Ask HN: What made your favorite manager so great?
26 comments
Sounds like a good friend!
I too have had generally good results from making friends of my managers. Ideally, my friends are going to push me in the same way that a manager would anyway. I don’t want to stay stagnant in my ideas or performance. There are limits of course, but generally I trend towards progress and self betterment.
I had a rough patch at work last year that ultimately culminated in a sit down with my manager. We talked about what was contributing to my performance and the expectations moving forward. It wasn’t bitter or angry, there was no yelling or screaming, just an honest conversation and an acknowledgment of reality.
Hopefully I have the opportunity to pay it back over the coming years.
(Not to mention that office politics is part of the game. You can refuse to play but you can’t be surprised when you miss out on the spoils…)
I too have had generally good results from making friends of my managers. Ideally, my friends are going to push me in the same way that a manager would anyway. I don’t want to stay stagnant in my ideas or performance. There are limits of course, but generally I trend towards progress and self betterment.
I had a rough patch at work last year that ultimately culminated in a sit down with my manager. We talked about what was contributing to my performance and the expectations moving forward. It wasn’t bitter or angry, there was no yelling or screaming, just an honest conversation and an acknowledgment of reality.
Hopefully I have the opportunity to pay it back over the coming years.
(Not to mention that office politics is part of the game. You can refuse to play but you can’t be surprised when you miss out on the spoils…)
I have had two separate "best managers" for different reasons, both based on the circumstances.
On a small, focused team where all members were highly experienced & competent specialists, the good manager kept the team focused on the actual business goal we were trying to solve, and especially by making decisions in the times when the team didn't have a clear consensus about how to approach something. Sometimes it's more important that a decision be clearly made than that it be exactly correct, and having someone with the authority to do that and the willingness to take responsibility for the consequences is incredible for team morale. But most of the time the team will come to a solution on their own and the manager can be part of that but also be able to step back and let it happen. And then sometimes it's more important that the decision be exactly correct than that it be made quickly, and an individual with practiced discernment between these situations is a treasure.
In a bigger company my best manager understood their role as a primarily political one mediating the needs of their team (both as a team and as individuals) with the sometimes contradictory needs of the broader business. They "manage up" by presenting the team's work to leadership in a way where leadership can understand the value of the team's work. And they "manage down" by contextualizing business decisions to get team buy in when possible, and just generally being a buffer between the changing whims of leaders and the daily work of the team. Blocking interruptions, arguing about whether things should be done, taking the heat when things go wrong.
On a small, focused team where all members were highly experienced & competent specialists, the good manager kept the team focused on the actual business goal we were trying to solve, and especially by making decisions in the times when the team didn't have a clear consensus about how to approach something. Sometimes it's more important that a decision be clearly made than that it be exactly correct, and having someone with the authority to do that and the willingness to take responsibility for the consequences is incredible for team morale. But most of the time the team will come to a solution on their own and the manager can be part of that but also be able to step back and let it happen. And then sometimes it's more important that the decision be exactly correct than that it be made quickly, and an individual with practiced discernment between these situations is a treasure.
In a bigger company my best manager understood their role as a primarily political one mediating the needs of their team (both as a team and as individuals) with the sometimes contradictory needs of the broader business. They "manage up" by presenting the team's work to leadership in a way where leadership can understand the value of the team's work. And they "manage down" by contextualizing business decisions to get team buy in when possible, and just generally being a buffer between the changing whims of leaders and the daily work of the team. Blocking interruptions, arguing about whether things should be done, taking the heat when things go wrong.
Very knowledgeable, always willing to teach, humane, recognized life came first and the work was only so important. Became my business partner and the best man at my wedding.
Always had time to support and mentor people with his incredible skills, would be online at 4am doing out of hours deployments with us, and inevitably get us out of the shit when something went wrong. I was frequently in awe of his technical capability and ability to come up with a solution for… anything!
On the human side, he was compassionate, deeply cared for his employees (and let us put our lives before work), and a genuinely fun, cool guy you wanted to know, wanted to get on a call with or play some games after work - I’m sat in the sun typing this while wearing a t-shirt he custom made for me.
Will, you are and always will be a legend mate!
On the human side, he was compassionate, deeply cared for his employees (and let us put our lives before work), and a genuinely fun, cool guy you wanted to know, wanted to get on a call with or play some games after work - I’m sat in the sun typing this while wearing a t-shirt he custom made for me.
Will, you are and always will be a legend mate!
