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Become an Effective Software Engineering Manager: How to Be the Leader Your Development Team Needs 1st Edition

by Dr. James Stanier (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 279 ratings
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Software startups make global headlines every day. As technology companies succeed and grow, so do their engineering departments. In your career, you'll may suddenly get the opportunity to lead teams: to become a manager. But this is often uncharted territory. How can you decide whether this career move is right for you? And if you do, what do you need to learn to succeed? Where do you start? How do you know that you're doing it right? What does "it" even mean? And isn't management a dirty word? This book will share the secrets you need to know to manage engineers successfully.

Going from engineer to manager doesn't have to be intimidating. Engineers can be managers, and fantastic ones at that. Cast aside the rhetoric and focus on practical, hands-on techniques and tools. You'll become an effective and supportive team leader that your staff will look up to.

Start with your transition to being a manager and see how that compares to being an engineer. Learn how to better organize information, feel productive, and delegate, but not micromanage. Discover how to manage your own boss, hire and fire, do performance and salary reviews, and build a great team. You'll also learn the psychology: how to ship while keeping staff happy, coach and mentor, deal with deadline pressure, handle sensitive information, and navigate workplace politics.

Consider your whole department. How can you work with other teams to ensure best practice? How do you help form guilds and committees and communicate effectively? How can you create career tracks for individual contributors and managers? How can you support flexible and remote working? How can you improve diversity in the industry through your own actions? This book will show you how.

Great managers can make the world a better place. Join us.

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Previous page
  1. ISBN-10
    1680507249
  2. ISBN-13
    978-1680507249
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    Pragmatic Bookshelf
  5. Publication date
    June 30, 2020
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    7.5 x 0.82 x 9.25 inches
  8. Print length
    398 pages
  9. See all details
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  2. For Developers, By Developers

    The Pragmatic Programmers publishes hands-on, practical books on classic and cutting-edge software development and engineering management topics. We help professionals solve real-world problems, hone their skills, and advance their careers.

  3. A Common-Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms, Second Edition: Level Up Your Core Progra...
    Become an Effective Software Engineering Manager: How to Be the Leader Your Development Team Needs
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From the Publisher

Software Engineering Manager

The Outline of This Book

In the first part of the book, Getting Oriented, you’re going to drop right into your new job. In A New Adventure you’ll be getting to grips with your new role and working out who your team are, what they do, and how they relate to the rest of the organization. Then you’re going to learn how to Manage Yourself First by getting your routine and habits in order.

Then we’re going to move on to the second part of the book, Working with Individuals. Here you’re going to learn all of the necessary tools and processes to be a success in your day-to-day role. We’ll look at the ways in which you will be Interfacing with Humans every day, focusing on how you can make those interactions fruitful and positive. You’ll then learn how to begin doing weekly One-to-Ones, which is the bedrock of your relationship with your staff.

You’ll also learn how we’re all motivated differently in The Right Job for the Person, understanding how you can use this to help people succeed and be happy. Then, we’ll get to the nitty-gritty. We’ll look into hiring in Join Us! and people leaving in Game Over.

We’ll close out the second part of the book by considering how you can begin to increase your impact outside of your team in How to Win Friends and Influence People, where you’ll find a number of ways that you can contribute to your department for the greater good.

The third part of the book is called The Bigger Picture. This is where you’ll begin to experience the messier sides of management. We’ll look at why Humans Are Hard and Projects Are Hard and what you can do in various tricky scenarios. Then we’ll consider the information that you’ll have to handle, share, and store in The Information Stock Exchange. We’ll then dive deeper into the often-paradoxical psychology of being an effective manager in Letting Go of Control.

We’ll then turn our focus to your environment. You’ll learn ways in which you can make your department’s communication more effective in Good Housekeeping. Then, we’ll consider how to create career progression tracks for your staff in Dual Ladders. The Modern Workplace addresses inclusivity, diversity, and culture and what you can do to make your company a better place for everyone.

