Hot Take:Engineering Managers are actually useful!
summary
Engineering managers plan and negotiate roadmaps and capacity (example: a five‑engineer team with two juniors, two mids, one senior), prioritize company metrics over vanity measures like story points, and broker work across OKRs and roadmaps while balancing platform vs product demands. They build psychological safety, translate exec context into team priorities, mentor for promotions and performance conversations, own hiring for diversity and compliance, and avoid taking critical‑path code so they’re not measured by story points but by how well others ship.
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chapters (5)
- 0:00Introduction to engineering managers
- 2:14Duality of engineering leadership
- 12:48Servant leadership and team management
- 25:40Things no one told you about EMs
- 37:02Final thoughts and Q&A
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