Image showing an astronaut contemplating in space. Image generated by DALL.E2

As alluring it is to discuss the metaphysical aspects of life in relation to this post’s title, that is not the focus of this post. Nor is this an autobiography. This post is in fact about the fluidity of the role of an engineering manager.

Scene 1 - A small team in a service based start up, Neverland

“Engineering Manager: New year, New resolutions!! I will work on a plan for clearing the tech debt today!! 🚀

Client: Hey, Can you send us the budget estimates for the next financial year?

Engineering Manager: 🙄 “

Scene 2 - A scale-up team, Earth

“Team Lead: Finally, what a triumphant sprint it has been!! just one last code review ✊

Business Team: Ahem, time for the sprint report please….

Team Lead: 😫 “

Sounds familiar?

Engineering managers are responsible for all technical aspects of a project: architecture and code quality; people management and motivation; and the all-important communication with stakeholders.

Software organisations in scale up phase tend to have smaller teams where there aren’t well defined roles. These smaller teams are often without a product manager/delivery manager/project manager. In these cases, the team lead or the engineering manager has to wear multiple hats and take in additional responsibilities. These responsibilities are added on top of the core technical leadership role that defines the engineering manager. The responsibilities are fluid and there is an overlap of multiple roles.

I too have been part of such scale up teams. In this post, I reflect on the additional responsibilities taken by an engineering manager in a scaling up team or in a small organisation.

Product responsibilities

In smaller organisations, some of the ways an engineering manager contributes to growth of product are:

• Aligning with stakeholders on product priorities
• Prioritising and managing the product backlog
• Making strategic decisions about product development
• Collecting and analysing metrics to measure product success

Project responsibilities

An engineering manager brings to life the product roadmap by:

• Creating and managing project plans
• Coordinating cross-functional teams
• Monitoring project progress, identifying and mitigating risks (technical and operational)
• Communicating project status, issues, and risks to stakeholders
• Ensuring project deliverables meet quality standards
• Ensuring timely delivery of the project

Delivery responsibilities

An engineering manager also gets involved in operational aspects of software delivery such as:

• Managing technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Acting as a point of contact for third party software suppliers
• Fostering team dynamics and encouraging collaboration within the team
• Using Agile techniques to ensure team stays on track and delivers

Summary

As the organisation grows and evolves specialists will need to be recruited to fill in different roles. There are still some expectations from an engineering manager to either cover for the absence of a full-fledged management team or to share responsibilities with the rest of the management team. Ultimately, the goal is to align technical priorities with business goals. It is important to keep an open mind about the nature of the role and be flexible in the multi-disciplined nature of work that might come one’s way.

And there begins the story of an engineering manager.