Engineering management isn’t about being the smartest person in the room. It’s about creating an environment where smart people can do their best work and ship world-class products.
After years of being both a developer and an engineering manager, I’ve seen what makes the difference between a team that thrives and one that just survives.
The engineering manager role is complex and requires a wide range of skills. Here are my personal thoughts and opinions on what makes a great engineering manager, based on experience.
Technical Skills Are Non-Negotiable
Engineering managers must be able to code. Not just understand code, not just review code—actually write it. I know this stance might ruffle some feathers, but after years in the field, I’ve become convinced that you cannot effectively lead engineers without being one yourself.
When an engineering manager lacks hands-on technical skills, they’re essentially flying blind.
When an engineering manager doesn’t understand the technical landscape, they can’t effectively advocate for their team or make informed decisions about architecture and technical debt. They end up nodding along in meetings while missing critical implications of technical decisions.
Good engineering managers know how to stay technically relevant without stepping on their team’s toes. They might write SQL queries for data analysis or build internal tools, but they know their primary job is enabling their team’s success, not adding to the product codebase.
I’ve seen too many managers who came from non-technical backgrounds struggle to understand why certain technical decisions matter. Without that deep technical understanding, they can’t effectively shield their team from poor architectural decisions or advocate for necessary technical investments.
It’s like trying to coach a sport you’ve never played—you might understand the rules, but you’ll miss the nuances that make the difference between good and great.
Able to Build World-Class Teams
Building exceptional engineering teams is more art than science. It’s not just about finding people with the right skills—it’s about creating the right mix of experience, potential, and cultural alignment.
When building teams from scratch, I look beyond just technical capabilities. I seek out engineers who bring diverse perspectives and experiences. Someone who’s weathered production outages at a high-scale startup brings different insights than someone who’s built robust systems at an enterprise level. These varied experiences create a team that can tackle problems from multiple angles.
I’ve learned that world-class teams need both builders and maintainers. You need the visionaries who can architect new systems, but also the pragmatists who excel at keeping things running smoothly. Great managers understand this balance and build teams with complementary strengths.
Culture fit doesn’t mean hiring carbon copies of existing team members. It means finding people who can contribute to and enhance the team’s culture. I look for engineers who show curiosity, take ownership, and demonstrate empathy for their colleagues and users. Technical skills can be developed, but these foundational traits are harder to cultivate.
Building a great team also means having the courage to address poor fits quickly. Nothing drags down a high-performing team faster than tolerating disruptive behavior or chronic underperformance. Great managers make tough decisions early, before they impact team morale and productivity.
Most importantly, world-class teams aren’t built through hiring alone—they’re cultivated through consistent leadership and clear expectations. Every new hire either strengthens or weakens your team’s culture. Great managers understand that each addition needs to raise the bar, not just maintain it.
Trust Your Engineers To Deliver
Micromanagement is the death of innovation and motivation. Great engineering managers understand when to step in and when to step back. They create clear boundaries and expectations, then trust their team to deliver within those parameters.
This doesn’t mean being hands-off. It means being available without being intrusive. When a team member is stuck, a good manager helps them find their own solution rather than dictating one. They ask questions that guide thinking rather than providing answers that shut down exploration.
The goal is to be like a good referee in sports—present enough to keep the game flowing smoothly, but not so visible that you become the focus of attention.
The magic happens when engineers feel truly empowered. They start taking initiative on thorny problems, challenging assumptions openly, and pushing boundaries in ways no manager could have prescribed. This environment of trust and autonomy breeds innovations that top-down management could never achieve.
Standing Up for the Team
Perhaps the most important skill of an engineering manager is knowing when and how to say no to upper management. This isn’t about being contrarian—it’s about being a realistic advocate for what your team can achieve while maintaining quality and sustainability.
When leadership pushes for unrealistic deadlines or cuts corners on technical debt, great managers push back with data and alternatives. They explain the long-term costs of short-term thinking and propose solutions that balance business needs with technical reality.
