The Journey From Engineer To Manager, Part 1: How To Start Strong
Mindsets, systems, and habits to set you up for success.
When you travel to another country, it’s impossible not to compare it to home.
Everything feels fresh and exciting – and often, better. Maybe you notice how the health care system works better. Or you start comparing prices and cost of living. Or you find out salaries there are higher.
As the saying goes, the grass always looks greener on the other side.
It’s the same when you look at engineering managers. As an individual contributor, you might’ve thought they had it easy – or maybe that you could do the job better. I know I did.
But just like moving abroad, the reality of becoming an EM hits quickly. You’re in a new landscape, learning new rules, new skills, and new ways of working with people. The transition is hard and it will be demanding at first.
The good news? It is doable. Like any big change, it gets easier once you understand the terrain. Here are some ways to start strong.
A quick note about this post
Each section links to a deeper dive on the topic, so you can read this post alone or explore further as you go. The choice is yours.
Learn expectations from your manager
When you move to a new country, one of the best things you can do is talk to people who already live there. They’ll tell you what to expect, what to avoid, and what really matters day to day.
Stepping into an engineering manager role is no different. Before you dive in, take time to talk with your own manager and understand what success looks like from their perspective.
Don’t wait for someone to hand you a checklist. Onboarding processes can vary a lot – especially in smaller or fast-moving companies where roles aren’t always clearly defined.
Take the initiative and set up a meeting to clarify:
What’s expected from you specifically
The problems or priorities your manager most needs help with
How often and through what channels they prefer to communicate
The KPIs or metrics that define success
And who else you should connect with early on
You should leave that conversation with a clear picture of what matters most. If there are any doubts or ambiguity, schedule a follow-up. And keep these check-ins regular – they’re your best tool for staying aligned, building trust, and moving forward together toward shared goals.
Start off on the right foot with your team
Buses are mostly the same everywhere – they have wheels, doors, a driver, and a place to sit. You pay at the front, find a seat, and off you go.
But when you move to a new country, you still have to learn the local routes. The buses in the UK aren’t the same as the ones in the US or Russia. You might know what a bus is, but you don’t yet know where each one goes.
Becoming an engineering manager works the same way. Even if you’ve been with your company for years, stepping into a management role means reintroducing yourself to your team. They already know who you are – but they don’t yet know how to work with you as their manager, just like you wouldn’t know which bus to take from Oxford Street to St Pancras your first week in London.
To reintroduce yourself properly and make the transition smooth, focus on:
Sharing how you like to communicate
Explaining how you prefer people to reach you
Spending time learning about your team and how they feel about their work
And scheduling regular one-on-ones to stay connected
And just as important, define where your professional boundaries lie. You can be approachable and empathetic, but being a boss and being a friend aren’t the same thing.
Set and track goals
I have to travel often between countries. If I had to do it without clear goals – no destination, no flight times, or no plan for what I’d do once I landed – everything would quickly turn to chaos.
The same principle applies at work. If you don’t set and track goals that are:
Clear
Measurable
And concise
Then no one will know what success really looks like.
But even clarity isn’t enough if the goals themselves aren’t realistic. A team can’t achieve what was never achievable to begin with.
Defining what’s reasonable is tricky because it’s subjective. What feels manageable to you might feel impossible to someone else. A good place to start is by using yourself as a benchmark.
When you were an engineer, could you have met that goal in the given time frame? If the answer is yes, it’s probably within reason. Over time, as you learn more about your team’s capacity, skills, and constraints, you’ll get better at setting goals that are both ambitious and attainable.
Set expectations and communicate if they’re not met
Like setting goals, setting expectations can be tricky when you’re just starting out. You have to be reasonable but you also shouldn’t lower your standards.
Your focus should be on helping engineers grow into those expectations. Support them, coach them, and give them space to improve. Only if problems persist after consistent support should you consider adjusting expectations or making staffing changes.
When you need to tell someone they’re underperforming, stay calm and neutral. A defensive or emotional tone can damage trust and weaken your authority.
Developing that balance – being empathetic while still holding people accountable – takes time. Be patient with your team, but just as importantly, be patient with yourself.
Every conversation is a chance to practice, learn, and get a little better.
Strategize as an EM
Traveling in a new city without a map, GPS, or Google Maps is a nightmare. Managing a team without a strategy isn’t much different.
A map is something tangible – you can hold it, follow it, and adjust as you go. A strategy, on the other hand, can feel abstract or intimidating. But it doesn’t have to be. Here’s how I usually approach it:
Set goals: Decide which “city” you’re heading to – in other words, what your priorities are as an EM.
Define the steps: Just as you’d plan your travel itinerary day by day, break your goal into actionable steps that fit within a timeline. Don’t overthink it – your plan will never be perfect, and that’s okay.
Set deadlines and milestones: Estimating how long a trip takes depends on how fast you walk, what the weather is that day, and unexpected detours. Projects work the same way. Build in margin for the unexpected and check in regularly with your engineers to keep everyone on course.
Review: The best travelers learn from every trip. Look back at what worked, what didn’t, and how your strategy held up. Were your deadlines realistic? Did the steps lead you where you wanted to go?
What matters most isn’t having the journey unfold exactly as planned – it rarely does. What defines great management is learning how to adapt and pivot quickly so you still arrive where you need to be, even if the route changes along the way.
Find the right mentor
Your first time as an engineering manager can feel lonely. You’ll be doing many things for the first time, often without a clear roadmap or much prior experience.
