Engineering Management for the Rest of Us

by Sarah Drasner

A lot of Engineering Managers and leaders studied for years and years to become the best Engineer they possibly could be... and then they were promoted. It can be very tough for those of us who didn't go into Engineering with the distinct concept that we would become managers, but still want to do our best to support our teams. I wrote this book because there's so much no one told me about management that I wished I would have known. There's a lot to be purposeful about that many of us learn on the job, and learn on people. This book provides some organization for collaborating with networks of people, working together towards a common purpose.
There seem to be millions of articles and "how to"s on programming and only a handful of resources on Engineering Management- why? It's very tough to talk about something that involves people processes. People are non-deterministic. Working relationships are nuanced, communication is linked with individual values, motivations, power dynamics, and skills. People also have a range of experiences and emotions that are not consistent day-to-day.
Hopefully, in the happiest, most productive sense.
It's imperative that we as managers learn as much as we can and work on ourselves, so that our teams may enjoy a healthy working life and strong relationships. It's not just important, it's crucial that we iterate on our own skills as managers so that we can properly support everyone around individuals, peers, leadership, and the business.
I'm sharing what I've learned- not so that you follow my concepts exactly, but rather so that you can be thoughtful about your own leadership and needs. The book goes from the macro to the micro- with topics ranging everywhere from "feedback" to "scoping down PRs".
Though the book is meant to address people in management, individual contributors are welcome to read the book as well- perhaps you need to manage up and need some tools to help guide the conversation, perhaps you just want a peek at other concerns within the business- everyone is invited to the conversation.

Genres: Management, Leadership, Technology, Nonfiction, Business, Engineering, Software

213 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 2022

Reviews

[Cassidy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grab your post-its and notebooks, this is such a fun and practical read for anyone going into management from the engineering path. Sarah has such deep knowledge on this subject and generously lays out plans and thoughtful approaches that you can apply immediately to your teams (and learn from if you're considering management in the first place)!

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had an impression that the author tries to cover too many topics without getting too much into details about any of them.

[Mindaugas Mozūras · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clarity is what we’re aiming for here. Clarity is key.

Sarah Drasner’s “Engineering Management for the Rest of Us” is a practical and easy-to-read guide to the world of managing engineers. Even as someone who’s been in leadership roles for a while, I found valuable insights and reminders. Even when the ideas were not new to me, I almost always nodded along with her words.

The only quibble I have with the book is that the focus jumps a bit from chapter to chapter. A chapter about pull requests follows a chapter about OKRs. It gives the impression that Sarah tried to fit in all the significant ideas she has about engineering management, with coherence being a bit less critical.

The quibble doesn’t take away from the overall. This is a good book about engineering management. I appreciated that it positions management as something anyone can learn. I share this belief. This book won’t answer all the questions you might have as an engineering manager, but it covers a good deal of them and does an excellent job at that.

[Sérgio Azevedo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe my expectations from Sarah were to high but I felt some topics were discussed too lightly, almost as stating common sense for people that have a few year of experience working in teams. Or I couldn't find the deeper meaning on what I read.
I was hoping for heavy nugget of wisdom or war stories on the topics I'm struggling with in my few months acting as EM but it's hard to get there on a book covering so much.

It's a good fundamentals book, and with good references for where to dig deeper. I highlighted a large part of the book.
Just not enough in depth for what I need right now.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very readable and thoughtful guide for new team leads and managers with references for further reading. For veterans in management roles most of this may sound obvious buy still a good recap and reminder to get back to basics.

[Mayur Sinha · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book is too basic and lacks depth in technical topics that would be useful for those with a background in engineering. Additionally, the advice provided is often oversimplified and fails to address the complexities of managing teams in a rapidly changing technology landscape. While the book may be helpful for non-technical managers new to managing engineering teams, it is unlikely to provide any new insights or strategies for those already experienced in the field.

[Iñaki · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot recommend this book enough. It's short and easy to read, yet it has deep reflections, tons of useful ideas and lots of resources for you to further research those topics you're more interested in.

After finishing it, I feel I'll need to re-read some chapters to think deeper about some topics. I see this book becoming a reference book for many details, especially regarding organising my work life and improving my relations with colleagues.

