Engineering Manager

Note: as one progresses along a career path, one should possess and show all qualities of levels below.

Years of Experience: 4+

Knowledge & Technical Skill

At DoSomething, this is likely a tech lead who moves to the management track. The Engineering Manager will still retain tech lead responsibilities, but will take on direct management of the other engineers on the team
Balance of time is weighted towards management, but may still own features and participate in bug fixes, one-off tasks, and other work
Has excellent pattern-recognition skills (i.e., emergent patterns in code, technology choices, team dynamics)
Has strong project management skills: planning, estimation, timelines, status communication

Purview is a single team of engineers
In addition to being accountable for the team's goals and deliverables, the Engineering Manager focuses on the people side of delivering software: team competencies (skills to leverage, gaps to fill), recruiting, team dynamics, and career management and growth
Develops the team’s capacity by ensuring the right work goes to the right people. Balances the need for the team to deliver efficiently and on time against the need for each engineer to grow into new skills
Plays a scrum master role, in that the Engineering Manager knows best what is blocking the team on both the aggregate and the individual level, and can manage peers and manage up to unblock them

Exemplifies clear written and verbal communications
Clarifies and reminds direct reports of the business value of their work, motivating them to prioritize their time and effort
Can serve in tech lead capacity when coordinating with product management, and communicating engineering efforts to non-technical staff

Priority and focus is on own team’s engineers, including own team’s product manager
Constantly works to improve own team's planning, prioritization, accountability, feedback, and quality
Sources and recruits candidates for own team. This involves being the hiring manager for positions, vetting and screening candidates, and selling them on the job and DS’s mission