What is Engineering Management?

How do Engineering Managers describe their role?

We asked several EM's to define their job, and this is what they said:

"Engineering management really boils down to three aspects: people, process, and project management. Different teams really require different things." - a PM/EM at Lyft

"Management is about guiding teams to make the right decisions." - an EM at Google

"The best engineering managers can toggle back and forth between manager and IC roles. Make sure your technical foundation and fundamental skills are solid enough to pull that off." - former Head of Engineering at Stripe

"...I like to think about [engineering management] in the buckets of people, execution management, cross-functional work, and technical competency. These are generally the things that matter the most for being a good entry-level manager. Definitely, there are other skills that exist—things like product vision, or product strategy, or engineering strategy, or communication or managing up. But I think those more or less fit under this core four box rubric." - an EM at Dropbox

"Your four main responsibilities are people, culture, strategy, and execution." - an EM at Affinity

"[Great engineering managers] manage individual people, execute as a team, manage strategy for a particular team, and partner with product." - VP of Engineering at Betterment

Engineering levels

So how do you become EM? You began your engineering career as an individual contributor (IC), but as you gain experience you’ll have a choice to make. You can continue as an IC on the technical track, eventually becoming a principal engineer, or you can make the switch to the managerial track. Engineering manager is the first stop on the managerial track.

Image via Holloway.com

The managerial track terminates at the CTO level, meaning you can rise higher than you could as an IC, but responsibilities expand accordingly. Engineering managers are technical experts, but they are also people and project managers. Making this jump can sometimes be tough for engineers as management is a different skill set, but it’s highly rewarding.

Don’t take our word for it. The below is taken from a real Google EM job description:

"As an Engineering Manager… you will help team members to deliver an exceptional product while also developing their own skills and working towards their career goals. You will work with partners to establish product direction, including defining priorities, working with our program managers to enable rapid progress, coordinating with peer teams, and ensuring that we're delivering incremental value to our customers.”

Facebook’s expectations are similar:

“Facebook engineering managers build high-performing teams where engineers feel like their work is having the biggest impact of their careers. Each manager sets direction, supports people in their career growth, and ensures that their teams have inspiring visions for the future. The engineering teams at Facebook work on a spectrum of efforts, including data infrastructure, which helps power Facebook, and product engineering, which ships Facebook's myriad of products to its community of 2 billion people.”

...as well as Microsoft’s:

“As an Engineering Manager, you will lead, manage, and inspire engineering teams developing next-generation enterprise software for e-commerce and advertising. Through hands-on leadership, you’ll help the team fulfill technical, operational, and business requirements. You will guide architecture, development, delivery, and operation of software products. You will develop processes and apply best practices that will become the foundation of the growing engineering organization.”

Role requirements

Most EM job postings require a Bachelor's in Computer Science or equivalent, e.g. mathematics or statistics, 3-5 years experience, mastery of at least one common programming language, and experience leading a technical team and/or technical projects.

It’s important to note that while there are many EMs with advanced degrees, these usually aren't required. You’re more likely to see a combination of relevant Bachelor's degree with 3+ years of experience including team leadership. Advanced degrees in your technical area of expertise are nice to have, but experience is more important.

FAANG vs. Startups

EMs everywhere have the same responsibilities - to deliver quality projects through effective team leadership - but the role varies. At a smaller company, you may often be expected to roll up your sleeves and code. At a big company, this may be rare.

Every interview is different, but keep in mind that technical interview prep might be more helpful when interviewing at startups.

Tip: Sound like you, but no interview scheduled yet? No problem. Check out Exponent’s How to Get the Interview Course. You’ll perfect your resume, get job sourcing tips, and learn how to get referrals or even transition internally. Building an interview pipeline while prepping for actual EM interview questions is a great way to get ahead.