I’ve been an Engineering Manager before. Ask me anything.
Ask me anything except my company name, or things that can reveal my identity. I may respectfully choose not to respond to your question based on my own judgement. Here’s a brief intro about me: I’ve worked as both software engineering manager & software technical architect over the last 18+ years on various tech stacks managing backend, frontend and a little bit of cloud. I have seen ups and downs in the software industry. Currently I’m working as a senior architect in one of the product based companies in India.
What's your CTC? You can share roughly.
What's forward you're looking into?
What your view on future of IT in India.
punydrama
Stealth
a year ago
yes please, how do you see tech in India. As far as i read, Indian tech business 60-70% comes from usa, europe and we are just cheap resources. Day they get alternative, they will stop outsourcing here. Also let us know ur views on AI hype
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
45 L. That’s one of the reasons why I’m on grapevine. 🙂
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Could you share some tips or advice for someone from a tech background (but non coding) looking forward to joining a proper Engineering role?
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
There’s enough content available on internet for free. YouTube videos are best and they are free.
Start with building some full-blown apps for your own learning with some guidance from YouTube and internet. Slog and work hard to get hands-on on the tech stack that you aspire to work on. Trust me, once you get a hold of it, you won’t look back. You will turn from hard-worker to smart-worker and things will automatically start falling in place.
PS: I did my engineering in a non-computer science discipline.
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What do you think if someone has to resign due to reasons and without an offer in hand and having a good ctc, how bad it might hurt?
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
I had my own share of deliberation. I suggest not to resign from a job for any reason whatsoever until you have one offer. I generally play safe than going aggressive.
And should I take an offer which is lower than current but gives what I want?
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punydrama
Stealth
a year ago
Were there a point when you wanted to switch field out of frustration or boredom? Even though tech changes drastically but fundamentals remains the same, right? So was it easy for you to transition between tech stacks? As a solution architect what is ur responsibility?
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
Too many questions, but let me attempt to address those:
I was at the receiving end of office politics & there were moments I wanted to quit, switch job. But I asked this question to myself. “Where will you not see politics?”. I decided to stay & fight it & managed to surpass it.
Tech stacks: I’ve worked much longer in Java, then .NET & JavaScript before a flurry of tech stacks arrived. I had much apprehensions adopting to AngularJS, React & AWS but there was no choice.
I slogged & struggled and that was the time I got an opportunity to switch into Manager role. Manager role was no less a challenge but figured out the formula to lead a team and I can say I genuinely contributed to taking some big projects to finish line.
A Software engineer’s needs has no bounds. I wanted to get back to coding and wanted to make amends on things I left over in my previous tech role. I became an architect & I am responsible for design, coding and architecture of a product line assigned to me.
I take care of building frameworks and coming up with e2e solution for the lifecycle of the product line assigned to me. I code, I deliberate on design, I set standards that developers can follow, I define communication protocols between systems in a distributed setup, and blah blah. 😃
CodeBetter69
Student
a year ago
As a newbie starring in software field, how do I manage my health, I am 19 and my back hurts,
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
Take regular water breaks. Get up from your chair and walk up to the water dispenser. I do it every hour. Set a reminder on your mobile.
There are two advantages.
1. You’ll not hurt your back.
2. It’ll help you break from beating around the bush looking for a non existent solution to a non existent problem.
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
3 advantages to be precise.
3. You’ll remain hydrated.
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SoftApp38
Stealth
a year ago
What's your company, CTC, graduation college, last name and aadhar card number?
bruh7
Stealth
a year ago
1. Any if-I-had-known or tips that you would give to your 20s self when you just started with your careers? I'm sure there must be some regrets/tips.
2. If you had interacted with PMs in your career (I'm sure you did) - what tips would you give them to be the best? / What are the things you feel PMs must know when it comes to tech.
Thanks for the AMA looking forward to your reply
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
1. Oh yes, there are so many actually. Will try to mention a few.
a. If I had known to gather courage to strike a conversation with my manager back then, I would be earning a salary at par with the industry.
b. If I had learnt to realistically say ‘no’ to a certain ask from leadership team back then, I would have been a better decision maker.
c. If I had known the importance of writing unit tests back then, the code I wrote back then would have been far better.
2. I have been having regular interactions with PMs for quite a few years & my present job also requires me to meet them once a fortnight, if not more. Product Managers must always have a great eye for Key Performance Indicators(KPIs). They must be adept at the field of statistics.
Follow some famous cricket analysts and you’ll see how they look at the KPIs in the game of cricket to lead their team to win a game.
PMs should also be keen in getting the best UX from the team. The number of user actions on screens plays an important role in deciding the user journey.
Lastly PMs must fix performance requirements & identify the projected scale.
Eg. A page load time should not exceed x seconds.
Or
The projected peak time of website traffic would be 8 PM(PST) that can potential see x number of concurrent requests.
I wish I could type more…
bruh7
Stealth
a year ago
Wow this was amazing. You can come back to this maybe once a week 😂 some of it was gold 🥇 thanks for this
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I have been asked to be team lead with just 2 years experience. I have accepted it but people who are more experienced than me have said that it will stop my learning of the field.
