STRESSED as a New Engineering Manager - But There's a Catch!

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What's up, folks? We are driving home. It's rainy as hell today. We're going to Reddit before I actually start driving here. This is from Experience Devs and it's dealing with an extreme dealing with extreme stress as a new EM. Uh, I did a quick scan through this um cuz obviously not going to read and drive at the same time. That would be quite negligent. Um, but essentially this person goes on to explain their situation where um they're talking about being very stressed out as a new engineering manager. They're at a big tech company. They also go on to say things like um they don't have a lot of autonomy. Uh they're actually working very closely aside their engineering manager. Um they are saying that some of the things that their team like they have a clear charter on their team which is which is helpful but unfortunately it seems like there's some misalignment with what they need to focus on for their charter and what the business actually values out of them.

Right? So kind of puts you in this weird situation of like hey if we do what's expected of us or what we're told is expected of us that doesn't seem to actually align with what what we're being measured against. So, that's kind of a a weird gray territory. Um, but the most interesting part of this whole post, which is like it's kind of included as a little detail that's right at the top of the post, is when they said, "I'm a new engineering manager at a, you know, uh, fan company." They go on to say, "I don't officially have the title yet. I'm a senior engineer, but I don't officially have the title yet of the engineering manager." And this, if you scan the comments on this thread, this is the entire focus of what everyone is talking about because it's a it's a weird spot.

So, we'll get into that. This is a friendly reminder for folks if uh you're new here. If you want to uh leave comments below on questions that you'd like me to discuss or topics, happy to do so. Uh if you want to be kept anonymous, you can go ahead and send a message to Dev Leader on social media. Uh it's my main YouTube channel as well that has edited down videos so it's not just me blabbing in a car while I drive. Um, and another friendly reminder, too. If this is a helpful conversation and you want to share it back to Reddit, that would do wonders for me. The more people that check out the channel, the more it grows and then my ad revenue can cover the cost of me driving in the fast lane, which would be which would be great. Um, it is super rainy today, which means I'm fully expecting this drive is going to be absolute ass.

Um, especially because even though it's Seattle, people can't drive at all when it's raining. Uh, and also the highways, for some reason, for as much as it rains, the highways don't do a good job of uh of having water flow off. So, it's just like all around the worst of everything. And I'm driving home to get to a live stream that if I don't start on time, it doesn't actually go to the right channels properly. So, everything's great. Um, but let's talk about this, right? So, this person's expressing a lot of frustration, right? Um, and I think the way that they document the things in their post, I think it's like makes sense, right? It would be frustrating to be uh to be an engineering manager and feel like you don't really have autonomy. I've absolutely felt this before in my career. Um I got to move lanes.

This guy is not not driving. Um, and it's it's frustrating because when you're in a management position or you're trying to lead a group of people and you don't have autonomy, like what are you actually doing at that point, right? Like you you don't get to make decisions. You don't get to you're not empowered to make decisions. Oh man, hydroplaning. Um, so, so like what do you end up doing? You just become a pass through, right? Like it's someone else's decision and now you're just the messenger, which is, uh, I think probably the least fun and least enjoyable thing that you could possibly do. So, I totally get it. uh that if you're in a position where you're expected to lead or manage and you can't have decision-making power uh or any autonomy, then yeah, like that would be very frustrating. But we're going to keep going back to this, right?

This person is a senior software engineer. They've not been given the title of engineering manager. And the reality is if you don't have the title and that's not your role, it's also not going to be part of your responsibility to be doing those things. And the other unfortunate thing here is like that's unlikely to change, right? like you're going to you're constantly going to be in this position until you are given the role where because it's not your role yet like you you don't make those decisions. It's going to be hard to have people on the team or you need to be able to step in and make you know decisions uh where people can't agree and you have to step in to be the tiebreaker. Like who cares? like you are you are I don't I don't mean to say just the senior software engineer but you're not put in the position where you you have the authority to do that.

