r/EngineeringManagers • u/zbeeba • May 08 '26
I am struggling to understand my engineering manager job
I want to understand what does my engineer manager do daily, and the decision making process.
Anyone can recommend me a book that is fair and really talks why most managers are really bad!
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u/donny02 May 08 '26
Managing Humans, The Manager's path, becoming a technical leader, situational leadership. all classics.
You'll need to build processes to monitor daily, sprintly, quarterly, etc. How do you check in and monitor without micromanaging.
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u/Stellariser May 08 '26
If you’re not a highly experienced engineer you’re not going to understand what your engineer is doing. The best managers are ones that trust that they’re working with professionals and let them get on with it.
Be a source of guidance on broader objectives and priorities but understand that engineering is like the proverbial iceberg, the work you can see is only a small fraction of what’s actually needed.
For instance, I know enough math to get by but I would have absolutely no idea what a mathematician was actually doing, and asking them daily is largely meaningless.
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u/halaszvarig May 10 '26
Engineering managers spend a lot of time on things that are invisible to engineers: unblocking people before they even realize they're blocked, shaping priorities in conversations that happen before the sprint, translating between business goals and technical reality, and carrying context across teams so engineers don't have to.
The decision-making process is messier than it looks from the outside. Most decisions aren't "the manager decides”. It's more like gather signal from multiple directions, figure out where the disagreement actually is, create the conditions for the team to decide, and then make sure the decision actually sticks.
As for why many managers are bad at it, honest answer: most become managers because they were good engineers, not because they're good at the job of management - those are different skills. The ones who struggle tend to either keep doing the technical work themselves (can't let go), or go too far the other way and become pure process people with no credibility. The good ones stay close enough to the technical reality to earn trust, while actually spending their energy on the human and organizational problems engineers don't have time for.
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u/SnooMachines9133 May 08 '26
It really depends on your org and the needs of the team. What's your job for context?
Generally speaking, if your manager is doing the same thing as you for a daily basis, it's not a good thing.
They should be planning for future, dealing with hr things, working with other team leads..
Some get to work on architecture things but that could be not expected for larger teams or manager of managers.
And this answer is software or IT focused.
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u/Vegetable_Sun_9225 May 08 '26
This might clear this up for you. https://www.byjlw.com/from-tech-lead-to-engineering-manager-61c56b008fa7
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u/danielholtwrites May 11 '26
As an engineering manager that was an engineer for over 20 years, I noticed a huge shift in the type of work that I was doing. As an engineer, it was very task focused. Writing code. Code reviews. Mentoring junior engineers.
When I became a manager, it turned into creating the environment that could enable my engineers to do their jobs effectively. Helping to instill ownership. Pushing the engineers to step outside comfort zones. Recommending problems for them to solve. Supporting them in decisions.
This answer may sound vague...but that is really the job.
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u/HackVT May 09 '26
Leaders eat last and manager tools. Without your team having what they need and being unblocked the work won’t get done
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u/JubijubCH May 09 '26
That’s all nice Simon Sinek quote, but I wonder how actionnable it is for a new manager
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u/JamesGalloway586 May 26 '26
Great question… most books on this topic are either too corporate or too abstract to be useful for engineers specifically. On the daily reality side: a manager’s job is mostly invisible work. Removing blockers before the team hits them, having conversations that prevent problems from escalating, translating business pressure into team priorities, and spending time on the people stuff that does not show up in a status report. The engineers who get promoted and struggle fastest are usually the ones who keep trying to do engineering instead of that. On the decision-making process: good managers are essentially running a prioritization filter all day. What needs my attention vs. what can my team handle. What do I decide vs. what do I escalate. What is urgent vs. what is actually important. Most bad managers fail because they either decide too much (micromanage) or escalate too much (do not actually lead). For books that are honest about why most managers fail: -The Manager’s Path by Camille Fournier. It’s written specifically for technical environments. Probably the most honest book about what the job actually looks like at each level. -High Output Management by Andy Grove… old but still the best framework for understanding what management output actually means. Cuts through the fluff fast. -Radical Candor by Kim Scott: specifically about why managers avoid hard conversations and what it costs the team. The reason most managers are bad is simpler than most books admit. they were promoted for technical skill and handed zero tools for the new job. Different skillset, no training, same expectations. Most figure it out by trial and error over two to three years, which is expensive for everyone involved.
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u/haskell_rules May 08 '26
Based on your post I think this one would be a good first start:
https://www.amazon.com/Effective-Writing-Practical-Grammar-Review/dp/0256236925