An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management

by Will Larson

More experienced managers: Do what worked at their previous company. When you start a new job or new role, it’s important to pause to listen and foster awareness before you start “fixing” everything. Otherwise, you’re fixing problems that may not exist, and doing so with tools that may not be appropriate. Spend too much time building relationships. This is particularly common in managers coming from larger companies into smaller ones, and it creates the perception that the manager isn’t contributing anything of value. This tends to be because smaller companies expect more execution focus than relationship management focus from their managers. Assume that more hiring can solve every problem. Adding a few wonderful people to the team can solve many problems, but adding too many people can dilute your culture, and lead to people with unclear roles and responsibilities. Abscond rather than delegate. Delegation is important, but it’s easy to go too far and ignore the critical responsibilities that you’ve asked others to take on, only to discover an easily averted disaster later on. Become disconnected from ground truth. Particularly at larger companies, it can become frequent to make decisions that appear to be fundamentally disconnected from reality.