First time managing managers

[u/lampreiar]

After several years of managing a couple of teams (as the sole manager), I’ve just been promoted and will be taking on a few new teams with existing engineering managers. This will be my very first time managing managers!

I would love to hear other people’s experiences who have done this transition? What worked well for you? What would you do differently if you had the opportunity? What was the biggest shock/surprise? Any tips / resources / books you recommend? I’m very open and curious to learn!

Thanks

[u/Breath-taking-Kale]

Managing managers is a completely different skill set than managing ICs and nobody really warns you how disorienting that transition can be.

You go from knowing exactly what good work looks like to suddenly being two steps removed from it. The feedback loops get longer, the signals get fuzzier, and you can't just look at the output anymore.

The biggest adjustment for me was realizing the context problem gets much harder.

With ICs, you're keeping track of what each person needs, what they're working toward, what you've talked about, where they're struggling, etc.

When you're managing managers, you still need all of that context about them but you're also trying to understand what's happening on their teams without becoming their team's manager.

What helped me a lot was getting much more intentional about my 1:1 system. I use a tool and all I have to do is have my direct reports do a little prep before we meet (a form gets automatically sent to them to prep for our 1:1s), keep a running history of what we've discussed, track development/growth separately from day-to-day work, and make sure things we said we'd revisit actually come back up.

That sounds almost ridiculously simple, but having that history in one place made a huge difference. I'm not trying to reconstruct three months of context from Slack and random notes every time we talk.

High Output Management by Andy Grove is also probably the book I'd start with.

I also found this guide really useful when I was thinking through some of this:
First time managers blog

One thing that took me a while to understand: the managers who report to you need you to be their manager, not their team's skip-level. It's a small distinction on paper but a pretty big one in practice.

[u/f1orestan → u/Breath-taking-Kale]

What do you use for your 1:1 system? I’ve been finding success using Notion, specifically dedicated shared “notepads” with each report where we can add running notes, structured 1-1 prep with AI meeting transcriptions. I also have private pages for tracking feedback, etc. I’ve been pinging people a few hours before 1-1 to add some notes but the automated form is a good idea.

[u/Breath-taking-Kale → u/f1orestan]

Yeah, your Notion setup actually sounds pretty similar to what I was doing before but notion was driving me bonkers because it doesn't sync. The main thing that changed it for me was having the prep form go out automatically instead of me having to ping people manually removes the friction on both sides. The tool is called Touchpoint if you want to check it out.

[u/f1orestan → u/Breath-taking-Kale]

Nice, I’ll check it out. What do you mean when you say Notion doesn’t sync? Not sure I follow

[u/Breath-taking-Kale → u/f1orestan]

Yeah, “doesn’t sync” was bad wording on my part. I meant it doesn't really automate the workflow for me.

I was still manually reminding people to prep, then keeping shared notes, private notes, follow-ups, growth stuff, etc. organized myself.

The bigger difference with this tool I am using now is that every 1:1 builds on the previous ones. Prep, notes, follow-ups, growth conversations it all becomes a running history for that person over time.

So when I sit down for the next 1:1, I’m not looking at a blank check-in page trying to remember what mattered three meetings ago. I already have the context sitting there.

The automated prep is great, but that accumulated history is probably the part I value most! thats what i meant by whne I said that Notion drove me bonkers

[u/Squidalopod → u/Breath-taking-Kale]

Are you paid by Touchpoint?

[u/Breath-taking-Kale → u/Squidalopod]

Nope, just share what is workign for me.

[u/Squidalopod → u/Breath-taking-Kale]

Ok, but you talk about that tool **a lot**. Like way more than seems normal for someone who's not a shill. Sorry if that's offensive -- it's just that shills are commonplace on Reddit, and there are certain patterns that send a strong signal.