This advocacy extends to protecting the team’s time and focus. Great managers filter out unnecessary meetings, shield their team from political drama, and ensure that priorities remain clear and consistent. They take the heat when things go wrong and share the credit when things go right.
Relentlessly Growing Engineering Talent
The best engineering managers are talent multipliers. They don’t just maintain teams—they transform them. I’ve learned that exceptional engineers aren’t just found, they’re grown through deliberate mentorship and carefully crafted challenges.
Growth happens at the edge of discomfort. When I spot potential in a senior engineer, I don’t just hand them bigger projects. I create opportunities for them to influence architectural decisions, guide junior developers, and develop the leadership muscles they’ll need for their next role. It’s about finding that sweet spot between challenging and overwhelming.
But leveling up engineers isn’t just about technical skills. It’s about developing judgment, building influence, and mastering the subtle art of navigating complex technical decisions. I’ve seen brilliant coders struggle because they never learned how to drive consensus or communicate complex ideas effectively.
Every interaction is a chance to mentor. Code reviews become lessons in system design. Production incidents transform into workshops on debugging under pressure. Architecture discussions evolve into exercises in technical communication. Great managers turn daily work into growth opportunities.
This isn’t about hitting promotion checkboxes. It’s about genuine, continuous growth. When engineers see their colleagues evolving and taking on bigger challenges, it creates an upward spiral of improvement. One engineer’s growth catalyzes another’s, lifting the entire team’s capabilities.
This focus on constant leveling up isn’t just good for engineers—it’s vital for the business. Teams that keep growing together stay together. They tackle bigger challenges, deliver better solutions, and build more impactful systems. A stagnant team is a dying team, but a growing team becomes unstoppable.
Building Trust Through Consistency
Trust is the currency of effective management, and it’s earned through consistent actions over time. Great managers establish trust by being reliable, transparent, and genuine in their interactions.
They don’t just talk about having an open door—they actively create an environment where team members feel safe raising concerns, challenging decisions, and admitting mistakes. They maintain confidentiality, follow through on commitments, and communicate difficult messages with clarity and compassion.
Most importantly, they demonstrate integrity by ensuring their actions align with their words. When they make mistakes (and they will), they admit them openly and use them as learning opportunities for the team.
Understands the Business and Works with Stakeholders
Great engineering managers don’t just build software—they solve business problems. They understand that technical excellence means nothing if it doesn’t drive business value.
Engineering managers need to speak two languages fluently: tech and business.
When leadership talks about market opportunities, we need to translate that into technical requirements. When our teams encounter technical constraints, we need to explain the business impact in terms stakeholders understand. This translation capability is what separates effective engineering leaders from pure technical managers.
Working with stakeholders isn’t just about attending meetings and nodding along. It’s about building genuine relationships and trust. When I push back on unrealistic deadlines or advocate for technical investments, I’m taken seriously because I’ve demonstrated understanding of business priorities. I can show exactly how technical decisions impact revenue, customer satisfaction, and market position.
The best engineering managers understand that sometimes a quick, imperfect solution that ships today is better than a perfect solution that ships next quarter. Other times, taking an extra sprint to build something properly will save months of maintenance headaches. Making these trade-offs requires deep understanding of both technical implications and business context.
This business acumen also helps protect the team. When stakeholders request changes or new features, great managers can evaluate these requests against business value and technical cost. They can prioritize effectively because they understand both the technical complexity and the business impact. This isn’t about saying no—it’s about finding the right balance between business needs and technical sustainability.
Good managers have the ability to balance business and team interests and know when to fight for the team and when to fight for the business.
Engineering management isn’t easy—but when done right, it’s incredibly rewarding. Not just in terms of business outcomes, but in the lasting impact you can have on engineers’ careers and lives. That’s what makes it worth doing, and worth doing well.