We’ll finish off by considering your future. After all, this is a book about you. In Startups we’ll explore whether you might want to try and accelerate your career by joining a small but fast-growing organization. Then, in The Crystal Ball, we’ll run through an exercise together that you can use to think deeply about where your career is going. And guess what? You can use it with your own staff as well.

So, What’s Next?

All that’s left is for me to thank you for embarking on this journey together with me. I hope that you find it entertaining and informative and that it helps you become a better manager and maybe even a better person. All I know is that if I had this book when I started, I would have felt more confident, more comfortable, and more able to know that I was doing a good job for myself, but especially for those in my team. I truly hope that it does the same for you.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dr. James Stanier is a computer science Ph.D who made the jump from software engineer to manager and has never looked back. He is based in Brighton, UK and has built Web scale real time data processing pipelines and teams of people: both are equally challenging.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pragmatic Bookshelf; 1st edition (June 30, 2020)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 398 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1680507249
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1680507249
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 0.82 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 279 ratings

About the author

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James Stanier

James Stanier

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James Stanier is Director of Engineering at Shopify. He is also the author of Become an Effective Software Manager and Effective Remote Work. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science and runs theengineeringmanager.com.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
279 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Ignas
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best books on management
Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2024
Verified Purchase
If you are new manager, already doing it for some time or even long time manager - take the book and read it. This is the book you can read chapter by chapter when needed. I found ir very helpful when I started and also found multiple times it very useful when was going through difficult situations. Book is very practical and with almost zero bullshit. Very recommended.
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Scott J Pearson
4.0 out of 5 stars A non-technical tutorial to managing software engineering efforts
Reviewed in the United States on January 5, 2024
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Managing software engineering efforts is a difficult task. One needs a thorough knowledge of authoring software, which itself is a rare, time-consuming accomplishment. Almost all general managers do not have an in-depth knowledge of programming (though many assume they do!). A few of the best software developers are promoted into a managerial role and have to figure out what to do on the job. Much literature on general management topics exists, but few writings center on the notoriously fickle yet narrow job of writing code. James Sanier’s book attempts to provide one of the few guides in this domain.

This book’s intended audience certainly lies on the side of those beginning with managerial tasks. In concept, it provides a comprehensive overview for the first year in the new role. Choosing to provide quick tutorials, it avoids going into details on specific topics. At times, it makes generalizations for the sake of simplicity and brevity, like when it describes simple career tracks. Those who already have advanced knowledge might find these simplifications a bit trite, but beginners will appreciate the sensitivity for orienting newbies.

The book is relatively non-technical in that it fundamentally describes people-oriented tasks instead of, say, financial approaches that involve algorithms. It tends to divide programmers into sociological categories, like a cathedral constructor versus a bazaar browser. Again, these distinctions help, especially at the beginning, but they don’t provide a ton of nuance.

The writing style is accessible to general readers, and endnotes are provided for further research. Not many IT-specific terms are used, but prior exposure to a team that produces software is assumed. I took away a couple of new concepts, such as a mentorship matrix and the Dunning-Kruger effect, but I will explore these in more detail through other writings since only overviews were provided here. This approach fits very much in line with what I’ve come to expect from the Pragmatic Programmer series. It helpfully fills a niche for people who want a non-theoretical approach to learning programming, a unique approach that’s both useful and needed.
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David Stewart
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read
Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 2023
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This book is a fountain of knowledge. I’ve experienced many things in book during my career but never had the ability to put them into context. I’ve also learned a lot of new things that I’m excited to try out. The content here is valuable to managers regardless of industry. The strategies discussed are concrete and applicable.
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cerebrum
5.0 out of 5 stars Must read for new/aspiring engineering managers
Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2022
Verified Purchase
This book has very great insight and described good strategies for new EMs. It’s also helpful if you don’t have the EM experience but interviewing for a position.
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Gergely Orosz
5.0 out of 5 stars Essential for new and less experienced EMs, useful for experienced ones
Reviewed in the United States on July 26, 2020
I'm an experienced engineering manager, and I manage frontline managers. This book is one of the two books I give as required reading for new managers in my team - together with the Manager's Path. I've gotten several actionable ideas on the second part of the book on more advanced topics.

