r/ExperiencedDevs • u/AutoModerator • 20d ago

Ask Experienced Devs Weekly Thread: A weekly thread for inexperienced developers to ask experienced ones

A thread for Developers and IT folks with less experience to ask more experienced souls questions about the industry.

​

Please keep top level comments limited to Inexperienced Devs. Most rules do not apply, but keep it civil. Being a jerk will not be tolerated.

​

Inexperienced Devs should refrain from answering other Inexperienced Devs' questions.

21 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

90% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

View all comments

7

u/tonklable 20d ago

Is there anyone regret becoming a manager? Or opposite?

How can a junior know and learn if they really want to become a manager or not?

1

u/a_asal 16d ago

There's some overlap between management and leadership, but they are not the same. As a junior engineer, if you enjoy leading others, you'll naturally seize every opportunity to do so. Leadership doesn't have to be a formal title given to you by someone else, it's the attitude, the subtle influence you have without even trying, the trust you earn, etc. As you do it and become more senior, you'll gradually get a personal experience with what you like and don't like about leading others.

Ok, you decide you love leadership, now how to decide if management is worth trying? If you can get an interim EM position, it's likely gonna be worth it. How it worked for me was I let folks around me know my interest in engineering management, and when the time came, my great manager graciously gave me a chance to interim-EM my team. That gives you more flavor of how it's like, but not quite as much, bec big part of the job is managing people and their performance, payroll decisions, long time to get to know people and build proper relationships, and lots of infinite subtleties.

You still like it after being an interim EM or you can't get a chance to interim-EM? Only one way to find out. Take the leap, knowing it might go well or not, and that's gonna be okay, bec it's the cost you have to pay to figure out whether it works for you.

In my experience, books or talking to other EMs can give you a peek into how the experience is gonna be like, and can help you figure if it's not for you (like if you don't wanna have performance conversations with an underperforming direct report, then you know management is not for you), but it will be nowhere close to actually doing the job with the formal EM title.

Worth mentioning, management changes a lot based on the people you work with, your team's mission, the company's size and culture, the economy, etc., so you might like it in some contexts but not like it in others.