My Engineering Manager Origin Story

I always had a negative view of a management role. I didn’t think it was for me. I had trouble understanding what managers even did and how they created value. Above all, I saw a manager role as a threat to what I love most: writing code. But today, I became an engineering manager! What happened? This article is my attempt to document the twists and turns and mindset shifts that led me to management. <h1>Why Did I Not Want To Be a Manager?</h1> I have been fairly successful as a senior individual contributor. I had a track record of building products from scratch, some of which quickly generated $1M+ in annual recurring revenue. I mention this not to brag but to explain where my deep-rooted beliefs about management came from. Building through code was my greatest lever for value generation. I didn’t see a point in doing something different, like being a manager. In addition, every manager I had worked with did not write code, spent most of their time in meetings, and seemed disconnected from the code being built on the ground. I didn’t understand what value managers added beyond operational stuff such as 1:1s, performance reviews, and process changes. It didn’t seem all that interesting to me. <a href="https://betterprogramming.pub/my-engineering-manager-origin-story-ea51d5b4feb9">Visit Now</a>