I'm not planning to become an engineering manager, but I found it very useful. Maybe you're a manager but not in engineering, and you'll also find interesting things here. In any case, you'll find useful advice and guidance.

[Yaroslav Brahinets · Rating 4 out of 5]

In engineering management, a humorous saying is: "You become good at bridges... so they promote you to be a baker."

An inspiring reading by Sarah Drasner, Director of Engineering at Google. The author begins with an overview of personal values and then delves into the importance of trust, happiness, and fostering a sense of teamwork. Then, feedback, conflicts, collaboration, prioritisation, and setting boundaries. Throughout the pages, the author references numerous insightful articles and recommends several valuable books, including "Culture Map", "Drive", "Accelerate", and "The Happiness Advantage".

Initially, the book seemed more like a leadership therapy session than a traditional read, as it openly discusses failures. The book's title even reflect this aspect - "the rest of us" who are not naturally born leaders. In short, the role of leader is to empower the individuals around them to perform their best work, together.

As for key points and advice, I gained: align personal values, embrace curiosity, and strive to create clarity. Separate ideas from the individuals. Do the practice of gratitude journaling. Finally, it is essential to remember what’s important in life: friends, waffles, and work. Or waffles, friends, and work? Doesn’t matter. But work is third.

[Nico · Rating 3 out of 5]

Based on the reviews and talks by Sarah Drasner I was expecting more from this book.
Overall this book can be valuable to someone new to leading people and/or software projects and thus probably delivers on the promises of its title.

However reading it with some experience, there is nothing that goes beyond obvious things or high-level summaries of concepts from other books.
It's easy but other than a few instances not particularly engaging to read, it stays a bit too much on the surface of too many things.

If you're really new to a software engineering Team Lead or Engineering Manager role and don't have access to training, mentorship, or a supportive direct lead, this can be worth reading and building a further reading list out of.
If you're not, skip this.

[Kevin Plattret · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been in my software engineering manager role for a couple of years only, yet it feels like it's been much, much longer than that. Part of the job I learned from my peers, part of it from books I read over the years, but most of the time I improvised as I went, inspired by former managers I admire the most and guided by my very own idea of what good management looks like.

Of course I got some bits wrong along the way, while others went surprisingly well. So many challenges and learnings that helped me grow a tonne in that seemingly short period of time. I think it is the nature of this type of role, to be tricky to learn from others, ahead of time and out of context, because it largely depends on the environment you work in and the team you work with, the mission you work on, your personality and many other things in between.

Having said that, feeling well prepared and equipped te become a manager will go a long way, and Sarah Drasner proves to be an outstanding guide for this sinuous journey. In Engineering Management for the Rest of Us, she gives us a plethora of stories, through which she explores challenges and outlines processes that have worked time and again for her and her teams. She invites us to self-reflect on how we want to lead and support our team(s), in a healthy and sustainable fashion, while keeping our sanity. She does so with a lot of openness and humility.

The first part of building healthy teams is admitting you won't know everything, and this may be a time where you need to listen more than you talk.

— Sarah Drasner, Engineering Management for the Rest of Us

It took me an incredibly long time to finish this book. I read it slowly but with great attention, took lots of notes and pondered over it, went back and forth, reread specific sections when they were particularly relevant to me. All in all, this work is packed with tangible advice and tools to manage software engineering teams in this day and age. It's the book I wish I had read before jumping into the role; the one I'd recommend to anyone considering this career move. You can never be prepared enough for managing and leading people, but if you give it a good try, you'll be one step ahead of yourself. In Sarah's own words, "we owe our teams thoughtful leadership".

I'll never be done learning and growing, as well as helping others grow. That is a very humbling thought, and an exciting one too.

[Mihnea Simian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was very well aligned with my career goals and endeavours. I mean _very_ well.
It's in a "compendium"-ish style - it couldn't have been in another way - it jumps from one topic to another, explaining the gist of the topic; with references to contemporary books specialized on different leadership topics.

I loved it, it opened my appetite for rethinking my schedule and becoming more intentional with my team.

"a key to this practice is making sure that the person with the most knowledge remains patient".
Fabulously well said.

