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Do Good Engineers Make Good Engineering Managers?

Dave Palmer

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Dave Palmer, P.E.

11/11/2014 20 comments

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Earlier this year, Juan Pablo Dellaroquelle, vice president of engineering at the Silicon Valley software company Medallia, made waves when he claimed in a blog post that good engineering managers don't exist. According to Dellaroquelle, engineers who aspire to “move up” into management aren’t good engineers -- otherwise they would have been happy in their roles -- and make even worse managers. Conversely, the best engineers may exercise influence through informal channels, but have no interest in becoming managers.

Certainly, nobody would aspire to be the pointy-haired boss from Scott Adams’ Dilbert comic strip, and as Alex Wolfe pointed out in a Design News blog, most engineers are happy in non-management roles. But is there such a thing as a good engineering manager? If so, do good engineers have the qualities necessary to be one?

I believe that good engineering managers really exist, because I’ve worked for them. (In fact, I happen to work for one right now.) I’ve also known people who were great engineers, but not-so-great engineering managers. And, of course, I’ve seen people who weren’t much good in either role.

One important thing to remember is that there’s a big difference between an engineering manager and a senior engineer. An engineering manager isn’t, or shouldn’t be, directly involved in detail-level...