It's not an expectation of you. So by by kind of assuming that that is the expected behavior of you. It's going to set you up for failure. So what we don't know from reading this uh unfortunately this person's tailgating me like crazy. That's what we don't know. Um, what we don't know is like the conversation this person's had with their manager, right? If their manager is like, "Oh, like next next promo cycle definitely you're getting it." Um, like we don't know that, but that's like a really unfair thing to do in my opinion. Um, because like anything could change anything. So, when you're setting this person up, and again, we don't know if this is actually happening. If this is all kind of in this person's head, what are you honking at me for? You're trying to merge, but you're not even getting in front. I don't This is the most moronic thing yet I've seen today, aside from this person's window sticker.

Come on, man. This is a day where I'd want the 360 camera going so you could see what's going on here. Um, but it's raining and it doesn't work in the rain. Yeah. Wave. God. H. It's been a day. It's been It's been some weeks. Anyway, um, what we don't know from this is like the conversation that's happening between this person and their engineering manager. So if we take one side of it, maybe the engineering manager is making promises to this person and we don't know if they can actually keep them. But the problem with this, aside from not being able to keep promises, is that you're setting people up in a position where like they don't have the role yet. They're they're kind of set up for failure this way, right? It's not fair to other team members. It's a weird dynamic. Like it's just like everything about it's just weird.

Um, and I I wouldn't expect people to be very successful when you do this. The other thing that could be happening is that this person has read into something too much. Maybe just I'm making this up, right? We don't know. Maybe this person has expressed to their engineering manager, I would like to be an engineering manager. Um, you know, that's my that's my goal. Maybe their engineering manager was like, "Yeah, I think that you're working towards that because they're acknowledging what this person's focuses have been." And then this person, again, I'm it's obviously contrived. I don't actually know what's going on, but maybe this person reads too much into it and they're going, "Oh, well that that must mean that must mean that they think I'm going to be the engineering manager here." like and it might sound to you like this is a ridiculous

stretch but it's not because I've seen maybe not with an engineering manager position but I've seen people interpret different things uh sort of however they want to hear it and because we don't get to observe the conversations that are happening here we don't actually know the details right So, um, I'm calling this out because one, let's pretend that you're in this person's position, okay? And you have an engineering manager that's kind of promising you some things like this. Um, the the reality is like you can't you can't keep promises like this. You can't. Um, so I'm I'm trying to caution you against these types of situations if you're on the receiving end of such a potential promotion, right? Promises like this cannot be kept. It doesn't mean that the the engineering manager can't try. They can promise that they're going to try, but they can't guarantee it.

And why not? Well, because when this stuff goes forward, like it may have to go to uh you know, this person's manager, right? Now, their their manager's manager might has have to sign off on it depending on the level and the role that could go to a panel of people that isn't even part of the conversation right now. So, and I've seen this firsthand. I've seen this firsthand where I put someone up for promotion, my manager is like, "Yep, I agree based on your evidence." My skip level agrees based on the evidence, goes to a panel of people that I don't know who they are. I have, you know, assumptions and then it gets rejected. I have been in situations where I have uh been promoting people off cycle. Okay? Okay. And for those of you that aren't familiar with this, it depends where you work and how things work, but there's sometimes situations where there's uh like primary promotion periods, like a main promotion period.

It happens like once a year, and then there could be like an off cycle, which is the exact opposite time of the year. Where I work at Microsoft, that is the case, but there's also like two spots in between that are smaller, but there's definitely potential um you know, if there's budget and stuff like that, you can put people forward. I have been in a situation where there was budget but just enough budget for one person in the organization and I went through multiple rounds of basically not quite like battling other engineering managers but like having conversations with other engineering managers to basically demonstrate this is why I believe my employees should go forward and literally had conversations with other emote people for that one spot and they basically said, "You know what?

