6 min
Tech Leader Pro podcast 2024 week 19, Engineers are not your customers Tech Leader Pro
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- Technologies
As an engineering leader, I'd like to share some harsh truths about managing engineers.
Notes:
As an engineering leader, I'd like to share some harsh truths about managing engineers.
If you are a young engineering leader listening this this, you may not be ready to agree with all of these yet, but it will challenge you to think about things differently.
Firstly, the engineers in your team are not your customers.
Your customers are your customers, please don't lose sight of that.
The engineers in your team are exchanging their time and skills for money and career growth. That's it.
The relationship between you and your team is transactional, and that relationship can end at any time when:
They quit because they found a better opportunity.
They quit because they are frustrated.
They criticize your publicly or privately.
They work to undermine you.
They ask to be transferred from your team.
You are forced to fire them, for cost cutting or performance reasons.
Personally over the years, I have had to deal with all of those situations.
They are not your friends, your family, or your customers. Your job is to give direction and support, not to make them happy at any cost.
In the beginning of my leadership career, I would have proudly described myself as a servant leader, but many disappointments made me realize I was naive.
I had to learn the hard way, and I hope by sharing my experience here, that's others can learn the easier way which is via other people's learned experienced.
Many engineers think them are smarter than you, and may even call you an idiot privately.
They have no experience in leadership, politics, and setting business priorities, but think writing code is harder than all of that.
The best ones get it, but they are rare.
Finally, loyalty is overrated and rarely goes both ways.
It's better to accept that professional relationships are transactional, and be honest about that.
What I am working on this week:
Search indexer improvements for greppr.org.
Media I am enjoying this week:
Shogun on FX.
Notes and subscription links are here: https://techleader.pro/a/644-Tech-Leader-Pro-podcast-2024-week-19,-Engineers-are-not-your-customers
As an engineering leader, I'd like to share some harsh truths about managing engineers.
Notes:
As an engineering leader, I'd like to share some harsh truths about managing engineers.
If you are a young engineering leader listening this this, you may not be ready to agree with all of these yet, but it will challenge you to think about things differently.
Firstly, the engineers in your team are not your customers.
Your customers are your customers, please don't lose sight of that.
The engineers in your team are exchanging their time and skills for money and career growth. That's it.
The relationship between you and your team is transactional, and that relationship can end at any time when:
They quit because they found a better opportunity.
They quit because they are frustrated.
They criticize your publicly or privately.
They work to undermine you.
They ask to be transferred from your team.
You are forced to fire them, for cost cutting or performance reasons.
Personally over the years, I have had to deal with all of those situations.
They are not your friends, your family, or your customers. Your job is to give direction and support, not to make them happy at any cost.
In the beginning of my leadership career, I would have proudly described myself as a servant leader, but many disappointments made me realize I was naive.
I had to learn the hard way, and I hope by sharing my experience here, that's others can learn the easier way which is via other people's learned experienced.
Many engineers think them are smarter than you, and may even call you an idiot privately.
They have no experience in leadership, politics, and setting business priorities, but think writing code is harder than all of that.
The best ones get it, but they are rare.
Finally, loyalty is overrated and rarely goes both ways.
It's better to accept that professional relationships are transactional, and be honest about that.
What I am working on this week:
Search indexer improvements for greppr.org.
Media I am enjoying this week:
Shogun on FX.
Notes and subscription links are here: https://techleader.pro/a/644-Tech-Leader-Pro-podcast-2024-week-19,-Engineers-are-not-your-customers
6 min