Is Engineering Management Right for You? A Self-Assessment Guide

I’ve noticed a common theme among engineers contemplating a shift to management due to feeling stagnant in their current Individual Contributor role. While exploring management opportunities is admirable, it’s crucial that the decision is rooted in genuine motivations. Remember, it’s perfectly acceptable to pivot back to an IC track if management doesn’t align with your goals. Merely seeking career growth isn’t reason enough for a transition to a managerial role.

Transitioning to people management necessitates a deep understanding of specific skills and growth metrics. From my perspective, a proficient engineering manager should ideally have a minimum of 5 years of engineering experience, including familiarity with the Product Development Lifecycle: from the ideation phase to product launch and post-launch stabilization.

Just as reading parenting books doesn’t fully equip you for parenthood, theoretical knowledge alone isn’t adequate for managerial positions. Practical experiences dealing with diverse individuals and unforeseeable situations differ significantly from managing and architecting systems which have predictable outputs with well defined inputs.

For those aspiring for a path in management, I suggest a series of self-reflective questions to evaluate their readiness for management. These questions prompt individuals to reflect on leveraging their strengths to enhance team performance and gain insights into areas needing self improvement.

Here are the ones I have discussed with mentees:

1. What strengths do you possess as an engineer that would help you excel as an Engineering Manager?
   Leveraging these strengths can aid in organizing teams effectively by aligning skills appropriately, evaluating project complexity, and planning for successful project execution. Most importantly, it will help develop a deep appreciation of team’s effort and become their champion and help plan career growth for individuals aligned with their strengths and passion.
2. What might you miss out on by becoming an Engineering Manager?
   This is another extremely important retrospection which will help individuals acknowledge that some strengths that they had developed as their primary skill on the IC role, might now become a secondary skill . So continuing to stay in the comfort zone of the secondary skill will potentially impacting team performance if not addressed.
3. What valuable lessons could you learn from taking on a managerial position?
   This is a very interesting question to which I have heard a variety of responses depending on the individual’s experience with managers in their careers. Embracing the unknown challenges, fostering patience, and delegating problem-solving tasks to the team are crucial aspects of adapting to this new role and identifying essential skills required. This question is a natural progression to the previous question as it helps the individual reflect on new primary skills to develop in the EM role.
4. Who are the managers you admire in your career, and what lessons from them could you incorporate?
   Having inspirational role models who demonstrate effective frameworks, adaptable processes, and the ability to simplify complexities can serve as a guiding light towards successful leadership. Good managers also first take the time to evaluate the strengths and needs of the teams first before making any changes. Plus they constantly collect feedback and make incremental changes for the desired outcomes.

In summary, every team/org has different needs, challenges depending on the
* Maturity of their products/systems
* Composition of team members — Senior vs Junior
* Expectations/ Load on the teams depending on quarterly/yearly commitments
* Company dynamics that indirectly influences team (eg: budgets, leadership changes, company focus changes)

There is no one-size-fits-all leadership style or process to be an effective manager. A key aspect of being a manager is the ability to adapt and formulate success strategies for teams in a constantly evolving environment.

Adaptability and flexibility are crucial in leading teams to success :)