"I led engineering teams at Stripe"
Do managers in software companies actually think they lead teams? I've seen or heard "led engineering" or variants so much from mid level management that I wonder if my perspective is skewed.
Seems crazy to me.
1. Just grammatically, managers need some verb to use. If he said “I managed Engineering,” it would be really difficult to argue that isn’t what an engineering manager does. But good managers lead, so they prefer the word lead over manage, even though the meaning in context is quite similar.
2. You seem to be implying that managers suck and don’t know anything about engineering, so how could they claim leadership?
Speaking from my career path, most eng managers come out of engineering and are pretty technical. At Atlassian (where I’m a front-line Engineering Manager), you have to earn your way to Senior Engineer before you can join the management track, and the managers for several steps up the ladder are accountable for technical outcomes.
It’s very common in our office for the front line managers (aka Team Leads) to lead whiteboarding and pair a lot during the early phases of a project to make sure it’s built on a sound design, and to be similarly involved throughout projects to ensure they’re tracking to completion on schedule and hitting our quality bar.
My understanding is Stripe works very similarly. So, yeah, I buy that he “led” engineering teams there.
I would actually argue that good managers _support_ their teams, they don't lead them.
A tech lead or architect should be leading the engineering team, and the manager should be supporting the team's efforts and clearing the path for them.
Someone has to have the vision and the strength to keep things outside of that vision out of the scope of work and know how to say `No`.
Managing is generally considered a role that involves HR/scheduling/career development type tasks, i.e. soft skills.
Leading, alternatively, is perceived as a harder technical role. Sometimes involving overall architecture and design depending on the role. More hard skills.