
Ask HN: Hacking or management? - vcald64
I currently work as a tech lead at a very large company outside the US. The product I&#x27;m in charge of has tens of thousands of users.<p>The problem is that I manage a team of mediocre programmers and the engineering culture is terribly broken (cowboy coding, no tests, people don&#x27;t care much about writing good code ie. no passion, etc).<p>I feel bad for not learning more technical things lately (due to the lousy culture) but I also feel it might be a good thing to learn how to manage.<p>My goal being to start a tech company eventually, I ask you:<p>Is the skill of management transferable from a team of bad&#x2F;average programmers to a team of good&#x2F;great ones? I&#x27;m afraid I might be wasting my time here and should look for a job where I get to hang around smarter people and learn more technical stuff.<p>PS: I don&#x27;t think I have enough experience to get hired as a tech lead in charge of a strong team.
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alain94040
Yes. Sounds like a great opportunity to learn about how to lead a team. It's
harder to get good results from a bad team, obviously, so if you can pull it
off, it means you are doing something right.

However, be careful: if you think of your team as mediocre, you are not likely
to be a good leader. I'm sure you have heard all the caricatures about bad
managers. Don't be one of them. Educate, persuade. Don't dictate. Don't blame.
It's a hard job, but possibly a transformational experience for you.

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vcald64
True, maybe I'm just being too harsh. Thanks a lot man, that's sound advice!

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willhinsa
Curious, have you read "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale
Carnegie? It seems like it would be a fantastic refresher for you. Every time
I read that book, I feel reinvigorated and ready to connect with people around
me.

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vcald64
That book's been sitting on my shelf for years! I'll go read it now once I
finish _High Output Management_ (highly recommended). Thanks!

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griffash
I think to answer this question you should look at your experience with the
team so far. You can be a leader without being a manager. Pick one of the
issues you'd like to fix, like no tests. Can you educate/persuade/mentor your
teammates now, as a tech lead, and improve the test coverage? If you can
successfully do that as a tech lead, you will probably have success doing it
as their manager. And if you can get folks interested in writing tests, they
probably will see you as a natural choice for manager.

The other thing to think about is if you want to be a manager day-to-day.
Management is a completely different JOB. Remember, you are not rowing the
boat, you are the captain of the team calling out the rhythm.

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liquidcool
I wrote a very long, funny post about the frustrations you are facing. It's
based around being a lead, but having no authority because you have no
influence over salary and hire/fire decisions.

However, I never never published it because I'm afraid people won't read to
the end where I realize you need to be able to show how management's problems
are their problems, and likewise the solutions. And if you can't articulate in
a convincing way why best practices are really best for your team, it may be
time to revisit the source material. To be fair, I had to do this myself, but
I came out way more confident in my knowledge of what makes a productive team.

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vcald64
Thanks, that is some good insight. A doubt I still have is: what if the delta
is too big? Can you really turn a team of "meh" pogrammers into a bunch of
great coders by tring to infuse them with passion? If I have a good
understanding of best practices I can probably convince them to a point, but
it doesn't seem possible to infuse them with passion somehow. If I want to be
around a great team might as well change jobs and give up on learning to lead
for the moment.

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liquidcool
I agree poof has some good points. You don't really define "meh," which means
you haven't defined the problem in detail. Or perhaps multiple problems, which
you could prioritize and tackle individually. If the delta is too big, shrink
the delta.

And I caution against making "passion" the goal. That's a myth. You just need
people being productive. I know a few brilliant people who don't show any
signs of passion or excitement, but they're prodigious without being
egotistical, which is the best you can hope for.

I don't know your situation, but part of my problem was that best practices
produce overhead, which feels like wasted effort if you're not getting yelled
at for big errors or missed deadlines. And it's worse if you're not getting
yelled at for big errors, but are getting pushed for deadlines. But then
you're racking up technical debt, and there's a lot of material on that.

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squidi
I have seen the performance of teams turned around by experienced managers.
The key seems to be making it clear what you expect and _why_ \- checking if
they understand what that is - and reinforcing it.

Another route can be just setting a great example and they will be inspired to
follow you.

There is probably research out there about turnaround skills for a team.

There's no harm in trying as long as you just don't be a jerk to them. They
probably have not been trained or shown what high performance looks like.

Best of luck!

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dyeje
You identified some problems, now start implementing solutions. Turning a bad
team into a good one sounds like a great way to improve your leadership.

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marcuscreo
First, you need to learn the skills and work of managing a software team. I
just wrote about it here:

[https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/real-work-management-
marcus-b...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/real-work-management-marcus-
blankenship?trk=pulse_spock-articles)

Second, the best thing you can do for your career is the hard work of turning
your team of "mediocre programmers with broken culture" into something great.
It's hard work, but it can be done, I promise. I write more about this as well
at..

[http://marcusblankenship.com/become-a-great-
manager/](http://marcusblankenship.com/become-a-great-manager/)

Not trying to toot my own horn here, but it is completely achievable.

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sheepmullet
Thanks for the article. I agreed with a lot of it. A few thoughts:

> Your work is MORE important than any individual programmer because you are a
> force multiplier.

I disagree. Your senior developers should all be force multipliers and it
isn't about more vs less important. They are simply different roles.

In the short term (1-2years) a great manager is the easiest person to replace
in a team because a great manager focuses more on strategy than tactics -
although there is always a bit of both.

> You are unique in your group; you are their manager and leader.

All the great managers I've worked with had one thing in common: they weren't
managers or leaders in any day to day traditional sense.

I don't want my manager to be the main person talking to our customers or
trying to prioritise work. Etc etc. I want them to fix/improve the culture.

E.g. > Ensuring the team has the best tools possible.

This doesn't mean the manager should be picking the tools.

It also doesn't mean the manager should be getting particular tools
authorised/purchased. I can write a better business case than my manager for
any particular tool I need.

A great manager might instead create a culture where no business case is
required for tool purchases under $500.

My last manager actually put any tool purchases we wanted on his _personal_
credit card, no questions asked, because he couldn't get any organisational
support. He then did all the legwork to get reimbursed.

And that is clearly leadership. But its not leadership in a day to day sense.
It did however help create a really good atmosphere and we were incredibly
productive as a team.

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blooberr
Right now, I think it's best you stay and try to turn things around. I don't
think I can give you more concrete advice just based on your description so
far.

I lead a team of engineers too - email me (in my profile) if you want to chat
in person or Skype. I'd be more than happy to listen and discuss your
situation.

