Developing Software Engineers into Leaders: My Approach at Uber, as an Engineering Manager

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Imagine a team with no tech leads. A team, where junior engineers lead projects. This is what I did, at Uber.
Developing Engineers into Leaders Series:
- Part 1: How I became an engineering manager • How I Became an Engine...
- Part 2: This one
- Part 3: Growing as an engineering manager & other questions answered: • How do you grow as a s...
Resources:
- My approach to software engineers leading projects: blog.pragmatic...
- Turn the Ship Around book: geni.us/turn-t...
- The CTO Craft Community, Newsletter and Conference: ctocraft.com/
When I moved from engineering to engineering management, I wanted to build a team where everyone can be a leader - and everyone would act as an owner. A group where every member has the skills, confidence, and empowerment to take initiative, make decisions, and lead others. Where, when people saw problems, they would think, "let me take the lead in solving this issue." I wanted to do this because I believed it would lead to better execution, faster professional growth, and people staying with the team longer.
Connect with me on other platforms:
- Twitter: / gergelyorosz
- LinkedIn: / gergelyorosz
- Newsletter on software engineering: blog.pragmatic...
Books I've written (and am writing):
- Software engineering resumes: thetechresume....
- Building Mobile Apps at Scale: mobileatscale.com/
- The Software Engineer's Guidebook: www.engguidebo...
- All books: blog.pragmatic...

Опубликовано:

1 окт 2024

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Комментарии : 22

@ariellephan 3 года назад

I really like this approach, letting each engineer lead their own features and it doesn't matter what their level is. If the more jr engineer can perform at the next level, it's obvious that they are well on the path to promotion.

@pragmaticengineer 3 года назад

And if a more junior engineer is struggling, it's an opportunity for their mentor/buddy (a more experienced engineer) to help them. It also helps this more experienced engineer in coaching and preparing for a bigger leadership role, but in a supportive way (they should not take over leading the project - that would be the easy way! -, but help the more junior engineer succeed)

@PoppySeed84 3 года назад

the answer to the last question is spot on. unfortunately, i work at a company where the lead managers have the most say with the least amount of engineering experience. some of them have literally never done any engineering at all. not even as students in college. but they are trying the lead teams of software engineers. its really frustrating for me because i am on the verge of becoming a senior level engineer but i dont feel like i have anyone to look up to or help guide me. i feel like ive hit a wall. in performance reviews they talk about getting me to senior level and give me glowing reviews every time. but it feels like nothing of substance for me to build on. and how could they supply that if they lack that experience themselves? i am thinking about going elsewhere but im afraid i wont find what im looking for unless i try one of the big tech companies. and those are very intimidating and hard to get into.

@andreypopov6166 3 года назад

If a company has tons of money and the market - yes everyone could be anyone. Otherwise - hell no, this is extremely inefficient.

@q1joe 2 года назад

You gain on less turn around and less training of “net new employees”

@MrSimcas 3 года назад

Hello, as always a really good video. The fear that I always have is that if I become a manager I will lose my technical skills, and I have been focusing mostly on my technical skills to be a better developer. The part of management that draws me is taking big decisions. But as I said I fear of not being as valued as a Manager or not knowing how to keep improving in the tech industry.

@pragmaticengineershorts3160 3 года назад

Thanks for the question! Here are my thoughts: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CaBEYMSrgZc.html

@MrSimcas 3 года назад

I will listen to your advice and wait a little more until I master my niche, and then if the opportunity comes to try management role I will give it a try. I personally also enjoy topics related to distributed systems and I have few books about the topic, but I found hard to dig in because I don't have much of web context and it's easier for me to understand things I get a practical experience. For now I will try to keep mastering app development and then be open to what comes in the future. Thank you again for answering my question.

@jaspa99 3 года назад

Hi why do you fear your technical skills will decline? Being a manager makes you more sought after than a pure technical engineer

@MrSimcas 3 года назад

@@jaspa99 I'm not sure how are interviews for management roles, but usually technical interviews are pretty hard and sometimes they ask things that you haven't used in a while and it's hard to answer that kind of questions, so I'm worried if I do even less coding

@cloudkungfu 3 года назад

Awesome video! Quick question, do advisory roles exist in the tech space? I'm almost one year in my role out of college and I've managed to get into a bit of a management position for an internal proj we're working on. I feel more confident & capable analysing data, visualizing systems, planning and providing suggestions for technical matters than having to do full scale management of people.

@jvm-tv 3 года назад

Q. How does your salary change from a senior engineer to an engineering manager?

@pragmaticengineer 3 года назад

At Uber, it didn't: in fact, my compensation went down a bit. A senior engineer and an engineering manager are at the same level (L5) and get the same salary, bonus, and equity targets. When I was a senior engineer, I got a high bonus (I was considered a high-performing person in this group) and when I became a manager, my salary did not change, but I got a lower bonus (among managers, I was considered to not perform as well: no surprise as I was in a group of more experienced managers). At "traditional" companies managers usually get paid more than engineers. In those companies, a lot of people move into management who just do it for the money. I liked how Uber dis-incentived becoming a manager for a financial reason. Even when I was a manager, about the third of my team made more than I did (people at or above my level, and sometimes high-performing engineers a level down).

@jvm-tv 3 года назад

@@pragmaticengineer very interesting and very enlightening. Thank you 🙏

@tommasobruggi6614 3 года назад

To what extent would you say you need to be a good engineer to be a good engineering manager? From what I’ve understood in your reply is that you need to have worked in a senior engineering role for a few years. Do you think this is necessary?

@pragmaticengineer 3 года назад

I personally think you need to be able to coach and mentor engineers on your team to the senior level, and be hands-on when needed. The best way I know how to do this is be a senior engineer for a few years. I do think this is necessary, and as I mentioned in the video, I know engineering managers who switched before they did this, and later went back to being an engineer to get this experience. I also mention at the end that this is just my opinion (as with everything on this channel!)

@fernandoabreu1305 3 года назад

Very good video

@rjScubaSki 3 года назад

Ezechi would thank someone for running him over

@arvdosal 3 года назад

Imy sorry but someone that talks all positive things, everything succeeds, I do everything right, etc makes me feel kind of not to trust

@pragmaticengineer 3 года назад

I don’t think you should trust anyone based on a RU-vid video, and if you don’t know them personally. I made/make plenty of mistakes, at 6:03 I talk about one of these. When you try out new things like I did, it’s a hit-or-miss: I’ve had plenty of misses as well.