Identifying and interviewing new managers

When a senior engineer decides to pursue the management path we will need to assess if they are ready without proof from prior experience. The best we can do is to look into their motivation. But what is the right motivation for the role and how can it be assessed?

Understanding the motivation for management can also help us identify engineers that may be ready to start managing.

This write up gives an overview of common motivators with suggested interview questions to test them and a list of behavioural markers to help identify new managers.

Curiosity

I think that curiosity into people and their behaviour provides the strongest, most lasting motivation for management. People will not stop bringing up surprises and if someone can see the fun in that they may be up for a good time in management.

Overconfidence is the opposite of curiosity. I’m wary of candidates that show strong confidence in making people assessments. It is not a sign of insight, but rather of a lack of willingness to look deeply into others. The prospect of scoring performance, or making promotion decisions should fill a manager with apprehension. They should be aware that when it comes to making people assessments they rarely see the full picture.

A manager will manage people that are very different from themselves. Extrapolating their own experience will not be enough to go by. A genuine interest in people’s motivation and needs is conditional to being able to help them. A similar curiosity should exist into their own behaviour, which is what we generally refer to as self-reflection.

Interview questions

• Can you think of a time when a coworker’s behaviour surprised you?
• Can you remember a time where you made a wrong assessment of someone?
• Can you think of a time when your opinion of a candidate changed during the course of a job interview?
• What worries do you have about the prospect of becoming a manager?

Helping others

Coaching a peer; seeing the positive effect of a bit of process they implemented; finding a way to unblock progress for their team. Such experiences may motivate someone to step up as a manager.

A desire to help people is a good motivation for management. The thing to be careful about is the level of ambition. Good managers can help, a bit, sometimes. But the effect of management is modest. Managers are exposed to serious problems that they cannot, and should not try to fix. A sick parent in a different country; a divorce; the stress of moving house with two small children. Help should come in the form of empathy and patience.

Too much ambition in helping others will burn the manager out without benefit to the person they are trying to help.

Interview questions

• Did you ever help a coworker that struggled?
• Tell us about an initiative you took that helped your team.
• Did you ever try to coach or mentor someone and fail?

To rule the world

Sure, we frown upon those managers that thrive on growing their little empire, optimizing locally for their own gain. It’s damaging to the organization and the people in it.

Still, a measure of assertiveness is necessary in managers. We want them to protect their team from noise, unreasonable demands, careless initiatives and random changes in direction. We want them to feel responsible. A protective instinct and a tendency to guard the boundaries of their scope will certainly benefit their team. The desire to protect the team can be seen as part of the desire to help others, but the assertiveness that is required to do it effectively needs to be assessed separately.

Interview questions

• Tell us about a time when you had to stand up for a colleague or your team.
• Did you ever challenge the direction of your team’s product?
• Tell us about a time when you spoke up while others were silent.

Taking charge

It’s essential for engineering teams to keep moving. Any sense of standstill will quickly ruin engagement. This requires an engineering manager to be decisive. Not out of a desire to tell others what to do, but to set direction in times of uncertainty. To unblock progress effectively we cannot be too patient.

Interview questions

• Tell us about a time you had to make a decision based on insufficient data.
• Tell us about an approach you took that helped unblock an initiative.
• Did you ever take charge when others didn’t?

Impact

Desire for impact drives people to find relevant problems to solve. Leading a team well will increase an engineer’s impact. The question is, what are they looking to have an impact on? When the role changes the sphere of influence changes with it. Stepping up to manage a team allows someone to have a wider influence, but with it an equal amount of depth is lost. If someone clings to implementation detail they will be a hindrance to themselves and their team.

Interview questions

• How do you decide what initiatives you spent your time on?
• What things do you expect you will no longer be able to do when you become a manager?
• What aspects of your current job do you find most satisfying?

A different problem space

After some years as an individual contributor someone may be ready to take on a different set of challenges. As motivation that is fine, but it’s not enough. Consider why they can not find new challenges in their current role. Is there nothing new for them to learn in engineering? If they lack the creative energy to find relevant problems to solve as an engineer they will equally struggle in a management role.

Interview questions

• When did you last learn a new technology or methodology?
• What book or article inspired you to try something new?
• What aspects of the management role interest you the most?

Someone has to do it

Being a first line manager can be a tough job. At times it can be hard to find suitable candidates, which can lead to problems in the structure of the organization. Someone may decide to step up because, hey, somebody has to do it.

Seeing that there is a problem and deciding to be the one that will fix it is essential to leadership. But leaders cannot be victims of their circumstance. Victimhood is not an energizing role to play and the initial engagement of doing something new will wear out quickly, leaving the first time manager and their team in a bad spot.

Interview questions

• Did you ever take on a project that you were not enthusiastic about from the start?
• Tell us about a time you set aside your own interest or ambition in favour of your company.

Best in craft

Managers better know their craft, but the best craftsmen may not make the best managers. Smaller organisations tend to push their best individual contributors towards management and it may be the only growth path available to them. It’s a risky approach. For management we are looking for a whole set of additional skills next to engineering excellence. Someone in love with coding may find the responsibilities that come with leading a team tedious.

Interview questions

• What aspect of your job do you find most rewarding?
• What other options for career advancement have you considered?
• Which of the jobs you have had did you enjoy most?

Things they should have done by now

If someone is genuinely interested in management it is unlikely that they will not have done at least a couple of the things listed below. Depending on how that role is defined some may already be part of the expectation for a senior engineer.

The list can be used to assess readiness during interviews. Or as a checklist to see if it is time to ask a senior engineer if they have considered management.

It can also be used as a list of options to grow engineers towards management, but I think this must be done with some care. At this level we value initiative more than experience. If someone needs to be told explicitly to do these things we need to wonder if enough motivation for management exists. Rather we look for the people that already show the right initiative and drop a few hints on what else they might pick up.

People management

• Help onboard a new team member.
• Coach a junior team member or underperformer.
• Give constructive feedback to a peer or senior colleague; and not just on their code.
• Conduct job interviews. Not one or two, but lot’s of them.
• Resolve or deescalate an ongoing discussion.
• Express constructive criticism of some HR processes.

Leadership

• Align the approach on a topic with another team.
• Lead a topic or project to completion.
• Show servant leadership to their team; for example by volunteering to lead agile rituals, minute meetings, break down tasks, or document something in a useful way.
• Present an idea, approach, or design to a group larger than their team.
• Be vocal and opinionated during objective setting or roadmap planning.
• Drive a decision at a time of encentraintly.

Attitude

• Express a strong opinion and later admit they were wrong.
• Break something, then fix and improve it.
• Challenge product direction based on data.
• Admit they were having a bad day.
• Speak up on a work related topic that has nothing to do with engineering.
• Propose an improvement in tooling or team process.

Bad signs

These behavioral markers should be seen as red flags for a management role:

Bad signs

• Strong opinions that do not evolve.
• Lack of opinion.
• Overconfidence in assessing others.
• A history of disagreements and arguments.
• Success working alone, failure working with groups.
• Initiating but not following through.
• Blaming others.
• Focus on who is right, instead of on what the situation and people need.