
What questions should I ask the engineering team I'm going to manage? - angebracht
Tomorrow I have an on-site interview with the members of a software development team I might become the manager of.<p>What kind of questions should I ask each of them to learn as much as I can about the role and indicate that I&#x27;m an effective tech leader?
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luckydude
When I was at Sun John Entemann was an engineer who got promoted to manager.
We all laughed like crazy. John? Really?

And then he walked into each of our offices and said "what do you need? I'll
get it"

And he was suddenly our hero, our favorite manager.

So do that. Help them.

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playing_colours
Recently, I try to follow the idea of three elements of motivation at work:
autonomy, mastery, and purpose [0].

So my questions would cover those elements:

What is the decision making process at the team, how empowered are engineers
to make their own technical decisions?

Are they learning anything new at work? Do they have challenges? Trying new
things? Learning budget, learning groups?

Do they see the big picture? How is their everyday’s tasks contribute to the
company’s mission? Are they proud of their work?

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive:_The_Surprising_Truth_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive:_The_Surprising_Truth_About_What_Motivates_Us)

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bra-ket
What happened to the previous manager

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mvpu
1\. What did you learn in the last 6 months that was super exciting? 2\.
What's on your todo list for the next 3 months? 3\. Who are the engineer(s)
you learn from most / admire the most? 4\. What can QA / DevOps do to make you
more productive? 5\. What can your manager do to make you more productive /
happy?

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telebone_man
Just some food for thought based on some recent experiences.

Sometimes, you'll be taking a job that someone in the team thinks they should
have been offered - but didn't for whatever reason (perhaps current management
weren't aware... or they simply aren't appropriate skilled...)

These people can also be well respected by others in the team. And winning
their respect is therefore particularly important, as they may be the ones to
validate you on behalf of others.

You can normally spot them, as they will lean back, fold their arms and keep
to themselves (out of frustration). Or act the opposite and be completely
outspoken over the top of others.

I would consider that these people do exist, and need to be wooed in a
slightly different way. Instead of asking 'what do you want?' perhaps it'd be
better to ask 'where do you think the problems are?'.

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blihp
The most important thing is to understand is if the role is actually a 'lead'
or 'manager'. Since it sounds like you're going onsite (at least partially)
for the team to interview you, it doesn't sound like a manager role. (just
based on my experience: lead roles you'll often be interviewed by the team,
management roles not so much)

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runT1ME
What is the single biggest bottleneck your team has in terms of delivering new
features?

If you could spend a month fixing/refactoring/changing any component of the
system, what would it be?

What % of time is spent on planning/estimating/ vs. implementing, is this the
right ratio for the team?

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slipwalker
how do you spend those hours, on office hours, when there's nothing urgent to
be done ? It's a _tricky question_ , there aren't many possible "right
answers". Either the place is on constant fire, or there's too much free time
( maybe the team is too large, maybe a downsizing is coming ? ) or people does
not have their priorities in order... And you can also pinpoint the brown
noses, and backstabbers based on their "PC" answers.

Edit: and make sure to check the restrooms. Employees take on the toilets and
sinks all their frustration with the company ( break and soil things ).

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binarynate
1\. Ask them if they saw this HN post.

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paulcole
"How can I help you?"

~~~
gus_massa
I think that I agree. It would be good to hear a lot and not talk all the
time, to understand the current situation.

But some more specific questions are good to start a conversation that can
then follow it's own path. I like the questions in the other comment as
starter questions.

I also like the Joel Test [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-
test-12-s...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-
test-12-steps-to-better-code/) , but if they have a low score it could be
judgmental and make them angry before your first day. Perhaps you can use it
as a template to make a few assorted questions, without keeping an official
score and not make all the questions if it's clear that they are scoring too
low.

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Endy
I'd ask what each team member is passionate about. Then ask them what they
feel they need a manager to do in order to help them do more of that.

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cvaidya1986
What is the vision everyone is working towards and what are the urgent and
important challenges facing us right now?

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roflchoppa
the best managers that I was working with always seeked to understand. Whether
is was dealing with clients, or something technical were our hand was forced.
There was also a level of trust that she had with us, were she gave us
autonomy to build as we needed.

10/10 manager, would love to work with her again.

