3 Strategies Engineering Managers Can Use To Keep Engineers

Figure 1: Photo by Jud Mackrill on Unsplash

I’ve been working in IT for over ten years and have faced various situations in various conditions. I realised that 90% of engineers don’t quit their company but their manager. Unfortunately, most managers who sit at the top levels are getting further from real life.

Engineers want to solve challenges, and they don’t want to play in managers’ games. You are very lucky if you have a manager that really cares about your career and goals.

Sometimes, managers start doing weird things that engineers can’t understand. For instance, they try to optimise processes that don’t need to be optimised, do promotions for unready engineers, and many more. All these things are frustrating for engineers.

So, what are you doing when you are not happy? You try to fix it or change the team. Even worse — the company.

Let’s briefly consider the goals and put the engineering manager as the position between engineers and management staff. The person who should care about you, about the team. The engineering manager’s responsibility is a bit complex and not straightforward for everyone.

At the top of the list, we can put solving engineering problems such as communication, work with teammates, expectations, goals, and career growth. In general, we can call it “build a team.” Also, you may hear that the engineering manager should source and hire new candidates.

Yes and No. Definitely, the engineering manager should try to find proper candidates for the team, but I am not sure they should spend 100% of their time on it. Otherwise, why do we have an HR department?

Build a Team

Figure 2: Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash

I’ve done hundreds of interviews and talked to various candidates. Most of the candidates expect to have interesting tasks and a friendly atmosphere in the team and company.

From this point, we can see: the engineering manager should have ideas about what to do next and how to improve a project or particular feature. You may contradict me and say, “we have a product manager!” and you will be 100% right, but product managers think about the product and not about the technical side.

As the engineering manager, you should care about future projects from the technical side. You can think more and say: “hmm, what about technical lead/architect? They should think about the technical side.” — and you will be right again, but these people have so much work, and they could be in other teams. You may consider the engineering manager a bridge between engineers (including technical leads) and product people.

If your engineers don’t know what to do next — they find a new team.

It can be a challenge to find something alone, but you are not alone — you have the team. Feel free to brainstorm and discuss with the team what we should improve. You will be shocked at how many ideas your engineers bring to the table.

Important. After the discussion, the engineering manager should push the initiatives to the roadmap and plan the work. Otherwise, you spend time for nothing, and everybody sees it.

The engineering manager should set up the processes. Of course, they are not scrum masters, but the right processes are fundamental to tracking the progress. Let’s not hard stop on this, but I’d recommend discussing it with the team if you want to change something. It can be a chance that there is no need to change anything.

Handle Conflicts

Figure 3: Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash

We are human beings and make mistakes. That’s why in each team, you will face some conflicts. The conflicts can be local or go out of the team. A good engineering manager prevents such cases. But unfortunately, we don’t have simple steps to do it. Each case should be reviewed individually, and you should find the right words and the following actions.

As it is a long story and can be a huge book, I would not cover everything right now. But I’d recommend talking to people. Good conversation and understanding engineers’ pain help you find the approach. No worries, if you can’t do it at the beginning, you also grab the experience and knowledge.

The engineering manager hears their engineers and advice them like an older brother. But not the father.

Finally, If you can’t make a deal with the engineers and you both can’t find a common language — let him go. The changing team can benefit everyone. That’s real life, and that’s good.

Growth and career path

One of the complicated topics is engineering growth and career path. The engineering manager should collect the engineers’ feedback and understand what each engineer wants to reach and their goal. I assume you have a 1-on-1 call with everyone, and here is the best place to discuss it. Do not sit and listen — collaborate. You may create a document where you both can write the goals and track the progress.

Collaborate. The engineer’s goal should not be linked to the company’s plans

Moreover, the engineer’s goal should not be related to the company’s plans. It is what the engineer wants to reach in the nearest future. Ideally, the engineering manager should find a way to align the engineer and the company’s goals. On your 1-on-1 calls, you should track the progress and together discuss what to do next.

Remember, you should not think about the engineer’s growth on 1-on-1 calls only, but you should remember it during daily work. For instance, you may start a new project that can be suitable for the engineer.

When you promote someone, be sure all engineers understand why you did it. Check if they have any concerns about it, especially your top engineers.

Monitor the Hiring

Figure 4: Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

As mentioned above, some top-level managers may tell you to do sourcing and find candidates. I can’t say I agree with it. The engineering manager cares about the team and building the team. We can say that building the team includes hiring, but it is the second work. Moreover, if the engineering manager has the technical expertise, they may participate in technical discussions and thus don’t have time. Be open to your managers and discuss what you can and can’t do about hiring.

Do not postpone your work for a team in favour of hiring.

The HR team will help you source the candidates.

Let engineers go

It can be hard to accept, but it is normal when engineers leave a team or company. For example, the engineer may be stuck on a position and knowledge level, or a company is on pause mode and can’t find a good project for the engineer. Anyway, you should not pull the engineer if you see that you can’t help them to grow. It is better to let go and stay friends.

That’s not all that an engineering manager should do, but they are the most important things. It is not easy to be between the technical and product sides, and you should understand that the team is a living organism where everything is changing and growing.

Be careful and listen to your teammates; you are all together. The conversation and good small talk, even somewhere in the cafe, may help you to have strong connections with engineers and build a strong team that can do everything.

If you are still here and think this first part is valuable and interesting, I will continue to share the following:

• How we work daily in detail
• What the cases we faced and how we solved them
• How we changed the teams, promoted, and what outcomes we got
• How we are building the processes
• How we work together

Thanks for reading!