How to Train Your Manager

As a software engineer

Hello wonderful readers! Today we discuss the wild world of training your engineering manager! Yes, this is possible whether they like it or not. Managers take note, for now you are the ones being coached into performance excellence! Let’s get started:

1. Give regular feedback in 1:1s

Your manager can’t do their job properly if you don’t give them feedback.

Let them know what’s working. If you appreciate the good, they will do it more.

Let them know what’s not working. This is how they learn to stop doing things, or do better in certain areas.

Remember, the key to giving good feedback is not to try and prove you are right. You are just sharing your context! You could be wrong. You might be missing important context. This makes it so much easier to give your manager important insights, which can already feel intimidating. Most think the manager is supposed to give them feedback. This is true, but you can’t train them if you don’t give them feedback too.

Engineers that give good feedback, do much better in their careers. This is my personal observation, I do not have empirical data to back this up, but it feels true. If your manager rebukes you for giving feedback further training is required (or maybe you need to catch and release).

2. Career conversations should be continuous

Don't wait until quarterly season or annual reviews (etc) to bring up career conversations! Remind your manager that you have opportunities for career development all the time.

If you want to become an interviewer, bring it up right away.

If you want to have mentees, mention it in a regular 1:1. Ask how this works in your organization, and how to be effective.

Do not wait for your manager to talk about your career. As a manager I have 9 engineers to care for, among the many other things I’m thinking about. I would love to constantly be thinking about and helping my team with their careers, but it’s just not how it is. Be a squeaky wheel!

3. Keep a "brag document"

A brag document details your accomplishment.

Talk about this with your manager. You can share the document with them, or just have it privately and use it to generate talking points.

This is hard for some folks to swallow but your manager does not know all the great things you are doing. We try hard, but there isn’t enough time to do this effectively. If your manager has >=6 engineers on their team, if you listed out your accomplishments I guarantee they won’t be aware of them all.

However, you can train your manager to be aware of all your greatness by telling them about it! This is not egotistical or vain, it is necessary for your manager in order to advocate for raises and promotions. Do this continuously in 1:1s, and then in summary form at promotion time!

4. Hold your manager accountable

If you ask your manager to do something for you and they don’t follow through, you have a choice. You can wait and hope they get it for you, or you can let them know.

If you wait, hey maybe it will work out.

If you let them know, it will increase the chance it gets done. They will also learn they let you down. It doesn’t matter why they didn’t get it done, what matters is that they did not follow through. I am guilty of doing this, and hopefully I learn to hold myself accountable, but having an engineer tell me I dropped the ball hits harder. It’s my job to give you the things I need, and if I said I’d do it by Tuesday and its Wednesday, I should have let you know.

There are very advanced techniques for holding your manager (and anyone) accountable effectively, but I won’t cover that today!

5. Understand how your manager is successful

Required for training your manager is knowing what you’re training them for! Ask them what makes them successful. What can you do to help them level up? To look good?

If you’re feeling bold, take to their manager (your skip level). Ask how your manager is successful. You may get a different answer than what your manager said! This can be a great piece of feedback to give them both.

Once you understand how your manager is meant to be successful, you will be able to help make this happen, and YOU are more likely to be successful! Happy manager, happy life.

6. Encourage your manager to learn new things

Share what you've been learning!

Not only will this demonstrate that you are a continuous learner, but your manager loves to learn new stuff. We don’t get to program or work with technology as much as the cool software engineers, so learning vicariously through you is a blast! We can’t spend 100% of our 1:1s with you just learning cool tech, but just a bit? Yes please!

This helps your manager stay more relevant, and represent your team better. They are taking a lot of these boring meetings with other teams, and they need to represent you better.

7. Seek mentors in areas your manager is weak

I’ve never been an iOS engineer. I have pretty limited experience as a React developer. I never worked with Kubernetes. If my engineers want help in these areas, I can’t coach them directly, but I can find them experts to talk to!

While your manager can help you with a lot of things, they can’t be an expert in everything. Ask your manager to help you find mentors, and they will start to learn the organization better, build better connections, and be able to help your team more. Your forcing them to play in the sandbox with other managers they may not interact with much, and this will help them whether they like it or not! :)

8. Follow up with your manager on feedback they give you

If your manager gives you feedback, let them know whether it was helpful or not.

This will encourage them to give you more of this feedback if you found it useful.

Make sure as well that your manager understands how you like to receive feedback (directly, group setting, async messages, etc). If they give you feedback in a way you don’t like, say praising you in front of group and it makes you uncomfortable, let them know!

Closing thoughts

Managers are bizarre creatures who want to help you be effective. By properly training them, you and the team will prosper. Make sure to take them for regular walks and give them lots of nutritious food so they grow nice and strong. With some luck you'll have a long and wonderful partnership together!