I got an Engineering Manager job at a new company. Now what?
By: Richard Ötvös
Tags: Software Leadership, Software Development, New Manager, Engineering Mangement, Management And Leadership

How to get started with leading a group of people who you’ve never met before?

Recently we were talking at an Engineering Management Slack group, about how to get started with managing your team, when you switch companies, and so everything (and everyone) is new to you.

I’m new-ish to management (I have around a year of management experience and a few years of dev lead one), but recently I moved companies and countries, so I’m writing this as both a reminder for myself the next time and to help people having the same problem.

I’m assuming here, that you’ve already familiar with how the basics of management work, and so I won’t focus on things like setting up 1-on-1s, capacity planning, coaching, etc in this post (but I might write one about that topic too)

First read this: https://boz.com/articles/career-cold-start

That article alone will help you a lot (probably more than my list to be fair). After doing that here are some more things to keep in mind:

1. Relax, and enjoy the perks of being new

First: relax and breathe :) The perks of being new are that no one expects you to know everything, and everyone is okay with you making mistakes. Use this period to ask questions, and get up to speed, and don’t be afraid to ask questions.

2. Your job is to actively listen and learn

I’m going to re-iterate: your job in your first 30 days (sometimes even more) is to listen actively, ask questions, and take a copious amount of notes. If you ask stupid questions, that’s even better!

Again if you don’t understand something but you don’t ask questions, you’re not doing your job! In case you’re afraid you might be annoying the people with those questions (which you’re not, but whatever), make sure you pay attention and take notes, so you only ask one thing once.

3. Resist the urge to make sweeping changes

When you come in with a new perspective it can be easy to see the things in a company that seem weird or inefficient. Add to this how developers can have famously strong opinions, and how you want to prove your worth to your new employer, it’s understandable you want to make changes quickly and fix things.

The thing is: this is a mistake. When starting at a new company you have neither the social capital nor the historical context of why things are how they are. Imagine you’re getting a new flatmate and the first day they move in they reorganize your new flat.

4. Build trust, social capital, and momentum

Instead, listen to your team, and the people around you, and try to accumulate a number of small wins. What are the problems that you hear a lot, that are small, but seem to get lost or deprioritized a lot? Does someone want a book for learning? Get it for them. Do they want better coffee? Sure. Does everyone complain about a useless meeting they have? Cancel it. (Obviously use your own judgement here, but you get my point)

By taking care of these small things, you build trust with your team, get a reputation of someone who gets things done and accumulate a number of those small wins which will help you eventually get bigger changes done.

As an added bonus you make your workplace a better place to work at, which is always good (and a personal goal of mine).

In conclusion

I know this list will be a handy reminder for me in the future, but I also hope that you could find some value in it. If you have any questions, or you think I should add anything leave a comment, or reach out to me via various social media.