Here is my opinion as to what is required from an engineering manager in order to be effective.

1. Technical guidance

While not necessarily the best coder on the team any longer, the Engineering manager has a strong technical background, high-level knowledge of key systems, and expertise in architecture and distributed system design. They are able to drive the software design process and challenge even the best engineers.

The EM should be up-to-date with the latest technology trends, aware of the emerging tools and practices, and advocating for their adoption where beneficial.

2. People management

A people-first focus is essential. The engineering manager is on one hand a supportive coach and mentor, and on the other, a demanding stakeholder with clear expectations. The engineering manager meets frequently with the individuals on the team to provide direct support and feedback.

3. Coaching-based leadership

The engineering manager can adopt a coaching style, where they take a genuine interest in helping their team members, partnering with them to help them solve their biggest challenges. There are different schools of thought with regards to coaching. Remember though that not everyone is equally coachable and the manager’s ability to act as a coach is fundamentally limited due to the power dynamic. It is important to recognise the unique qualities of each individual, in order to tailor the coaching- or leadership-style accordingly.

4. Trust, compassion and empathy

A psychologically-safe environment enables team members to speak up, give feedback, and ask tough questions. The team can’t be more than the sum of its parts unless team members are able to contribute. The goal is to create an inclusive environment that celebrates diverse perspectives. One might be on the right path if team members as free to speak with or without their manager present.

Trust is rightly difficult to earn. The manager can start by helping their team mates with their biggest problems, seeking out and acting on feedback, building relationships by being genuinely curious, checking their ego at the door, being as open as possible, and bringing their authentic selves to work.

5. Project management

Prioritising and balancing delivery across multiple projects is the bread-and-butter of the engineering manager. They are responsible for all stages of the project lifecycle, from definition to identifying dependencies, roadmapping and execution.

6. Hiring and developing talent

The engineering manager either drives recruiting entirely or partners with recruiters to create and publish job descriptions, field and interview candidates, analyse gaps and team composition, and ultimately make hiring decisions, including formulating and negotiating the offer. Assessing “fit” is key.

The EM is then responsible to onboard and train the team member, encouraging a culture of continuous learning, and facilitating such training as necessary.

7. Strategic alignment

It’s critical that the team is focused on the right topics, where it can have the most impact. The engineering manager needs to represent the customer as well as translate the company’s strategic vision to the team members.

A few ways to do this:

• Explain the ‘why’ of the company’s top priorities in the team setting as well as one-on-ones
• Highlight opportunities for team members to contribute to important projects of interest that they might not be aware of
• Encourage the creation of a customer-centric roadmap for the team which incorporates engineering, business, product and design goals

8. Stakeholder management

Communication to internal and external stakeholders needs to be carefully managed. The engineering manager must act as the contact point for the team, surface progress and challenges to the right people, and become extremely effective at saying no.

The EM should foster transparent communication to ensure clarity and avoid misunderstandings.

9. Team vision and purpose

The engineering manager needs to work with the team and it’s key stakeholders to establish a compelling “why”. The team needs to know what it does and where it is going, so that it can focus and work harmoniously towards its goals. A team without a common purpose is not a team. A strong engineering manager works with the team to create an overall vision and strategy that supports the big picture.

The team’s vision should be periodically reviewed and refreshed to ensure ongoing alignment with organisational goals.

10. Strategic goal setting

The team needs a small number of high-impact goals to which the entire team can contribute. These should be aligned with the biggest needs of the customer and the company’s strategy. The engineering manager needs to be adept at identifying these opportunities and inspiring the team accordingly.

There may be a mix of both long- and short-term goals.

11. Agile methodology

When it comes down to the nuts-and-bolts of how the team works together, the engineering manager should be an expert. They should train the team in suitable ways of working, effective planning, following-through on commitments and continuous improvement through e.g. regular retrospectives.

While Agile is an effective framework, the EM should be flexible and receptive to the needs of the team, adapting to what works rather than following the manual.

12. Operations

The engineering manager is responsible for ensuring systems reliability and uptime. They need to implement effective round-the-clock support for critical services and ensure that urgent tasks are completed in time. Effective disaster recovery, incident handling and risk management are crucial.

13. Performance management

Positive reinforcement, and recognising and rewarding excellence, are highlights of the role. Beyond that, the EM is responsible for performance reviews, promotions, PIPs and firing. Working with HR on this is key. This is a difficult but essential part of the job. The learning curve here can be significant so it’s important that aspiring engineering managers find a way to build competence here.

14. Metrics and KPIs

How is the team doing? How do we know if the team is successful? The engineering manager is responsible for defining and regularly communicating the key performance indicators for the team. You manage what you measure. An efficient process quickly highlights areas where attention is needed, while minimising toil and time investment.

A strong EM focuses not only on business-related metrics, but also people metrics, relating to team satisfaction, mental health, and sense of belonging.

15. Ethical leadership and culture role-modelling

The engineering manager must ‘live’ the values of the organisation, because their actions and behaviour will be mirrored by their team members. Fairness, consistency, impartiality and convictions of right and wrong will steer the manager through inevitable moral dilemmas. It is not the manager’s role to enact justice, merely to behave as properly befits the station. There are many ethical frameworks to which one can subscribe, for example, the various major religions, Roman/Greek philosophy or a humanist approach.

16. Stress and attention management

The first person that the engineering manager must manage is themselves. The manager is the contact point for the team and ultimately responsible for everything that the team delivers. Senior management will look to the engineering manager for all manner of tasks, from important, strategic initiatives, to urgent, operational tasks.

Practices such as prayer, meditation and exercise can assist with channeling stress productively, and hone the ability to direct and focus attention. Resilience is an asset to the engineering manager.

Avoid reactiveness, communicating while angry, or forwarding problems without filtering. It is the hallmark of the seedy manager to “kick down while kissing up” — better to practice the art of saying ‘no’ and acting as much as possible as a mud umbrella for the team.

An EM must be vigilant to the signals from one’s own body, learning to recognise early signs of burnout not only in themselves, but in their teammates, too.

17. Prioritisation and time management

With such a litany of responsibilities, prioritisation of the engineering manager’s work becomes a challenge in its own right. It is not possible or necessary to pay equal attention to all topics at all times.

Some items that can help with prioritisation:

• Focus on the customer, people and strategic objectives
• Eisenhower urgent/important matrix
• Bucketing tasks into P1, P2, P3
• Purposeful delegation; keeping track of what can versus cannot be delegated and to what extent
• Effective frameworks for personal productivity, covering your calendar and email, such Getting Things Done and Inbox Zero
• An optimised calendar with times blocked for one-on-ones, individual contributor work, strategic thinking and personal review.

Time management extends beyond the EM, to ensure. that the team as a whole is neither overburdened, nor underutilised.

Conclusion: A role with many hats

There is no limit to the tasks that an Engineering manager might have to complete to keep the team in top form, stakeholders satisfied and delivery on-track. In this sense, the manager acts like an owner of the business rather than an employee with a limited job description.

Overall the goal is to build a high-performing team while delivering the most impact possible.

What did I miss? Please add your comments and thoughts below 👇

A huge thank you to the community on LinkedIn who contributed to this post with feedback and suggestions.