I think that you're based on what you're saying, your person actually is more is more ready for this promotion." And I made the mistake of telling my employee, "By the way, here's what I've done, and we should be in a good spot." Then you know what happened? Turns out there wasn't budget. So I had done literally everything that I could including this is a bit of a rare case where it was like having to you know like battle other engineering managers to make a case for it and then in the end it's like oh surprise no actual budget and then I have to go have a conversation with someone to say uh just kidding right So, lesson learned, right? And like it's a lesson I should have known. Don't make promises like that. Even if it seems like it's a sure shot until it's actually done, it's not done.

So, this is my caution to you. If someone's promising this kind of stuff, it's not done until it's done. And if you read through this Reddit thread, there's a lot of people saying like, "Hey, like open your eyes here. Maybe they're saying it in a different way, but it's like you don't have that role." So, you're basically living through this frustration and these challenges for no real good reason except that you've kind of fabricated that you have this role. Okay. So that's one part. The other part if we kind of go back to these different angles here is if your manager has not directly even so I was saying they promised you this and I said they can't keep that promise necessarily.

um if they haven't like you know it's it's one thing to be in a position where you're like I'm trying to demonstrate that I'm operating either at the next level or demonstrating that I can do the things for this role but those like in that situation and you'll hear this a lot right if you're you're a mid-level engineer and you want to be senior you have to be already acting like a senior before someone will promote you Um, if it's coming at the cost of you not being able to do your job or not be able to keep your sanity, like odds are that this is not a sustainable thing. Doesn't mean ever and it doesn't mean that you're not capable of it, but however you're doing it is not sustainable. And that's the thing I want you to consider here because if this person's like, well, I'm doing all this stuff and like, you know, it's going to be okay once once I am the engineering manager.

No, it's not. Now, that's going to be your actual expectation. You got to let me in, buddy. It's a zipper merge. Come on, stop being stupid. Come on. So painful. It says that I'm going to be home like I'm going to almost miss my live stream. Stupid. Okay, I'm probably not going to do this video the whole length of my drive home because I don't have too many more thoughts after this next thing I want to say. But it's a really good point that someone else brought up on the thread. And um I've talked about this in a couple of videos before and sometimes it's not obvious for people especially because like a I don't know like a classic view of careers is like you're the individual contributor and you keep going up in level and then at some point the natural progression in your career is you become the manager.

Right? It's a very sort of classic view of this kind of stuff, but it's very misguided and in my opinion very out ofd because they're different roles. It is a horizontal move to move into a management role. It is a different role oftent times and I think why it gets confusing is oftent times there's a level discrepancy, right? You don't have like you'll have junior software engineers. You don't have junior managers, right? You don't put someone who doesn't have much experience like entry level and career managing people because that would be disastrous. So, there's usually this discrepancy. Let me in. Let me in. Um but it doesn't mean Oh, there's no one here. Nice. Um it doesn't mean that going like from one level sorry one role to the next is automatically should be a promotion right what I'm saying is sometimes that happens naturally because because of how the roles are structured but the actual work that's involved they're entirely like horizontal roles.

Engineering managers are about people leadership, managing people. That's what the role is. There's different flavors of this depending on where you work, but it's a completely different set of skills and expectations. Oh, there's a cop coming up beside me. Act cool. Nice. Anyway, um different set of skills and expectations, right? So, I think some people get very caught off guard by this and when they don't acknowledge that this is just a completely different role and then they're stressed out by it, it's like, yeah, like if you're not expecting that it's going to be very different, I could see why you'd be very stressed out thinking that like all of a sudden you're like, why am I dealing with like these people conversations.

Why do I have to talk to to Billy and Bobby that they can't, you know, they can't agree on things or that I have to talk to an employee that has like a really difficult uh time like with stuff outside of work or another employee that's like they feel lost in their career. There's so many things that happen that aren't just write the code. And it doesn't mean that like you're not cut out for it or you could never do it or like Nick is sitting here trying to gatekeep. Not the case at all. Uh, it's just like if you're not expecting that that's what it's going to be, then you're probably going to be caught off guard. Maybe you find out that you love all of those things and it's a pleasant surprise, but I would say that's probably a rare thing.

