The things engineers are desperate for PMs to understand | Camille Fournier (“The Manager’s Path”)
15 Sep 2024 (3 days ago)
Camille’s background
- Camille Fournier has held several high-ranking positions in technology companies, including CTO of Rent the Runway and VP of Technology at Goldman Sachs.
- She is the author of "The Manager's Path," a guide for career progression and management, and is releasing a new book titled "Platform Engineering: A Guide for Technical Product and People Leaders."
- Fournier's career includes roles such as Global Head of Engineering and Architecture at JP Morgan Chase and Head of Platform Engineering at Two Sigma.
Common annoyances between PMs and engineers
- Product managers (PMs) can sometimes hoard credit for projects, neglecting to acknowledge the hard work of the engineering team.
- Engineers can be annoyed when PMs don't seem to understand or care about the technical details involved in their work.
- PMs should strive to share credit, be inclusive of the engineering team, and demonstrate empathy for the complexities of their work.
Avoiding the telephone game
- Managers, especially product managers, can be put in a position where they are asked questions they cannot answer due to a lack of technical knowledge.
- This can lead to managers acting as intermediaries, relaying questions between stakeholders and engineers, which can be frustrating and inefficient for everyone involved.
- Senior engineers, in particular, find this practice, common among managers but especially prevalent in product managers, to be a source of frustration.
Hoarding ideas and over-engineering
- Product managers should avoid trying to come up with every product idea and detail themselves, as this can stifle the creativity of engineers on the team.
- When engineers are not given an outlet for their creativity in the product development process, they may engage in over-engineering as a way to express their creativity through technical choices.
- Engineers whose creative input is ignored or suppressed are more likely to find outlets for their creativity in areas where they have more control, such as technology choices and implementation details.
The importance of involving engineers in ideation
- Product managers who excel at their jobs are not intimidated by engineers who contribute ideas, recognizing that while engineers may have valuable insights, they may not possess a comprehensive understanding of all aspects of product management.
- Successful product managers prioritize building strong relationships with their engineering teams, fostering an environment where engineers feel comfortable sharing their ideas while also developing an appreciation for the distinct roles and responsibilities within the product development process.
- Effective product managers bring a unique skill set to the table, including a deep understanding of customer needs, the ability to measure and analyze product performance, and a strategic mindset that considers both business objectives and customer satisfaction.
The middle-person dilemma
- Management roles often involve attending meetings and filtering information to protect individual contributors' time. However, managers should be mindful of not overusing the "let me get back to you" response, as it can indicate a need to connect individuals directly for efficiency.
- While connecting individuals directly can be beneficial, product managers (PMs) might hesitate due to concerns about engineers potentially agreeing to unfavorable terms or getting caught up in meetings. Collaboration can occur in group settings or through digital platforms like Slack, but distractions remain a challenge.
- To avoid hoarding credit, effective PMs prioritize recognizing engineers' contributions. This can involve acknowledging them during product announcements, encouraging them to take the lead in presentations, and generally stepping back to let their work speak for itself.
Rewriting systems: a big trap?
- Engineers often underestimate the time it takes to migrate from an old system to a new system, especially when external users are involved.
- When considering a rewrite, it's crucial to assess if the existing system truly requires significant changes or if it can continue to function without major issues.
- Rewriting a system often leads to underestimating the complexity and functionality of the old system, resulting in missed features, potential new bugs, and difficulties in replicating important aspects.
Engineering leadership lessons
- Engineering leaders should strive for technical mastery, similar to fluency in a language or expertise in a sport, before transitioning to management.
- Maintaining technical knowledge involves staying informed about industry trends, engaging in discussions with technical experts, and asking insightful questions.
- While exploring new technologies is beneficial, blindly adopting every new framework, especially those heavily promoted by venture-backed startups, can be counterproductive.
Moving from IC to management
- Managers' time belongs to their team, management, and the company, especially as they become more senior.
- Management is a service job where the focus is on serving the team and the company to make things better.
- Effective management involves convincing, nudging, encouraging, directing, and setting guardrails rather than simply giving orders.
One-on-one meetings
- One-on-one meetings should be held with direct reports and managers, ideally weekly or bi-weekly.
- Regularly scheduled one-on-one meetings with peers and stakeholders are not scalable as company size and team responsibilities increase.
- One-on-one meetings are not always the solution for stakeholder management, especially when dealing with a large number of stakeholders, as they can create a false sense of consensus and limit visibility into dissenting opinions.
Pushing beyond comfort zones
- Individuals should assess their meeting frequency and consider reducing it if they are not pushing themselves beyond their comfort zones.
- It is important to evaluate if meetings contribute to personal or professional growth or merely serve as a superficial measure of productivity.
- Equating a high number of meetings with productivity is a misconception.
Building a balanced work culture
- It is important to regularly evaluate priorities and eliminate unimportant tasks to maximize productivity and value.
- Regularly challenging oneself to focus on the most important tasks and questioning the value of one's work can lead to greater efficiency and better results.
- Overworking and equating long hours with dedication can be detrimental, and it is crucial to prioritize a healthy work-life balance.
Effective time management strategies
- Delegation is important for scaling a team and empowering team members.
- Setting boundaries, such as logging off at a specific time each day, can help with focus and productivity.
- Cutting unnecessary tasks, even if it feels risky, is crucial for optimization and growth.
Advice for platform team success
- Platform teams should include software engineers, systems/SRE specialists, and product managers to ensure a cohesive and coherent platform that creates products.
- Platform teams should focus on impact and outcome-based approaches, measuring their contributions through metrics like improved engineering cycle time, reduced product launch and scaling issues, and cost reductions/efficiencies.
- Platform teams can have a higher ratio of engineers to product managers compared to other teams because much of the work is engineering-heavy, focusing on scaling, technical implementations, and performance efficiency.
Platform team responsibilities
- Platform engineering involves developing and operating platforms to manage system complexity and provide leverage to businesses.
- Examples of platform teams include those responsible for developer tools (like CI/CD tooling), cloud infrastructure provisioning, and web/mobile framework support.
- Platform teams can also manage integration platforms, such as billing platforms used by multiple product lines within a company.
When to form a platform team
- A platform team is typically formed when a company has 50 or more engineers and there is a lot of ad hoc coordination happening between engineering groups.
- Signs that it may be time to create a platform team include inefficiencies due to multiple teams solving the same problems, core scaling issues requiring a dedicated team, and developer productivity issues caused by a lack of standardization.
- Forming a platform team is generally not recommended for early-stage companies; it is more beneficial for mature companies where it is worthwhile to invest in internal productivity and centralize certain functions for cost and efficiency.
Thriving on a platform team
- Engineers and engineering managers working on platform teams should be passionate about operational quality and scaling systems.
- Product managers on platform teams should be comfortable working with engineers who have more technical knowledge and should be skilled at identifying and developing solutions that originated within application teams.
- Platform teams often face challenges such as managing complex and lengthy projects, handling migrations, and navigating stakeholder relationships.
AI corner
- AI can be helpful for rephrasing sentences and improving word choice.
- AI should not be relied upon for accurate quotes, as it may generate fabricated ones.
- When using AI for summarization, it is crucial to verify the accuracy of the information provided, as it may not always be reliable.
Lightning round and final thoughts
- The speaker enjoys the books "What Got You Here Won't Get You There" and "When Things Fall Apart" and recommends them to others.
- The speaker enjoys using the product Whoop and finds it to be a very interesting product.
- The speaker enjoys weightlifting and has a small weight set in their home so they can lift weights when they can't go to the gym.