Who is a good Software Engineering Manager ?

This was my question since I was promoted as a Manager couple of years ago. As a person who don’t have much managerial experience in his career, this transition was confusing and overwhelming at the same time. It took me some time to figure out the messy situation I was in.  As a copy – paste software developer, my initial instinct was to google my role and responsibilities. Well, there was no copy-paste model for a Manager and it sucks.

So below I list some of the items I learned as a Manager over past few years.

 

Father / Brother / Sister

As a software developer you always think logically ( Sheldon from Big Bang Theory), but as a Manager you need to think logically and emotionally ( Kid born out of Penny and Sheldon).

I was surprised to learn how members of your team look at you and share their personal issues with you. Team will always see you as an elder brother or father figure. They will look up to you to make critical decisions. They wanted you to stop silly squalling by  team members. They wanted you to put the team in order. They wanted you to console them, when they are in deep trouble. You need to remember that some times your team members will act as irritated teenagers.  To manage all these, you need three critical skills.

Patience

Listening skills

Diplomacy

 

Gold, Silver or Shit

As a Manager how valuable are you to a company ?

As a mathematical equation, let assume

Managers value  as Mv

Product of the value of all the team member as Tv

Marketing effort of a Manager as MMv

Total value of other managers in company as TMv

Mv = (Tv * MMv) / TMv

This will work only if you have more than one Manager in your organization.

Your value as a manager is the total value of your team members and your ability to market your team inside your organization. But the manager value will also depends on the value of other Managers within your organization.

As a manager, you need to make sure that non of your team members value is zero also your marketing within your organization must not be of zero value. If any of those is the case, then total value of you will become Zero.