Being an Engineering Manager is hard. It requires focusing on the 3 P's - People, Projects, and Product. For first time Engineers turned Engineering Managers, you're experienced with the projects, and products. What about the people side? You're now responsible for the direction, growth, and progress of someone else's career. Your reports careers will span years, it will be their livelihood, how they make money and survive in this world, it will be where they spend a large portion of their life, and you're the person to guide them? Like I said, Hard.

But it doesn't have to be. You can evolve your role over time. Start small and build into it. Nothing great was ever built instantly, and your Mentoring and Leadership skills are the same. Here's a story how I felt my role evolve over 2 years as an EM.

The Accountant.

At the very beginning, when I was still an Engineer filling in for my Manager while he was out for a couple of months I was an accountant. I made sure the team members did what the company paid them for. I used my oversight to make sure senior Engineers worked on high-leverage problems, that intermediate Engineers were heads down on projects, and junior Engineers had other Engineers to mentor and guide them, and had work at the right scale for their understanding.

It was simple, deliberately naive enough to not be stressful, and effective.

The Demolitionist.

Next evolution, I saw my role to help Engineers be productive. My role was to destroy any blockers in their path so they can continue to do what they are paid for. I used my position, technical, product, and organizational knowledge to find paths around project blockers. I negotiated between organization verticals to keep projects moving. I made sure the work that Engineers did was never stopped or slowed.

At this stage, I still left growth, learning, and progress of Engineers completely out of my area of influence, and only focused on the work occurring right now.

Ok, so now I know how to keep things rolling along. What's next?

The Coach.

Now I saw my role to make Engineers better at what they're doing, to help them grow in skills and roles. So junior Engineers can move up the ranks. So senior Engineers can keep challenging themselves at a higher level. All so that they can do more stuff, so the company is more productive, so the company makes more money, and expands and wins.

My sight at this stage was larger than just the immediate work going on right now. I needed to think a couple of releases ahead, to better setup future challenges for each Engineer. Each Engineer is unique, requiring a unique set of challenges and focus in order to evolve their skills. I now spent more time regularly chatting with each Engineer to uncover their desires. I took blocked out time to focus on building challenges specific to their desires per week.

I felt I was helping people, I felt I could truly be called a "Manager", or so I thought until I hit the next stage.

The Leader.

One day I had an epiphany. My role was not just to help Engineers grow skills and acquire new roles or responsibilities, it was to help make them better humans. To help my team mates not only grow as Engineers, but to grow as happy, strong, resilient, adaptable people first, and as Engineers as a consequence of their personal growth.

As I said, we spent a large amount of our lives working in our career. My role, as a leader, is to help guide my team mates through a large focus and portion of their lives.

I continued to support and guide Engineer skill growth, but I also expanded my role and goals. I worked to teach gratitude, to find balance in their lives, to manage stress. To have meaning in their life. To find motivation and passion as an Engineer, and to translate that to the rest of their lives too.

And this helped me realize I loved my job. My goal is to make people better in their lives first. And sure, the company gains motivated, productive team members, and also thrives. But that is a consequence, not the the aim for me.

Next.

What's next? I don't know yet. But I know what it's not. Its not standing still. Its not settling. As much as I LOVE the stage I'm in now, I know that it must evolve and grow as all things do.

I don't know where I'm going from here, but I know it will be exciting.