-opening in terms of realizing just how embarrassingly and worryingly big our field’s training gap is on this side.

2. As a field, we can outline an open self-study curriculum for managers and leaders. Something like an awesome list, compiled and vetted by engineering managers and leaders as well as HR specialists.

3. We can work on this in our organizations, detailing resources, mandating certifications, and offering coaching and mentoring. Some companies do that, of course—but there are others who do little to nothing.

Ultimately, the point is this: It’s possible to become a good developer on the job. But it’s much less easy and likely to become a good manager and leader this way. If there’s any question whether that matters, the answer is, it absolutely does. If we’re not interested in doing our work well, we’re not professionals. We can also only make our field more professional if we become better role models. Finally, improving engineering management and leadership training may be key to stop other troubling trends in our industry—perhaps starting with the pamper-then-fire hypocrisy that has been tainting and damaging it.

The usual disclaimers apply—much respect to everyone in the field (let’s all cherish the many hard-working and well-meaning managers there are despite these challenges!), my experience is different from yours, and the situation may be perfect in other parts of tech world. If I missed something obvious (or something subtle!), please let me know.

PS.
How does this relate to me, then, as an engineering manager? I’ve been both an untrained web developer and an untrained engineering manager. I learned both on the job and auto-didactically. Keeping a long story short—happy to elaborate elsewhere!—, what helped me as an engineering manager was that I took my time switching to the management track. That allowed me to learn from more managers—of which I had extremely good ones, like Mark Rippstein at Google, and also pretty bad ones.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m a frontend engineering leader and tech author/publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead for companies like Google and as an engineering manager for companies like Miro, I’m somewhat close to W3C and WHATWG, and I write and review books for O’Reilly and Frontend Dogma.

I love trying things, not only in web development (and engineering management), but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my views and experiences.

If you’d like to do me a favor, interpret charitably (I speak three languages, and they do collide), yet be critical and give feedback, so that I can make improvements. Thank you!