If you’re lucky, your manager might double as a mentor and help guide you through the transition. But not everyone has that support – and even when you do, it’s easy to overestimate what a mentor can do for you.
A mentor is only as helpful as the effort you put in. Think of it like owning the best travel backpack in the world – it’s useless if you never take it with you.
Beyond listening to their advice, you need to clarify what kind of help you actually need. Ask yourself:
Do I need motivation, or am I already motivated and looking for direction?
Do I have clarity on my current situation, or am I still figuring out where I stand?
And am I looking for a solution to a specific problem, or simply a different perspective?
Once you can answer those questions, finding the right mentor becomes much easier. And remember, a mentor doesn’t have to be a person.
Books, talks, and even well-written articles can mentor you in their own way. Great books distill decades of experience into a few hundred pages. The answers you need are often already written – you just have to look closely enough.
Working with a mentor can be transformative, but only if you know what you’re seeking and are ready to act on the guidance you receive.
Learn to stay afloat
Once you become an engineering manager, you’ll be hit with more information than ever before.
Developing the organizational skills to stay on top of it all is challenging. Instead of aiming to simply “be more organized,” take a practical approach:
Own your role: Managing your goals and responsibilities is solely in your hands. No one else will do it for you.
Choose your tools: Identify and implement the organizational tools that work for you, whether that’s digital platforms, traditional methods, or a mix of both. Keep it straightforward to maximize your efficiency.
Set realistic expectations: Don’t overwhelm yourself with an endless list of tasks. Focus on a manageable number to maintain productivity. Use systems like the Getting Things Done (GTD) framework or Eisenhower Matrix to help prioritize work.
Take notes: Even if there’s a transcript or someone else is documenting, write things down yourself. You’ll catch details others miss and strengthen your understanding.
Organize your team: Extend your organizational skills to your team by modeling and communicating what you want them to do. Set goals (such as SMART goals) to help them.
Review often: Regularly assess your progress to ensure you’re moving in the right direction.
Balance micro and macro goals: Keep your daily tasks connected to the larger objectives to ensure meaningful and consistent progress.
Most importantly, start now. Organization is a skill built through consistency, not theory. You don’t need a new app or a complex framework to begin – just start by jotting down what’s in your head today and take it from there.
Build trust with your team
You won’t always be able to share everything that’s happening in the company with your team. That’s part of management. If your team trusts you, they’ll follow your direction even when they don’t have all the context – because they trust that you do.
But if that trust isn’t there, every decision turns into resistance. You’ll spend your days trying to convince smart people to do things they don’t believe in. And that rarely ends well.
That’s why building trust early, especially in your first weeks and months as an EM, is essential. Here’s how to start:
Be reliable: do what you say you’ll do and fulfill the promises of your role
Communicate consistently: let people know when they can expect updates from you, and stick to it
Own your mistakes: be upfront when things go wrong and take responsibility
Admit when you don’t know something: ask questions and show you’re willing to learn, It builds credibility, not weakness
Lead with purpose, not authority: don’t just hand out tasks – explain the reasoning or goals behind them when you can
Show you care: listen to your team’s concerns, suggestions, and aspirations
Handle conflict with diplomacy: prevent, manage, and resolve issues early so they don’t leave lasting damage.
Protect your “trust credit”: trust is like currency, earn it steadily with good actions, because you’ll need to draw on it when inevitable mistakes happen
Trust doesn’t appear overnight. It’s built through hundreds of small, consistent actions that show your team they can count on you.
Learn to work with different personalities
Dealing with different team members is like being in a multicultural country where everyone speaks different languages – very interesting and rich, but can be chaotic if you don’t understand each other.
For engineers, who are used to systems that produce consistent results when given the same inputs, this can be especially challenging. But, people don’t work like code.
For example, the same feedback can lead to completely different outcomes depending on who you’re talking to. One engineer might shut down under pressure. Another might get frustrated if you soften your feedback too much.
That’s why knowing your people matters. The better you understand each personality, the better you can tailor your communication, feedback, and expectations.
Connection matters, too. Some people are happy to have a strictly professional relationship, others need a bit more involvement to feel happy at work.
And then there’s the work itself. It also needs to fit the person. Some engineers produce brilliant results but miss deadlines. Others hit every date but need clearer direction to maintain quality.
Unfortunately, conflicts will naturally happen. Even the best EM in the world has team members clashing sometimes. It has nothing to do with your ability to lead.
Your job is to minimize preventable conflicts by understanding personalities and anticipating friction points. When conflict does happen, step in early, stay calm, and guide people back toward collaboration.
The short version: start your journey with confidence
Becoming an engineering manager will challenge you on every front – from learning new skills to letting go of coding.
There are many new skills you’ll develop over the years, but when you first start out focus on these:
Learning what your manager expects from you
Starting on the right foot with your team
Setting and tracking goals
Setting expectations and communicating when they’re not met
Strategizing effectively
Finding the right mentor (if needed)
Organizing information better
Building trust with your team
And navigating different personalities
You don’t need to master everything at once. Pick one skill to focus on – just one – and start making small, consistent changes tomorrow morning.
Starting a new role is never easy, but the good news is that there’s no such thing as the right or wrong job. There’s only the job you choose to commit to – and the growth that comes from giving it your all.
Now you’ve learned how to start strong, next week, I’ll dive into how to keep that strength in Part 2 – your roadmap for the first 12 months. I’ll cover what to do in your first day, week, month, and year to build trust and confidence as a manager.
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