My Engineering Manager Origin Story

<p>I always had a negative view of a management role. I didn&rsquo;t think it was for me. I had trouble understanding what managers even did and how they created value.</p> <p>Above all, I saw a manager role as a threat to what I love most: writing code.</p> <p>But today,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/syed-mohsin-a11aa326/" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">I became an engineering manager</a>! What happened? This article is my attempt to document the twists and turns and mindset shifts that led me to management.</p> <h1>Why Did I Not Want To Be a Manager?</h1> <p>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.</p> <p>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&rsquo;t see a point in doing something different, like being a manager.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>I didn&rsquo;t understand what value managers added beyond operational stuff such as 1:1s, performance reviews, and process changes. It didn&rsquo;t seem all that interesting to me.</p> <p><a href="https://betterprogramming.pub/my-engineering-manager-origin-story-ea51d5b4feb9"><strong>Visit Now</strong></a></p>