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Ask HN: Should Engineering Managers write code?

3 points by sandovn ↗ HN
For engineering managers who started as engineers, the longing to return to coding is real. The satisfaction of solving bugs and writing code contrasts with the draining nature of meetings and managing team dynamics.

1. Yes! Only on non-critical work.

2. Yes! Even on critical work.

3. No! Focus on manager duties.

4. Depends (comment below)

Chhose and explain.

4 comments

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alexrashkov
4.Depends, on many things. How big is the team, is this an engineer transitioning into EM role or are they TLM. Generally managers should be enablers and multipliers. If coding is becoming an obstacle and they are bottleneck for the team, the answer is No!
dave4420
Yes, but on small, self-contained projects so that your engineers don’t have to even think about it.

e.g. You need an internal dashboard but your teams are busy working on customer-facing features? You write it.

One time we suddenly and urgently needed to start caching responses from an external service. My manager wrote something simple in a day or two. Meant that the team didn’t get distracted from the more complex work we were doing.

perezd
I think it's helpful for engineering managers to be technically conversant at a fairly deep level with the technical challenges and domains the team deals with regularly. My reports have told me that in the past, this bolstered their trust in my decision-making and gave me deeper credibility overall.

I didn't do anything terribly difficult/deep, but I think it conveyed a strong, empathetic connection to what they were dealing with that mattered to them.

sandovn
I agree! All managers should have been mid/strong engineers at some point, and have developed stronger soft skills to become a leader. Without the technical knowledge and understanding of the processes one can't have the needed credibility and trust for other engineers.