Engineering Management as a Socratic Dialogue

Photo by Nils on Unsplash

In my previous post, I wrote about the Engineering Manager README, which is a good reckoner for people who already understand the dynamics of engineering teams. However, if you’re in a company where you have other departments such as marketing and sales you will encounter — maybe multiple times —the question of “What do you do here exactly?”

In these cases, the same README doesn't hold well because it’s too technical. This is an attempt to explain Engineering Management using Socratic dialogue.

Socrates would probably make a good EM

So what is it that you do here?

I manage an engineering management team. Engineering managers are experienced engineers who have changed careers from being developers to line managing people and teams.

Ok, that sounds interesting. Tell me more.

Broadly speaking, engineering management as a profession has gained a lot of social traction over the last few years, particularly in Silicon Valley. However, the role has been around in different forms since tech companies have existed. Companies define engineering management in different ways but the three core…