What should be the responsibilities of an Engineering Manager to those reporting to him?
What should be the responsibilities of an Engineering Manager to those reporting to him?
(OP)
What do you feel the responsibilities and duties of an engineering manager should be to the people reporting to him, and to the company he works for, for that matter? It seem there are lots of people in engineering management who aren't engineers. How do you know if the people you manage are doing a good job and following best practices, never mind offer direction, if you know nothing about what they do? They can explain it to you, but you don't know if that's the right or best way to do it.
Edited to add: Conversely, how would the manager know when his workers are overload, or have unrealistic project time frames?
Edited to add: Conversely, how would the manager know when his workers are overload, or have unrealistic project time frames?





RE: What should be the responsibilities of an Engineering Manager to those reporting to him?
It isn't mandatory that engineers manage engineers, but it sure helps. If they have some trusted senior engineers that they can lean on to bounce technical items off of or estimate effort, that's ideal. Once again, like a coach, you don't have to have been a player, but it helps, especially with credibility.
Personally, I've always worked for engineers. Some are good managers, a lot aren't. Tt never stopped any of them from overloading me. Now I'm a supervisor of a small group and sometimes you need to push people. There's just more work than people to do it.
RE: What should be the responsibilities of an Engineering Manager to those reporting to him?
RE: What should be the responsibilities of an Engineering Manager to those reporting to him?
RE: What should be the responsibilities of an Engineering Manager to those reporting to him?
In my opinion my manager should be an interface to the rest of the company, providing resources, allocating projects, and helping to solve organisational roadblocks. The organisation also has requirements of the manager, involving performance management, timesheets, budgets and other such eye glazing topics.
Cheers
Greg Locock
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RE: What should be the responsibilities of an Engineering Manager to those reporting to him?
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: What should be the responsibilities of an Engineering Manager to those reporting to him?
I took that to heart and still do, as I am a manager myself now. It takes on a slightly different meaning for each person - a big part of being a manager is getting to know your team and understanding their strengths and weaknesses individually, then doing what you can to help them be successful. Some people see management as a position of power and privilege; however, I believe a manager should be working just as hard or harder for the people they are managing (not just the other way around).
I have not been managed by someone who was not an engineer, but have worked with others in that situation. I believe the key is to understand what you can, but be honest with everyone - it's better to let your team know you don't understand something and have them bring you up to speed than to make assumptions. You need the right information to make the right decisions, as well as to keep those above you properly informed (and as Ron said, out of everyone's hair, haha).
RE: What should be the responsibilities of an Engineering Manager to those reporting to him?
You clear the snow out of the way so that other people can drive.
Who is right doesn't matter. What is right is all that matters.
RE: What should be the responsibilities of an Engineering Manager to those reporting to him?
It seems a lot of this can only come from experience in the engineering field.
RE: What should be the responsibilities of an Engineering Manager to those reporting to him?
It is the responsibility of the engineers to be able to provide those answers to the manager when they don't know it themselves. This is why its often desirable to have mid-senior level engineers providing peer checks/oversight over the less experienced.
Of course, none of this is to say that it's not preferable to have a good manager with some engineering background. But, if I had a choice between a good manager with no engineering background, or a bad manager with an engineering background, I'd take the former every time.
RE: What should be the responsibilities of an Engineering Manager to those reporting to him?
I am an engineer (and I believe a good one) in the same discipline as my department, but I can tell you that you don't have to be an expert in a task to be able to effectively manage it. Just think about a land developer building a subdivision. He/She doesn't need to know how to swing a hammer, crimp a fitting, finish concrete, etc., to be able to understand (obviously with some experience) how long it takes to do these things under various circumstances. And for that matter, most managers will have staffers that are better at the individual contribution part than the manager, even if the manager is trained and experienced in the same tasks. That's okay. I think it does help to have direct task experience, but it is certainly not necessary.
RE: What should be the responsibilities of an Engineering Manager to those reporting to him?
RE: What should be the responsibilities of an Engineering Manager to those reporting to him?
Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC
NSPE-CO, Central Chapter
Dinner program: http://nspe-co.org/events.php
RE: What should be the responsibilities of an Engineering Manager to those reporting to him?
** Important exception is a manager who is effective at facilitating the solution of technical problems. If you're going to switch fields or companies, this would be an important factor.
The most popular managers from the point of view of higher-ups are the ones who don't get bogged in solving technical problems and talk only in business-speak. Or they pretend to be experts and make broad reaching decisions on a selected nugget of subject knowledge they use to justify the direction. They manage through metrics and OTD and don't really understand when these approaches are altering behavior in undesirable ways. They hire and fire without hesitation because it's easier than working with the people or understanding their problems.
The unicorn is the engineering manager who can navigate both sides and serve both roles.