Fantastic engineering management is…

Really great management makes a company a joy to work in, as a developer. It’s something we should celebrate and cultivate, teach and select for, not just be the natural upward path for people who have been around a while. If you truly love technology, there are lots of careers that take you to the top of the tech game without having to move into management. And conversely, if you love organising and leading, it’s possible to get started on a management career in software without being the world’s greatest coder first.

Over the course of my career, I have worked for some superb managers – people who saw their role as making sure the developers have the tools they need and don’t have the distractions they don’t need – and I have encountered other managers who were not so great. Marks Shuttleworth’s post is worth linking to both as a reminder of what makes a good manager and somthing to point to when I want to explain people why I don’t want to spend the rest of my career dealing with corporate politics.