So back to what's happening in this thread like a lot of people are saying man like you know your title is senior software engineer if you are trying to do the engineering manager role while there is an engineering manager there one that alone the fact that there's already an engineering manager there and you're trying to do it that alone is going to be problematic but number two you aren't an engineering manager so you've just created created you fabricated all of these challenges that you're trying to deal with. So yeah, it's going to be stressful. So a lot of people are saying like step back from it, right? Like you are trying to do too much and you shouldn't be and what you're feeling is the side effect of trying to do too much and things that you shouldn't be doing. Right? This is why you're feeling like this is driving you nuts.

You're totally stressed out all the time. It's it's the wrong things. This is also why I said even if it was the right things, right? Even if it was say say say say say say say say say say say say there isn't already an engineering manager there and say that they had just been given the promotion so it's real if you are finding that you're just trying to operate and you're falling apart it may it very well might be that this was not the right move. Okay, now I want to take I feel like maybe I can blab about this for the rest of the drive. So, we'll see. Maybe I want to take a very different perspective on this now that I've said that all that stuff out loud because I think it's a fun thought experiment and I think that I don't know. I feel like I'm not doing it justice if I don't try to take this angle because it leaves a lot open.

Let's pretend. Let's pretend this manager can actually uh keep their word. And let's pretend that this person does get promoted. And let's pretend that now they're doing this job and they're feeling all this stuff where they're like, "This is not sustainable. Like, I'm totally stressed out all the time. How do I navigate this?" Now, unfortunately, because I'm driving, I'm not going to pull the Reddit thread back up to see some of their other meta points. So, I can't like can't touch on all of them. Um, the one thing that I I said at the beginning of this video that stood out to me was around like our team's charter and what the business is uh measuring us against or the business values, right? Um, this might be something I can focus on uh for the rest of the drive.

Um, but the other I think the other thing I kind of just wanted to say was like I was I think I was making it sound like, "Hey, you're not ready for this and like therefore you're screwed." And I that's not really fair. Um, because maybe the person is genuinely ready for this kind of thing, but their situation is a little bit unique and we should explore that together and talk through what they can do. So, I wanted to be transparent. This is how I'm trying to think about addressing this. Um, if one of the things that's really getting them caught off guard or stressing them out is really like their team's charter, um, it's the what the business is expecting of them.

I think personally this is an opportunity to talk to their manager or their skip um and to try getting alignment because if what they're experiencing right this is the pressure we feel this is how um people seem to be measuring us versus we've been told our charter is X if that's not aligned like now the incentive is off and that's going to feel very problematic so I want to acknowledge that Um, I can talk about different points in time and I've talked about this for my This car has got to stop beeping at me, man. Um, I've talked about different points in time where before Microsoft even uh, you know, I had a prototyping team. I had a mobile acquisition team. I had a team that was like uh, g we had the funny nickname the expendables where we went in and helped other teams.

Um, we have I've literally lived this kind of situation where we have a team charter and what we're being measured against or what's expected of us is no longer aligning with the charter. This has even happened at Microsoft on my previous team. Okay. So what it feels like is confusing and I can talk about this from the perspective of an engineering manager and I can channel like as I talk through this what some of my employees were saying because as an engineering manager I'm in this position where I have to get people rallied behind the work that we're supposed to be doing like we have a team charter right now what happens is that I have these other things that are coming up where the business is saying, "Yeah, but we need your team to do this." And I look at it like, "Hey, look, that's not really what our team's charter is.

We already have plans. We already like we got these things." So, part of me needs to question, is that actually what our team's charter is? And like, is it just we have to rep prioritize? In which case, okay, let's talk through that. Or is it like, hey, our team doesn't really do this, but I need to take like a step back and zoom out and say, okay, the organization or the business needs this to get done. If I compare this set of work against what our team's charter is, can we have a conversation about this and say that this new priority that's come up is actually more important than our team's charter? And that's a really hard pill to swallow because I have lived through this where that is the case, right? I have I have lived through this on my the one of the teams I had at the startup at the digital forensics company.

