
Ask HN: How do you survive a leap in your career? - vs2370
If you skip 2 or 3 levels and end up in a position in which you have to lead and manage people more experienced or smarter than yourself while also managing a ton of projects and priorities. How should one prepare?
I believe a lot of founders of somewhat successful companies had to do it. I am curious on how people successfully do this.
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matt_s
Delegation is usually the biggest problem for new manager. Second place is
probably trusting people to do their work, they will do it in their own way.
In our field there are so many ways to solve the problems we have as long as
they are solving the problem along guidelines you set, then that is good. Be
wary of wanting people to solve problems the way you would solve it.

Hire manager-of-one types of people that don't need hand holding to get their
job done. Don't worry that your staff want your job, many of the senior
software people do not want management at all.

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anotheryou
Smarter people are great: you can full-heartedly delegate decisions and say
"you are the expert, please decide, I trust you".

See yourself as part of the team with the unique position of gathering
information from experts, coordinating and depending on your responsibilities
care for the well being of the team and the development of the individuals in
it.

About tons of priorities: Here I struggle more myself, because I'm not in the
position to delegate much of my own work.

What I do: I write down everything (for me it's org-mode, but that's a matter
of taste). This includes tasks of others I delegated (in my system marked as
WAIT). ~10% of my tasks are marked as high priority.

This waiting thing however drives me mad. Within my team we use a ticketing
system and things get done, but I constantly have to do things with ~7 people
outside of my department and have to run after them constantly. Even if they
have to-do tools where I make them tickets. I'm at ~30 todo items (that's low
for me) and ~70 waiting (that's normal).

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bootloop
I got a lot of responsibility quite quickly so I would say I am in this
situation. There are a few things I try to do to overcome the problem:

\- You can't do everything and you can't do it perfect every time but you can
try your best every time.

\- People you work with are older, smarter and more experienced. So make use
of it, ask questions and make it clear that you are willing to learn
everything where you lack knowledge.

\- Look out for people who have certain capabilities which you would like to
adopt. For example how they interact with a customers or how they organize
tasks. Observe how they do that and what their workflow is. Try it and figure
out if it fits you too. You can also ask for tips as these people had to
figure it out too.

\- Reflect. After some time look back at your work and figure out where things
went wrong. Change your workflow to avoid that it happens again.

\- Everyone wings it on an everyday basis, so you can do it too.

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zerr
Just to note, it is usually portrayed as a natural career path, but I think it
is a totally different profession. Managing people != engineering. There are
lots of veteran coders still doing their jobs as independent contributors even
in their 50s and 60s or more.

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q-base
Delegate and play other people into strong positions. You cannot do all, and
most importantly you shouldn't. Trust other peoples judgement and/or
nudge/ask/bait them in the right direction without forcing a solution down
their throat.

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chaggy
Relax and enjoy the responsibilities. Your day will shift to doing mundane or
obvious work that you're now in a position to make better. Listen and ask
questions so you can make your position useful and everyone can enjoy and be
inspired to keep doing great work!

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tboyd47
Like preparing for any other new challenge. How would you prepare for using a
new tech at work? You would read about it, find a mentor, and possibly take
classes. So do the same.

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jryan49
Are you founding a startup or did you get promoted in someone else's company?
I feel like we need a little bit more context.

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rajeshpant
I am wondering how did you get a leap? Can you give more background?

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rajacombinator
Buckle down and get it done? There’s nothing to “survive” here really.

