Comment by leothekim | Hacker News Reader

Comment by leothekim | Hacker News Reader

I used to be dislike the idea of being an engineering manager and wanted to stay in the code. Interestingly enough, having children completely changed my perspective on management. Some important management skills - e.g. patience, delegation (babysitters!), investing in someone's overall productivity and long-term success (Schools! Extracurriculars! College!), prioritization (family comes first!), sometimes cleaning up after someone else's messes (with kids, literally!) - come from being a parent.

I'm half joking, but only half! I believe part of being a good engineering manager is having had hands-on software development experience so as to better keep a check on velocity, code quality, and overall tech decision-making. Much in the same way, I feel like I can be a good parent and can teach my kids how to process their world because I've lived it before.

Having a kid during my transition to management (in the absence of existing management) brought me to the exact same thought process, and it's a dead-on observation I live every day six years later. It becomes much less about the executional skill, and much more about the aspects you listed above. The skills involved in parenting and managing are one big feedback loop of sorts.

Having someone that can see the forest for the trees and chart/change course as a team is, additionally, crucial. It's just that, at home, it's not just me.

That is an interesting connection. I've always been interested in growing into an engineering manager, especially at places where there is a distinction between managers and leads. I've also always been enthusiastic about having kids (particularly compared to my same-age peers). I guess I just naturally value investing in other people's success and easing the path for people to learn lessons that I might have learned the hard way.

I wonder whether interest in / enjoyment of parenting is correlated with feeling likewise about people management.

I've noticed this as well. Running a home together with a partner, especially with children in the picture, is an organizational challenge not unlike any other. It involves a lot of listening, acting, planning, budgeting, and keeping calm in the face of (neverending) problems. When I show up to work, it's more of the same.

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