How New Managers Fail Individual Contributors

Camille Fournier · 9 Oct 2021

Others here said this too

Making management the only path to career progression is a mistake that costs a company the senior engineers it needs.

Their wordsgreat engineers really shouldn’t need to manage large teams to get promoted, and companies lose out on a critical skillset when they push all of their good engineers into management.

Also said by Charity Majors

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6 korrents from this piece ↓

Camille Fournier did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
Making management the only path to career progression is a mistake that costs a company the senior engineers it needs.

Their wordsgreat engineers really shouldn’t need to manage large teams to get promoted, and companies lose out on a critical skillset when they push all of their good engineers into management.
Our reading
A new manager has to hand over the technical design work, because doing it themselves leaves the team no room to grow and the manager nobody to delegate to.

Their wordsBut it is critical that you step back on the technical decisions to make room for the team members to own things and grow.
Our reading
Passing tasks to a team without the context behind them tells them they are the doers and the manager is the decider.

Their wordsWhen you don’t give your team the context for the work and just pass on tasks and work items to them, you make it clear that they are simply “doers” and your job is the job of “decider.”
Our reading
A manager’s output is the output of their team and of the people they influence, not the work they personally produce.

Their wordsAs a manager, your output is not measured by your individual work. Rather, your output is measured by the work of your team and the people that you influence.
Our reading
A manager whose own code finishes every project is adding their value rather than multiplying the team’s.

Their wordsIf it’s your code that gets you over the finish line for every project, you aren’t providing multiplicative value for the team, you’re providing the additive value of your work as an engineer.
Our reading
Engineering and management cannot both be improved at once, so a new manager has to stop trying to be the senior engineer as well.
Mental modelTrade-offs

Their wordsNew managers, make sure that you aren’t trying to be a senior engineer who has direct reports.

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The other pieces are the ones whose claims are worded most like this one's. That measures language, not agreement: they may argue the opposite.