What I most like about the book is that it is a "modern", 2020 take on engineering management - with the focus being on the "hard to get right the first time" parts. I have yet to read a book on engineering management that covers 1:1s, performance reviews, hiring and laying off, diversity & inclusion, workplace politics, remote work, and the need for managers to relax. I have definitely not seen all of these in one place. As I read, I kept nodding along with the experiences and advice. It's similar advice to what I'd give to anyone wanting to build a great team with a strong developer culture, being a thoughtful manager.

I strongly recommend this book to people just starting - or about to start - their first engineering management role. There is a wealth of practical and genuinely good advice written. It is the kind of advice you get in your first two years as a manager - assuming you have one or two great mentors and are surrounded by multiple peers who continuously give you well-intended feedback. Which is not the case for many people. How do you manage your perception? How do you decide what information to broadcast? How do you do good 1:1s? Do perf reviews? Hire? Let people go? I also find myself looking these topics up when I am mentoring less experienced managers, drawing inspiration on activities to suggest for these managers to take on to grow.

More experienced managers like myself can also take away good parts, especially in the second part of the book. How do you manage high-stakes "The Eye of Sauron" projects? How do you get the news through the grapevine? How do you make workplace politics work for you? What are ways to communicate well within a larger group? How should you design career ladders? What about diversity, inclusion, remote working and work-life balance?
34 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Great book about engineering management but is too political in some chapters and content
Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2023
Verified Purchase
This is a fantastic book about engineering management and is a must read for any software engineer who wants to become an engineering manager. But beware, some chapters and content is overly political and leans towards certain political group. Otherwise is a good book if you don't pay attention to that.
10 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Everyone in tech can benefit from this book, not just managers
Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2020
I was an engineering manager at an early stage startup and helped take it from ~20->200 employees before switching over to senior technical track. I have to say: I would have loved to have this book when I started being a manager. There's a lot of great tactical advice about how to actually run day-to-day manager responsibilities.

However, I benefitted from reading this even though I'm not a manager anymore. It helped frame my relationship with my manager better, and it gave me more respect for managers on my team. One of my favorite sections is on coaching, as I think it's something that everyone can become skilled at and it will bring value to their role.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Gino Cerro
5.0 out of 5 stars On point!
Reviewed in Canada on September 2, 2022
Verified Purchase
Very relevant content for managers of all levels.
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Ethien Salinas
5.0 out of 5 stars Not just for new IT Managers, it’s for anyone who wants to manage properly
Reviewed in Mexico on May 25, 2022
Verified Purchase
One of my favorite parts of the book is the chapter about managing yourself, as a manager you'll want to "delegate" many tasks, but if you do not know how to manage yourself will be a really difficult task.
In general, this book can help you to understand what to expect from your day to day as an IT manager, and also gives you some tasks to start doing it properly.
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Roberto S.
4.0 out of 5 stars Very basic, but still valuable
Reviewed in Italy on February 17, 2024
Verified Purchase
I read it 2 years ago, but I decided to make a review now after using parts of the content.
Personally I think it is a good introduction for an Engineering Manager.

The problem is that you won't be able to understand some of the dynamics present in an organizations just using this book.
You'll need some tools not presented in this book that could allow you to think about things not using only your mind. One tools for example could be System Thinking.

Anyway, if you just started and you want to understand how to organize your life as a new manager, this could be the book for you.
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Rylynnskey
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing book for new managers
Reviewed in Germany on August 24, 2022
Verified Purchase
I usually don’t write reviews. But I really had to say my big “thank you” to the author. I am a new manager who was failing with managing people. This book really pulled me out of the pit hole I was in and change my management tactics which lead to finding my own management style. It’s a must-read book for new software engineering managers. Thank you, I really felt I was managed and coached by the author solving my problems.
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Marco Talento
5.0 out of 5 stars The title says it all: "Become an Effective Software Engineering Manager"
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 9, 2022
Verified Purchase
I have recently transitioned to a leadership role and this book has been my "bible". The author managed to engage me from the beginning by giving real examples and great tips. This is definitely an amazing book that covers modern engineering managers.
2 people found this helpful
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