How do you keep you job as an engineering manager? Even if you are not in that dire of a situation, you still may be asking yourself, "how do I get promoted?!". Well, I assume its a bit different at every company, with every realm of higher-ups you get. Some you may just have to kiss ass to, others, you may actually have to do your job well. But if you are just taking care of your people, then how do you show it? Why does upper management care if you are taking care of your people; some may not really care. But there is a couple of things they do care about that you can work on to prove to your boss you deserve that promotion.
1. Hit Your Dates
Lets back up a second. First you have to commit to your dates. If you live in a modern company, you as a manager will have some sort of influence on the dates that the project is committed to and hopefully a lot of control. The first thing you must recognize is that you should never commit to a date unless your team believes in the date. In fact, I am now so far removed from the day to day work in the project in my current career, that it would be insane for me to commit to anything that my trusted team first didn't agree to. The teams success is my success, and therefore I believe the teams commitment is then my commitment. Often times I'll pull the leads of the engineering projects to discuss dates and feasability. After we decide on something we agree on, we present it to the rest of the engineering team with reasons why we've picked this date. Look around the room for concerned faces; no one will come right out and say "your crazy" to a semi-realistic date, but concerned faces have something to say that they don't want to say. Pick on them to say something and see where the conversation goes. The lead(s) may have forgotten some key factors the other bright minds in the room are picking up on. You'll probably never get 100% buy in from your team on a date, but if over the majority believes in the date, go with it.
Always commit to dates with a certainty percentage. At the beginning of the project your cone of uncertainty is large and you should always remind and give visibility to that. if you say "We'll be done in 6 months" vs. "I'm 45% confident we'll be done in 6 months", people will apply a very different thought process to your estimate. If that jerk in the room says, "45%, what do you mean? Why can't you give me more accuracy?", simply look at him and say, "We haven't written any real code yet". You don't know what problems you'll face, and all the planning in the world won't uncover emerging tasks, although you should estimate you'll have many.
Make sure to look at Company holidays! Also assume each engineer will take a week off some time during the summer months, and a week off during the winter holiday season. Being in the US and having a lot of holidays around December, I always remind producers and product managers "Remember, December is only a 2 week month". This isn't because the holiday the company allows is actually 2 weeks off during December, but a lot of people decide to use their PTO during this time. And the other who are in the office don't have the support to be as effective with all the missing engineers.
Keep visibility on your dates with early and often updates to your managers. It much worse to push back the product 1 week before ship instead of 1-2 months before ship. Regular reports to your managers about the dates and their realism will make you look good, show the team you live in the real world with them, and have your managers discussing timelines in the real world all the time.
Remember that it was going to ship when it was going to ship. If the product shipped in March, but you estimated it would ship in January, it makes you and your team look bad for shipping late. But if you ship in March but you committed to shipping in April it makes you and your team look good. Isn't this a little insane to say the least? The product really shipped in March in both cases! It all comes down to perception of you and your team on your estimates at this point. Don't you want to look good by making your team look good? If so Under Promise, Over Deliver. It will still ship when it ships, and this way it will make you look good!
2. Retain Your People
My mentor told me, "There's two ways you will lose your job, Phil; if you keep missing dates, or you can't retain your people". God knows I don't have any time to do the work; I better damn well keep my people interested, happy, and productive. The actual methods on how to retain your people will vary from company to company, but I find that gaining your place in leadership through respect from your employees is the first step through retaining your employees. I've found a great way to lead is leadership through service. Your position is a place of power, but you need to give that power away to your engineers to let them inform you on the best decisions to make. Beyond that, read a previous article named Engineering 101 which leads to, what I believe, the best way to retain your employees.
3. Hire a Good Team
There is no understating that the people you hire need to be able to get the job done, but never forget about the "meta" in your team and workplace. Usually your team will make it very clear if someone is technically competent or not, but you don't need to worry about that too much, it will fall out in the interview process. But remember your team is essentially a family, take a look at my previous article on "I Don't Want To Interview Candidates" for more detail. The best team develops friendship, that last much longer than the job, and friendship are developed because of personal connections. We're fortunate that we at least all share one common interest, technology, but we probably share many more. Now granted, this isn't to say that you should not hire someone that won't have huge connection with the team if they can get the job done, but you definitely shouldn't hire someone that will clash with the team's friendship culture and detriment other friendships from being formed. And also never forget about the cheerleader on your team. There are some people that may not be the top notch engineer, but HAS such a positive attitude that it brings the rest of the teams morale and productivity up. These types of people are essential catalysts to any great team to keep spirits high, friendships forming, and after work outings happening.
Wrap-up
Do this, document it, and keep this ammo close to your heart. When it comes time to go into a review, or even describe why you were valuable at your last company to your new manager in an interview, this ammo will be invaluable. It will serve you well.
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