"the qualities you're working on developing with an employee are those that will serve them anywhere, not just within the company".
Touche.

"As a manager, it is crucial that you're prioritizing your own time well to best drive big impacts, and also to be aligned with what you feel is important.
This is much easier said than done."
This could very well be a summary of the book

[Isidro López · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's quite unusual for me to read a book about management coming from the US culture and feel it so highly valuable.
Sarah Drasner looks like the kind of person I would definitely like to know and work with, and that's a lot to say XD

Parts 1, 2, and 4 are pure GOLD. You need to carefully read it. Take notes. Reflect on it. Absolutely amazing. Lots of wisdom, lots of humanity, and lots of practical experience.
I confess that some advices in part 3 (the one more into "engineering") sound horrible to me, quite misaligned with the way I understand product development based on software. But still, that doesn't eclipse the rest of the book (which is most of the content).

I would definitely recommend its reading to anyone currently working as Engineering Manager (or any other similar label) or willing to :-)

[Fran Tbp · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Cassidy Williams says: Lift as you climb. You can help organizations feel supported and healthy. Ongoing learning is a critical part of supporting our teams. That's a lot to carry on our shoulders. But we have the possibility to make positive change in the groups that we lead. This is a responsibility that's sobering and compelling.

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s hard to write a good engineering management book but this one does a nice job balancing practical advice with theory.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for my works leadership book club, which I then had to miss due to endless meetings. Tragic.

Took me forever to get through cause it’s very dense and quite dull BUT also very wise. I didn’t personally learn loads of new things, but it reinforced a bunch of good habits I’ve built up. If I was newer to the industry I would have gotten a lot more out of this.

It reads like a list of tips from someone who’s highly experienced, it’d be handy to dip in and out of this depending on where you’re needing advice.

[Kevin Maldonado · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to read this book because of two reasons:

To get an understanding the why’s of bad practices in Leadership. I have been managed 9 of 10 times by no convincing managers, who put trust and values aside. I always wondered why regular leaders treat so hard their people, forgetting about human values and just asking for output and results without knowing context of every team member.
I know there was more on the manager role that a person who only set goals, evaluate and ser a lot of meetings where she/he is the only person that talk. This book is a good way to start and see the awesome advices from Sarah.

To be a better leader, and that is: asking the right questions, understanding values and let every person to talk, reducing uncertainty, guide everyone, teach and look for career laddering (this one is usually totally forgotten)
I had the chance to have a leader position and to be honest, looking back at that time, I totally ruined it.
I later had the best manager I ever had and that was life changing for me, I started looking at this person as my friend, imagine the level of trust.
This is not only an engineering book, trust, people caring and guiding is an human thing, if your are not a tech person and want to read it you may get confused in the code review chapter but totally worth it. Leaders are made, not born.

[Vicky Thrasher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exactly what I was looking for- good for new managers, engineers looking to become managers, or engineers trying to be able to understand and communicate with their manager better. The chapters were well broken down and covered a wide range of topics. There was little fluff and the topics were generally straight to the point making this a good book to purchase and reference back to.

[Scott Pearson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engineering management books can sometimes be a bit technical, like the field of engineering itself. Of course, it’s no surprise that engineers often view the task as one of exacting competence – like their work. Yet management can, in truth, be its own thing because it deals with people. Humans pose their own set of challenges, and few can speak authoritatively about both realms. Thus, few good books exist in this domain. Unfortunately, many engineers are promoted to become first-time managers each year. What is to be done? Sarah Drasner, an engineering manager at Google, answers this call by authoring an approachable book to enlighten us how to approach this daunting task.

Drasner’s tenor is very relatable. She approaches management as something done beside a direct report instead of above them. I prefer that philosophy. She dissects many aspects of managerial relationships and teamwork, including one-on-ones, collaborations, feedback, values, and self-care. Throughout, she shares personal stories with honesty that cultivate a sense of humanity about her and in the reader.

In truth, nothing that she says here hasn’t been said in other places. Nonetheless, it conveys a relatively concise, high-level overview for someone entering the job of engineering management. She approaches this task from the specific perspective of software development, but other domains of engineering and science surely can fall under this book’s umbrella. The text itself can be read even after a strenuous day’s mental work.