Looking back at what my best managers (I have two) had in common:
* Cared deeply about my personal progress. Not just at work but in life. Am I feeling okay? How are things going? What are your interests? Are you doing what is interesting to you? Both of them became actual friends outside of work once I left one of the companies, and the other manager left the company I was at during that time.
* Treated me as an equal and used their power in my favor. Bad project? Moved me off it. Salary problems? Fought for a raise. Needed to skill up? Got me what I needed whether it was books, or classes, or whatever.
* Didn't bother much about using 1:1s for "business". It was my time, and they made sure I used it how I wanted. If I wanted to wax poetic about my hobby project for 30 minutes I could.
Importantly both of them understood that what I was doing for the company was a JOB and there were no qualms about that. "Careers" do not exist anymore. This refreshing reality and human feel is something pinhead middle managers I've had since seem to miss.
* Cared deeply about my personal progress. Not just at work but in life. Am I feeling okay? How are things going? What are your interests? Are you doing what is interesting to you? Both of them became actual friends outside of work once I left one of the companies, and the other manager left the company I was at during that time.
* Treated me as an equal and used their power in my favor. Bad project? Moved me off it. Salary problems? Fought for a raise. Needed to skill up? Got me what I needed whether it was books, or classes, or whatever.
* Didn't bother much about using 1:1s for "business". It was my time, and they made sure I used it how I wanted. If I wanted to wax poetic about my hobby project for 30 minutes I could.
Importantly both of them understood that what I was doing for the company was a JOB and there were no qualms about that. "Careers" do not exist anymore. This refreshing reality and human feel is something pinhead middle managers I've had since seem to miss.
My best manager was “irrationally benevolent”. He was a CTO that had just been hired to bring the development in house after the two non technical brothers found product market fit after getting funding and using a third party consulting company for all of the development,
Even though I had no practical experience with AWS, and admitted as much at the interview, he hired me as his third technical hire and basically gave me free reign to implement my strategies based on his stated priorities. He was always a straight shooter. He has since retired and I still keep in touch with him even though I left in 2020.
My next job was at AWS working in Professional Services as a customer facing + hands on consultant. I went in as an L5 when I was 46 and was way over my head from both a soft skills, writing and presentation standpoint and managing dealing with large organizations both internally at AWS and customers.
My first two managers both helped me out immensely as mentors. The second manager left and my third manager was everything you heard about the shit show that was Amazon. They were two faced and backstabbing.
By then I knew how the game was played and just played the game long enough to get through my next vesting period and get my $40K severance.
I’m now a staff architect at a third party consulting company. My manager skip manager, and CTO are all great. They trust my judgment and mostly let me work autonomously leading projects and being the first post sales contact with clients.
They give me sanity checks on my projects when I ask them (my CTO is a former senior software engineer at AWS who worked on a service I specialize in from an implementation standpoint) and are there when I need advice on how to handle a thorny situation with a client.
The worse managers I’ve had are former developers who still really want to be developers and spend time writing production code. I need my managers to manage
Even though I had no practical experience with AWS, and admitted as much at the interview, he hired me as his third technical hire and basically gave me free reign to implement my strategies based on his stated priorities. He was always a straight shooter. He has since retired and I still keep in touch with him even though I left in 2020.
My next job was at AWS working in Professional Services as a customer facing + hands on consultant. I went in as an L5 when I was 46 and was way over my head from both a soft skills, writing and presentation standpoint and managing dealing with large organizations both internally at AWS and customers.
My first two managers both helped me out immensely as mentors. The second manager left and my third manager was everything you heard about the shit show that was Amazon. They were two faced and backstabbing.
By then I knew how the game was played and just played the game long enough to get through my next vesting period and get my $40K severance.
I’m now a staff architect at a third party consulting company. My manager skip manager, and CTO are all great. They trust my judgment and mostly let me work autonomously leading projects and being the first post sales contact with clients.
They give me sanity checks on my projects when I ask them (my CTO is a former senior software engineer at AWS who worked on a service I specialize in from an implementation standpoint) and are there when I need advice on how to handle a thorny situation with a client.
The worse managers I’ve had are former developers who still really want to be developers and spend time writing production code. I need my managers to manage
My favourite manager poached me from another team. This is early on in my career. The man trusted me and he was excited about software. This was at a mechanical engineering firm and he was excited to have someone who was just as excited as he was about software and automation. I worked with him for 2.5 years and had to leave because the HR in the company was a cancerous POS. But I've maintained good relationship with the man, who had my back constantly and is a delightful person to know. He comes to see me whenever he comes to India, and I make sure to make time to meet him. I hoped I'd be able to go to Germany to see him and his family one day, but I'm not sure when I'll be able to.
