Engineering Management Q&A and Videos

My goal is to get to this level someday, so I would love to understand more. In particular, how does this dynamic play out at Big Tech/larger tech companies?

I've heard this many times be true for senior and above level SWEs at FAANGMULA companies, but wasn't sure how true this was?

As I look to take on other interviews at FAANGMULA companies, the main issue for me when it comes to role whether a senior SWE or EM/TPM is time. Will I have inevitably with more meetings as a senior EM/TPM because of management by itself and having to work over 40 hours/wk in order to get promoted or stay at my level (I have heard this is the case at some FAANGMULA companies), or is it possible to be a code machine and manage your own team and workload to the point that it is automated you can build your own side projects (like how some people build their startups on the side while working "full time" at a FAANGMULA company)?

Personally, I still have the entrepreneurial itch and want to continue working on something on the side, but have issue with working at FAANGMULA 40+ hours a week in order to maintain my level and be promoted, if I know it is indeed possible to be more efficient with my time and achieve my metrics/results with half the time (say 20-30 hours a week instead of 40-60 that I'm hearing is quite common for some senior SWEs as ICs or managers).

I have 15 years of experience in the tech industry. I joined meta as an E6 engineer in July, following 7 years at Amazon and over 6 years at Microsoft. Afte joining, I quickly initiated and led small projects, progressing to a major project. I utilized my experience to guide and support other engineers, contributing to their professional growth. Our team has another E6 tech lead with deep domain knowledge and currently, he is the face of the team. We maintain a positive and respectful relationship, trusting each other.

However, I observed that our engineering manager (EM) was not effectively providing direction, hindering team productivity. Recognizing this gap, I collaborated with other tech lead to create a project tracking sheet, enabling us to monitor initiatives with timelines and ownership. This significantly improved our team's efficiency and motivation, leading to the successful completion of a major project.

Now, here's the exciting part – my skip reached out and surprised me with an offer for the EM role! While I'm honored, I'm grappling with doubts about whether I have the necessary skills for success. Despite enjoying mentoring others in technical discussions, I'm concerned about potentially losing touch with the hands-on tech work that I love.

On the bright side, my tech lead partner is supportive and believes I should take on the EM role, offering full support. However, I'm contemplating whether I should explore the possibility of a Tech Lead Manager role to strike a balance between leadership and hands-on technical involvement.

I'm at a crossroads and would love to hear your thoughts and advice based on your experiences.  One side me want to try EM path but one side says why take this hassle and stick with what you know better i.e tech. Also, I treat myself as avg communicator. I feel, I am good at empathy, task breakdown and mentoring skills.

I'm deciding between staying as an IC and becoming an EM, and I'm completely neutral right now.

When looking at the managerial role, it seems like you get more exposure around the product overall and you’re more involved within the product lifecycle end-to-end. When I look at Staff+ engineers on my team, they are more sound technically but don’t have as much impact on the product direction. As a senior engineer, I don’t understand the product much end-to-end, I'm mainly just working on features - It seems like becoming an EM is a way for me to get more of this scope.

When it comes to mentorship, I'm just mentoring some interns and no other full-time engineers. The mentoring is also more ad-hoc and unofficial - I help them out here and there, especially with onboarding.

From what I have heard so far, Staff is: The person needs to be technically very sound, guide the folks, find projects, carve solutions, and lead without authority.

Engineering managers on other hand: Would work these folks to approve/disapprove these projects, get resources, manage the people (promotions, growth of team - product as well as people).

From this I derive that managerial role is subset of staff + people management. But I am sure I am missing something, what am I missing? Why do people choose to be staff over manager, expect for passion to stay IC (not manage people)? Also, is there a pay difference?

I'm doing a soon: I'll use this thread to collect questions and will follow up to answer anything we don't cover within the hour.

I'm Sanjay ( / ) -- I'm a Stanford grad (same as Rahul), where I got a BS in Computer Science and MS in Biomedical Informatics. I've built my entire career in the Bay Area, with the past 5 years at AKASA, an AI healthcare company to help revenue cycle teams.

I'm the Senior Director of Engineering at AKASA. I joined AKASA in 2019 as one of the first employees when we were a seed-stage startup. I originally joined AKASA as an individual contributor, and quickly switched over to management. I built much of the company's early technology as an IC and later as a tech lead / manager. I also started and managed multiple engineering teams at the company, including Platform Engineering, now an org with 20 engineers.

Happy to answer questions about:

• How engineering leaders think about the role of Senior, Staff, and Principal ICs
• How and why to transition from IC to management
• The differences between an Engineering Manager vs Engineering Director
• How to hire and retain great talent
• How to succeed in a startup environment

I can also discuss how to introduce effective development processes (code reviews, agile development, postmortems, planning, etc) in early-stage companies and how to evolve these practices as a company grows.

In anticipation of my , we can collect questions here. I can also answer questions afterward.

Work history

I've worked in leadership positions at companies like Netflix (2013 - 2017), Google (2017 - 2021), and now Disney. I'm currently a Director of Software Engineering at Disney as part of Disney Streaming (Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ Star+).

Happy to talk about mobile development, engineering management, and career growth.

Other

I have a deep background in music and audio, having received a Masters in Music & Audio Technology in 2003, and then working with Dolby for more than 5 years.

After I left Google, I took a career break to learn, explore, and recharge. I traveled to Ghana, learned about accounting, became a startup advisor, and read a lot.

I'm on LinkedIn here: .

I would like to get some ideas for team match interviews with EMs. Most times, the team match interviews are the last ones after the entire loop with the company has finished. These interviews are very unstructured and very EM specific. Since there is no structure and most times, the team details are not known upfront (except team names), I was wondering how I navigate these and make sure I can show my full potential and upsell for this interview.

In my current role, I might get an opportunity to transition to a people manager (engineering manager) as against continue the path of individual contributor (IC).

Since I have always been an IC, I am not sure if this is the right career move for me. How would I make a decision one way or another?

I have spoken to a few team members and the sentiment towards being a people manager is negative. One has to be able to deliver through the team and hold the team accountable, one has to be detached from coding to a large extent, one has to solve inter-personal issues, one has to worry about attrition, one has to be able to hire good candidates (sell your team), one has to fight for challenging projects for your team etc.

What are some frameworks to think about this?