The others have said that anyway if I'm going to start my own startup people management will be the most important thing to have so accepting it is good for me. I kind of agree to the second logic and have taken it up.
But it is so fucking boring, updates updates and then meetings and meetings.
Sometimes I love it sometimes I despise it.
What do I do?
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
What you’re doing is not people management. Making you lead a bunch of people, presenting their work status, making you attend meetings is merely a trap laid by managers above you & I don’t blame them. That’s how majority of corporate industry works. Everybody works to save their ass & they find you as a tool to execute their plan.
By the way, taking up this role with as low as 2 years experience might not be a good idea. You can’t justify this role unless you yourself know enough about how a work is done the right way. People working under you might be smart enough to play bluff.
I suggest you get some more hands-on before getting readied for starting a company. People management will happen automatically.
Thanks for the suggestion, I had discussed this with my manager as well. He told me that there's more scope in managing direction in my company because recently two managers left us.
I have been the unofficial goto guy for the frontend at least so I do know how things are done at the frontend side. That being said, I have no clue about backend (somewhat I know). For frontend I have been the most hands on person in the company so much so that there hasn't been a single major feature which didn't my help to release but with backend I've just done two three commits.
In this case is my manager bluffing saying that there's not much growth in individual contributor role.
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punydrama
Stealth
a year ago
@Coolgoose love you sir. Thanks for this!!!! ❤️
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
I wish I could answer everyone. But it’s so overwhelming that I’m finding difficult to go thru’ each and every questions. But I’m happy I could make some people equip with better information.
In your opinion, what makes someone totally exceptional in software engineering? I am currently backend eng with 2 year exp and aiming to become a better engineer.
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
The fact that you realize the importance to become a better engineer is itself a starting point. Not many I have seen have any realization as close to yours.
I always emphasize on keeping things simple.
1. Ask ‘why’ and ‘how better’ type of questions in your work.
2. Think beyond coding. Think quality, think performance even when you write your first line of code.
3. Familiarize yourself with e2e requirements. Do not take requirements at face value. Challenge the status quo(in a polite way)
4. Think yourself as the first user of the software that you’re building. You’ll add a lot of value if you imagine yourself as a user.
I have completed 1 yr at my organization as an sde i want to switch teams ao how do i discuss this with my manager. Also the thing is i want to work with core teams that's why i want to switch teams. can you suggest me how can i do it?
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
I suspect you are scared of any consequences because of which you are hesitant to discuss your aspirations. Think about worst consequence & you’ll still find you are safely working in your present job.
Before you talk to your manager, gather some inside information about the core project that you wish to work on. Get more details about some problem statements.
Call your manager for a 1x1 and check with him/her if there are any opportunities in the core team.
Tell your manager about this one thing that excites you to work on that team. Also tell your manager that you casually discussed about the problem statements over a coffee table and you believe you can add value to help resolve those problems.
The worst case here would be the manager says ‘no’.
Akaza
Stealth
a year ago
What do you think about staff engineers are they at the same level as engineering managers? If not what do you think the difference and which one should people go for? (Consider which one has greater ROI in long term)
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
I assume you are referring to Individual Contributors vs Engineering Managers at the same level. As long as each one knows his responsibility, I see value.
Having said that, I’ve been a little critical about EMs, despite me being on one such role, for the reason they don’t challenge the status quo. An EM thinks attending a meeting with a cross functional team is a contribution made by him. I personally never get enough satisfaction attending such pointless meeting in my capacity of being an EM.
ICs still fetch greater ROI than EMs.
I am a lead developer, how do I transition to engineering manager? Do I have to do MBA?
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
Doing MBA will not warrant you an EM job. But nothing wrong in up-skilling yourself. Learnings always help.
Convey your aspirations to people above you. And one important thing I suggest is to display leadership traits in your present job. Some examples can be:
Proactively identify tech debts & add those into your tech backlog. Talk to people & gather more problem statements. Discuss ideas with your peers on a coffee table. Polish them and present it to leadership team. Do all these over and above your current job functions and that’ll automatically bring you on spotlight.
What's future in .NET Tech Stack as a fresher with 1.5 years of experience, what is something I should learn in this stack that would be beneficial for me in long term
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
I have myself been into .NET for a very long time. But product based companies aren’t finding this adoptable anymore at least for new projects. Simply because there are too many light weight and rapid development options available in the technology landscape.
On the other hand .NET is still somewhat prevalent in service based companies only because legacy applications still continue to remain active in .NET and the development is influenced by the end customers & their SMEs.
That said, there’s nothing to worry stating on .NET but be prepared to embrace NodeJS, typescript & similar kind for backend and Angular/React/NextJS for frontend at some point in future.
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
.NET core I believe is something you must learn complemented with ASP.NET & building webAPIs to gain expertise in .NET stack.
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99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
Can’t say without context.
But ask yourself what is close to your heart?
IC: Code challenges, technology, hands on, architecture, design, less meetings to attend.