The best manager I ever had was a compassionate man. He was super kind and patient, but he was also firm and fair. He was consistent in enforcing rules and regulations, but he also understood human factors really well.
He was not authoritarian. He was more authoritative and he really acted more like a mentor than a manager. He knew how to give feedback in a way that was able to be received and actioned.
He was also approachable and liked having random chats with people and getting to know people.
I admired him a lot. He was the best manager I’d ever had and when he left the whole workplace took a turn for the worst. His replacement was just a huge doofnugget.
My actual manager is a GenZ and she is probably the best manager that I had. She helped me to fight my impostor syndrome and to get confidence again in my skills that were pushed down by several bad managers in the past.
She trust me a lot (I am remote and she is another timezone) and I know that she is ready to fight for me.
My favorite manager went looking for important problems on the team that nobody was taking responsibility for, and ensured that they would get addressed. If you mentioned something to them in passing that was an issue, they next week they'd have taken some action to follow up on it. They promoted a collective decision making process, but also made sure that decisions got made, rather than languishing in a no-man's land. And, of course, they were respectful, welcoming to new team members, and had the technical knowledge to understand what was going on on the team.
He knew virtually nothing about how to do my job, was technically incompetant to the point of struggling to move files between folders on his computer, but was very effective at insulating me from any bullshit wastes of time - meetings were kept to a minimum, any user complaints were filtered through him. Never requested progress reports on any of my work, trusted me to work autonomously, and if I ever needed help, he had a large rolodex of people he could get me in contact with.
He was the shit.
He was the shit.
My favorite manager (and type of manager in general) knew how to stay put of the way while providing real support where possible. He also protected us from the corporate bullshit of "goal setting" every quarter, pretty much doing it for us so we don't waste time.
Technical knowledge is a plus, but I think trust is even more important than that. It doesn't really matter that much if a manager knows code so much as they will trust your estimates and your pushback.
Technical knowledge is a plus, but I think trust is even more important than that. It doesn't really matter that much if a manager knows code so much as they will trust your estimates and your pushback.
Some of my favorite qualities in various managers:
- Deep technical knowledge. Someone you can respect as a fellow engineer.
- Really loud and forceful in meetings. Someone who can represent your work well to a team of other managers
- A good friend
- Super honest and transparent
- Combination of deep technical knowledge and passion/involvement in the team's mission. This was my favorite because I felt the manager could truly appreciate the work I did.He is a greybread.
He bagged a lot of system admin experience before he went into DevOps, Data Ops and such.
He always pointed me to a tool and encourage learning.
He is always there to explain if I need help.
He can talk hours about things he knows about so I listened to him a lot but sadly didn't absorb much as he went back to an IC shortly.
However, maybe it's just because he gave me a lot of interesting things to do. So knowing what your team likes to do is also important.
He bagged a lot of system admin experience before he went into DevOps, Data Ops and such.
He always pointed me to a tool and encourage learning.
He is always there to explain if I need help.
He can talk hours about things he knows about so I listened to him a lot but sadly didn't absorb much as he went back to an IC shortly.
However, maybe it's just because he gave me a lot of interesting things to do. So knowing what your team likes to do is also important.
I had one manager that was awesome. He didn't know anything about programming, software or development, but he was awesome at networking and asking the right questions of our customers and making the employees feel being appreciated.
The bean counters got him fired because on paper he wasn't selling anything.
The bean counters got him fired because on paper he wasn't selling anything.
Didn't really have good managers so far. Reading this makes me question my choices. Maybe it's time to move on. On the other hand, this is a cluster of greatness and for every 15 good comments there's a thousand bad stories.
So let me ask this instead: How would you go about finding a job with a good manager? And whats the reason behind it?
So let me ask this instead: How would you go about finding a job with a good manager? And whats the reason behind it?
As with any job search, it helps to use your network. Ask people you know about their managers and if you hear about someone that sounds like a good fit for you, then ask if they're hiring.
If that's not available, then you've got to do lots of interviews. Make sure it's at places where you interview primarily with the team you'll work for, so their manager is potentially your manager, and the hiring manager is likely to be your manager. Ask you future peers about the manager, ask your future manager about their maanagement style.
As an interviewee you get less time for questions than the interviewers, but you do have time.