We were building mobile acquisition software. There was a period of time where we stopped building it and we pivoted. We pivoted to go help other teams. We gave up our entire charter. And the reason for that is because we were already able to help. We were already stepping in to help. Now, what ends up happening is that we're being told, hey, like we need you to go do this. We need you to go do this. And we're going, that's not our charter, though. But the reality is from a business impact and what the business needs, it was more valuable. So it becomes very confusing because it's like an identity crisis, right? We keep saying our team's charter is X, but we keep being given work for for Y. What's going on here? Is this just a temporary thing? Like when do we go back to normaly?

Um you know, doing this kind of work causes a lot of friction for us. It's like it's it's it feels very randomizing at first and then it starts to become like a wait a second. Is this the new normal? Um what's another example from my my previous team at Microsoft? Um we had uh so my previous team at Microsoft on the deployment team my team's charter was focusing on um deployment timing. So how long we spend in a deployment from the perspective of a single machine. So it's really like a performance and optimization team from the perspective of a single machine deploying. And so this is our charter, right? When I started there, it was all about driving that time down. If you were looking at the perspective of one machine, how fast can we make it go? And this is so that a couple things.

One is like it's efficiency, right? The less time we spend deploying, the more time that machine spends servicing customers. So efficiency. The other part is agility because if there's an issue and we need to be able to deploy faster, we want to make like that would be agility so that we can get fixes out faster, right? Um we we can do uh more interesting things with how our systems orchestrated. So if you're really slow to deploy a machine, then you lose agility in terms of what you can do when you're orchestrating things. high level. That was our charter and we did this and everything was focused around this. Then what started to happen was there was enough projects that were organizationwide that were coming in that were critical. We'd have things like security waves. We would have things that were uh sort of updating our our fundamentals of for lack of better word.

um or we'd have partner team dependencies that we had to go update because these were like organizational priorities. These needed to get done. So what happens is it starts with like okay I'll get I can get one person for my team to help and then the next priority comes up and it's like okay I'll get someone else to help. And when you do this like oneoff kind of thing, what ends up happening is that you reach a point where you're like, man, there's not much of the team left, but the reality is they're working on really impactful stuff or really critical things for for moving things forward. They're just not part of the team's charter. Now, to channel people on the team, again, it's like I would have people saying, "Hey, I'm happy to help. Like, I get that this isn't what we normally do, but if this is truly what the priority is, like I hear you.

So happy to help. I understand. Cool. And this kind of happens like in these one-off situations until over time we're doing like team sync meetings and it's like this team sync meeting doesn't even help because we're not a team working on things together. It's a group of individuals working on different work streams. And then people start asking the question. It's like when do we go back to what we're normally doing, right? So, it's very confusing. And uh I just wanted to say that like man, I got to move over lanes. Sorry, I need one sec before I can think. Um, oh, this Audi wants to chase me. Um, when this kind of thing comes up, it needs to be a conversation like for me with my manager and my skip. It needs to be because like my like I I have the responsibility to my team, right?

There's a responsibility that I have to the business to try and make sure that we're helping support the business, focus on the most important things coming from a startup. That's my mindset, right? We'll pivot. We'll do what we need to do. We're we're going to be agile. I know everyone hates that word, but we're going to we're going to adapt and we're going to focus on what the business needs. But at some point when you start to lose the team's identity, I have a responsibility to my team so that they understand what's going on and I don't want them to be confused about what the team is put together for. So because I have that responsibility, I have to have conversations with my manager, my skip to be able to say, "Hey, look, here's what's going on. Like I know that this stuff's important. I know the business value behind it.

I don't need to be convinced. That's not what this is about. What this is about is understanding like what is the future of how this team is structured? What should my messaging be to the team? Because if there's no line or you know end in sight for when this stuff's going to happen, like why is the team organized this way, right? So I need to bring visibility into that. So for this one person's point about like hey we're um sort of our uh our team's charter is not like measured pardon me not really aligned with like how the business is measuring us. I would say have have conversations.