There are so many variants of the engineering manager role. The responsibilities can be quite different as well. If you have a tech lead plus a team lead engineering manager archetype, then classically I would be thinking that the tech lead role probably isn't going to be doing people or line management. Some of the other responsibilities for a tech lead are effectively about aligning and guiding the team around the technical direction.
“An engineering manager should make sure that the team has a good balance of delivering things that the business needs with enough capacity to do it sustainably over time."
Today's clip is from episode 94 with Patrick Kua. In this clip, we discussed Pat’s latest course, Engineering Manager Essentials. We discussed what an engineering manager role is, how it differs from a Tech Lead role, and the common manager versus IC career track. Pat also shared his view on why being an engineering manager is not a promotion.
Listen out for:
- Engineering Manager Essentials - [00:00:50]
- The Role of Engineering Manager - [00:02:46]
- Difference With Tech Lead - [00:05:43]
- Manager and IC Paths - [00:07:53]
- EM Is Not a Promotion - [00:12:27]
_____
Patrick Kua’s Bio
Patrick Kua is a seasoned technology leader with almost 20 years of experience. His personal passion is accelerating the growth and success of tech organisations and technical leaders. He has had many years of hands-on experience, leading, managing and improving complex organisations and software systems as the CTO and Chief Scientist of N26 (Berlin, Germany) and as a Technical Principal Consultant at ThoughtWorks. He is a frequent keynote and conference speaker, author of three books including “The Retrospective Handbook“, “Talking with Tech Leads“ and “Building Evolutionary Architectures“ and runs the free popular newsletter for leaders in tech, “Level Up” and the “Tech Lead Academy“, offering online training for technical leaders, or running his very popular “Shortcut to Tech Leadership“ workshop.
Follow Patrick:
_____
Our Sponsors
Mental well-being is a silent pandemic. According to the WHO, depression and anxiety cost the global economy over USD 1 trillion every year. It’s time to make a difference! Learn how to enhance your lives through a master class on mental wellness. Visit founderswellbeing.com/masterclass and enter TLJ20 for a 20% discount.
Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones.
Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends.
Like this episode?
Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and submit your feedback.
Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
Pledge your support by becoming a patron.
For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/94.