Those aspiring to engineering leadership can learn from this book. It’s especially geared to newcomers to the task since it does not expand at length on complex ideas. It also provides copious book recommendations for more advanced topics. I don’t believe that it can stand as a standalone guide to engineering management, but it certainly can serve as a part of a reading list to orient newbies to the work. Books often make the best, most patient mentors, and this book’s mentorship will guide a rising generation to the task.

[Austin May · Rating 2 out of 5]

Have you ever heard the phrase "when you think you're 90% of the way there, you're really only halfway there." That's how I felt in the last 30 pages. The material was fine up until then. Nothing groundbreaking but it did provide perspective which is what I was looking for. The last part however didn't feel relevant to engineering management, but rather, her offering on self-help which had the flavor of a glass of water. Still, it was decent insight on what she felt it takes to be a good engineering manager. And I did like the bit on OKRs.

I picked this book up to see if anything would resonate to determine if it's a career path worth pursuing in the future. On that front, I got what I needed and for me it's a yes. But I'll certainly need to read more material on the subject in between now and then.

To people who have the same aspirations in engineering management I'd encourage you to read this instead https://abseil.io/resources/swe-book/html/toc.html. Feels more substantive.

[Miguel David · Rating 5 out of 5]

My last book of the year was recommended by my managers manager when I asked for a book recommendation on the Engineering Management topic. He not only knew the author but also reads profusely so I knew the recommendation was going to be good. And good it was. This is the first EM book that starts with Trust. And that alone set the right tracks for the rest of the book. The teachings are simply explained (although hard to implement :)), and all very valuable. Recommended.

[Aviv Kotek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Refreshing! I've read plenty of books on engineering management and find this one worthy. Refreshing ideas on well known topics.

[Josh Caldwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good, general guide to engineering management. It covers all the bases and the author is very relatable but also clearly knows what she's talking about

[April · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book for software engineers moving into the management space. Highly recommend if that's you.

[Leo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disclaimer: i'm not a manager, and have no intent to be one.
Still, this was quite useful to think through my relationship with team and manager, just have some jumping off point.
It's not groundbreaking, but well-written and easy to read.
Some chapters towards the end (task management etc) could be better off skipped.

[Shirley K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read,
Was a pretty easy read and had some great insights on software engineering leadership.
I like that it explains different psychological concepts of management and how to be a better servant leader.

[Megan Lahm · Rating 4 out of 5]

In terms of technical/career related books I enjoyed the brevity and honesty of Sarah’s writing and experiences in engineering management. Jury’s still out on if I want to go into management, though.

[Eugene Tararaka · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read 5 or 6 engineering management books in the past 3 years. Unfortunately, this one is among less practical works. I have a professional respect for the author, but the book is really shallow and quite straightforward.
Touching many important topics, the author doesn't go deep enough into concepts. Most of the chapter lacks the "implementation" details and practical advice. The author focuses on covering as many topics as possible without enough sophistication.

If you're looking for an introduction into engineering management, start with The Manager's Path, Camille Fournier.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Somehow I had managed to only ever skim parts of this book before now. But Sarah just recently released an audiobook version that I started late yesterday. I just finished it and, honestly, am seriously considering starting over again from the beginning. But this time I want to take it slowly, make lots of notes, and write up my thoughts along the way. So instead I'm plotting buying a bunch of copies for either some of my friends in engineering management roles or the leads on my team and making them start a reading group with me.

[Emily Freeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Engineering Management for the Rest of Us is the book I wish every one of my past managers had read. Sarah starts with the importance of human dynamics, modeling vulnerability, and building trust. Only then does she dive into the tactical approaches to being a great manager. The writing is high-quality, the images are beautiful, and it's an enjoyable read. I especially felt the chapter on how to run productive meetings and how to help others perform at their best will help me in my everyday work. Highly recommended whether you're managing people or managing up.

[Courtney Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for DevRels

As a developer advocate, my own career ladder is part engineering and part community management. I found the insights in this book applicable for all areas of developer relations as well. I have so many highlights to review regularly from this.