It also helps to know what you're looking for. My preferred management style is 'benevolent neglect' but that's not for everyone. A good manager can tweak their style towards what works for their employees too - I had one manager where I talked with a peer about why I liked him, and the peer said they liked him because of frequent check-ins that a) I didn't get and b) I would have hated; that was kind of neat to hear.
If you do get a manager you like, keep in touch. They'll probably be managing for their career and maybe they'll have opportunities when you want to move. I made a good impression with my skip manager at my first 'real job' during the interview and (at least) with a couple projects where we had meetings, and have been hired by him twice since then.
If that's not available, then you've got to do lots of interviews. Make sure it's at places where you interview primarily with the team you'll work for, so their manager is potentially your manager, and the hiring manager is likely to be your manager. Ask you future peers about the manager, ask your future manager about their maanagement style.
As an interviewee you get less time for questions than the interviewers, but you do have time.
It also helps to know what you're looking for. My preferred management style is 'benevolent neglect' but that's not for everyone. A good manager can tweak their style towards what works for their employees too - I had one manager where I talked with a peer about why I liked him, and the peer said they liked him because of frequent check-ins that a) I didn't get and b) I would have hated; that was kind of neat to hear.
If you do get a manager you like, keep in touch. They'll probably be managing for their career and maybe they'll have opportunities when you want to move. I made a good impression with my skip manager at my first 'real job' during the interview and (at least) with a couple projects where we had meetings, and have been hired by him twice since then.
I'm not sure that would even be worth the time. There's very few times that I've had the same manager for more than maybe 1.5 years. Even if you somehow could find a job where you know the manager is good, there's a high probability that they will be replaced with a dolt. Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but I'm at a point where I have just accepted that most managers are lousy and to just work within that framework of suck.
Well, can't blame you for that. I've been thinking similar thoughts. Mainly looking at the economic recession we face though.
That, too, has been a factor of my thinking as of late. There was a time where I would have left a job (or manager) if I didn't like it that much or if I just had something I wanted to do where the job got in the way of it. I've quit my job to work on an app, and another time I quit both because I hated the job and so I could work on a hardware-based project. I knew I could just get a job again when I need one, and luckily I did both times. Today, I wouldn't do that... or at least not unless the level of intellectual pain caused by a job were just that severe. Not only had the software industry desperately needed an adjustment for quite some time, but the job market is kinda bad all-around, and I do think that many are in denial about how AI will probably suck up a lot of the programmer jobs that subgeniuses such as myself are capable of. My current manager isn't that bad but, if they were as bad as the worst manager I've had, I would just maintain the mindset of coasting and not letting the stupidity get to me.
He seemed like a fundamentally good human. Wanted everyone to succeed & be happy. Aspired towards fairness etc.
That enables you to assume that this person is engaging in good faith & can be trusted. Everything is a lot easier if you can make that assumption with some confidence
That enables you to assume that this person is engaging in good faith & can be trusted. Everything is a lot easier if you can make that assumption with some confidence
For me, it was about giving space to grow. I feel that trusting the people in your team and not micro-managing them really helps them explore new things, learn and become more responsible.
backed me up and provided engineering support. raised my salary regularly, knowing i was a valuable engineer.
* Servant leadership
* Sharing credit / let others shine, taking / shielding others from blame
* Phycological safety
* Clarity of Vision and Direction
* Active Listening & Empathy
* Growth Mindset & Development Focus
* Accountability & Ownership
* Adaptability
* Trust & Autonomy
* Transparent & Consistent Communication
* Emotional Intelligence
* Resource Clearing / Advocacy
Oh wait - these are the traits in a good/great manager - of which I have seen only 1 so far.
* Sharing credit / let others shine, taking / shielding others from blame
* Phycological safety
* Clarity of Vision and Direction
* Active Listening & Empathy
* Growth Mindset & Development Focus
* Accountability & Ownership
* Adaptability
* Trust & Autonomy
* Transparent & Consistent Communication
* Emotional Intelligence
* Resource Clearing / Advocacy
Oh wait - these are the traits in a good/great manager - of which I have seen only 1 so far.
No bs, helpful stance. Patient. Polite.
And a good understanding of my shortcomings.
And a good understanding of my shortcomings.
You could also pick up the phone and call him night/day and he would try to help you in any way that he could.
When we were acquired, he advocated on my behalf and made it known that the new company would still need me to maintain our existing systems. I'm still here 4 years later and he has since been fired.
He has FU money (he never has to work again at 59) and couldn't keep his mouth shut when a new director was leading us on a path of destruction, so the only logical conclusion was to get rid of him.
We are now friends and talk at least once/month.