EM: solving people challenges, motivation, philosophy, delivery, gyan, the art of delegation, more meetings, accountability, crisis management / escalations, blah blah 😀
Common traits: Keeping up with industry trends, mentoring, be aware of tech jargons.
punydrama
Stealth
a year ago
tell me if not having pedigree works against you for climbing senior ladder positions.? Can you get into those without mba/iit?
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
You can definitely grow in the leadership roles and there is no mandate. I’ve seen people growing to those positions from nowhere.
However many companies (particularly WITCH & alike) ask you to go thru’ a bunch of internal assessments to become eligible for every higher role. There’s enough competition too.
I have some questions
1. Do you think EM should have a very strong technical background?
Am a senior mobile engineer can I become a good EM with decent people skills and basic idea on other tech stacks ? Or will I need indepth knowledge?
2. How can someone choose the tech ladder forward? Management side or Pure tech side ( Architect types) .
Do you think we should get a taste of both before selecting? ( Personally I am not great at leading teams because I am very bad at delegation and trusting others work )
3.If you have to start your career again or if you can travel back to the past and change ur career direction - What will be the changes you make ? ( like decisions you want to amend )
4 Are you optimistic on how industry is moving forward? Will we see more tech jobs in future ( I mean like will the scale increase? )
5 What do u. think about native Mobile development? Can someone persue mobile development for more than 10+ years and still see a growth ladder ahead ?
These are my questions. Would love to hear your take on these.
To give a background of me Am a senior mobile engineer with 5+ years of experience and I can say that I am an above average engineer. Right now I am deliberating moving to BE as I don't see much career growth in mobile ( I may be totally wrong here ) .
TIA
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
Keeping my answers short as you can read my replies to other questions on this thread.
1. EMs must have a sound technical knowledge, otherwise they are just class teachers managing a bunch of school children. (Read my other replies on EM related work)
2. Tech or Managerial role, both need hands on experience. If you have become a manager without making your hands dirty, you can’t empathize with people. People might also play bluff to you.
3. I answered a similar question already. Please scroll thru this thread.
4. Tech jobs are highly volatile. But where there’s volatility, there’s growth. It’s like a journey of share market from bearish to bullish back & forth.
5. Mobile development skills are handy to have. But every development cycle has a shelf life. Beyond a point, the focus shifts to user acquisition than feature upgrade.
Also, be mindful of the fact that many mobile apps use embedded web views which makes feature additions seamless. It would be a wise option to try your hands at BE development. After all, everyone wants to march toward full stack development & there’s no better time to get acquainted with every tier of your software layer.
Thanks for the answers.
And will go through the thread for other insightful answers
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@Coolgoose
I have gone through all the comments. Thanks for replying to me and everyone else here.
All the answers have a very high value. This AMA is gold.
Your perspective towards software and career ladders is really good.
This AMA is far better than multiple posts from the LinkedIn and Twitter fake gyaanis.
Thanks to grapevine as because of them this was possible
Continue contributing to community like this 🙌🙌
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
Thank you 🙏. Glad to receive some great feedback like this. Look forward to contribute more to the community.
TheFailedEngineer
Student
a year ago
How is product management now ?
Is it gonna boom ?
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
Product Management area has a great scope in product based companies. The more products a company decides to add to their portfolio the more likelihood of forming a PM group.
However the field equally comes with some risks too. If a company decides to retire a product, the product org associated with this product might suffer.
I have seen so many PMs(in the US) let go due to various org changes, portfolio reshuffle & related events.
If you are good enough to show revenue derived from requirements you bring in to the company as a PM, then there’s a greater chance of you surviving in this field.
So be mindful of all these before you venture into a product management role.
Thanks for the AMA
1. What is the one thing that you hate about being an EM? Do you miss being an IC?
2. As an EM, do you miss the watercooler talks before you become EM or do people in the team see you as an outsider once promoted?
3. What do you do to avoid burnout for yourself and the team?
4. Is there anything like open feedbacks at all? Do you think it's a sham?
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
1. I am back to being on an IC role which is my favorite role. While on an EM role, I always hated to register my attendance toward pointless meetings. Meetings like those completely drain your energy & make you hate your job.
2. I have seen how people work on both ends of corporate structure. I’ve been very open to talking to my direct reports so they kind of liked me. I shared a very good rapport with my direct reports. But not so much with people above me. I would refuse to furnish a data to my leadership team if I find that meaningless. But eventually my leadership team accepted my way of working & and I pulled on this role.
3. Software engineering is fun. Be it coding, design, testing or architecture. It’s the managers that make it look like a labor job simply because they don’t think beyond delivery timelines. I hardly discussed delivery timelines with people. All I tell them the launch date & ask them to plan their own. I don’t keep nagging people with status. Give them all the freedom & things will fall in place.
4. I like this question. Open feedback is something that’s in control with the manager. The managers make it look like they are open but their personality will make you scared of writing a blunt or direct negative comment. It’s like seeking feedback worded with a politically correct statement. So you can say it’s somewhat sham but not completely.
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