--- title: Engineering management is a career change, not a promotion description: Ryan Murphy, former engineering manager at Yelp and founder of EM Accelerator, shares hard-won insights on engineering management. Key points include:... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/engineering-management-is-a-career-change-not-a-promotion-zblayozus twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Engineering management is a career change, not a promotion | daily.dev og:description: Ryan Murphy, former engineering manager at Yelp and founder of EM Accelerator, shares hard-won insights on engineering management. Key points include:... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/engineering-management-is-a-career-change-not-a-promotion-zblayozus og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/ZBlAYoZUS.png og:image:alt: Engineering management is a career change, not a promotion og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Engineering management is a career change, not a promotion **[Tech World With Milan](https://daily.dev/sources/techworld-with-milan)** · 15 min read · 5 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Ryan Murphy, former engineering manager at Yelp and founder of EM Accelerator, shares hard-won insights on engineering management. Key points include: engineering management is a career change, not a promotion; what managers actually evaluate at each level (initiative for juniors, roadblock detection for mid-levels, lead-of-leads behavior for seniors); why delayed feedback is a form of cruelty that creates PIPs; how engineers who communicate progress and show crisis leadership are easiest to promote; and why spending time with sales and support teams is an underrated career accelerator. Murphy argues the industry fails by thrusting untrained people into roles with direct control over others' careers, with teams bearing the cost of on-the-job learning. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Is becoming an engineering manager considered a promotion for a senior engineer? No, moving into engineering management is better understood as a career change rather than a promotion. The skills that make someone a strong individual contributor, such as technical execution, do not transfer, and the manager starts over on a new learning curve similar to being a junior again. Engineers who want to keep climbing without switching tracks can instead pursue tech lead, staff, principal, or distinguished engineer roles. _Anyone weighing a move into engineering management can find more perspectives on career tradeoffs like this on daily.dev._ ### What do engineering managers actually look for when deciding who to promote at different seniority levels? Managers evaluate juniors on visible initiative and eagerness to grow, mid-level engineers on their ability to spot roadblocks early and mentor others, and seniors on whether they can lead other leads from the sidelines rather than just taking on the hardest tickets themselves. Clear stakeholder communication and calm leadership during outages also strongly influence who gets advocated for in promotion discussions. _Engineers mapping out their next promotion case can track advice like this on daily.dev._ ### Why do so many performance improvement plans (PIPs) happen even when engineers seem capable? A significant share of PIPs trace back to managers who delayed giving honest feedback, telling themselves the issue would resolve in two weeks and letting it drag on for two months instead. By the time the conversation happens, the problem has grown far more serious than it needed to be, turning what could have been an early correction into a formal process. _Engineers and managers navigating tough feedback conversations can find more career insight on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Don't become an Engineering Manager](https://daily.dev/posts/don-t-become-an-engineering-manager-rjguszj9h) · Manager.dev · 49 upvotes · 5 comments --- Tags: [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career), [#leadership](https://daily.dev/tags/leadership) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/engineering-management-is-a-career-change-not-a-promotion-zblayozus) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Engineering management is a career change, not a promotion","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/engineering-management-is-a-career-change-not-a-promotion-zblayozus","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/engineering-management-is-a-career-change-not-a-promotion-zblayozus"},"datePublished":"2026-07-30T15:10:47.772Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T20:19:10.119Z","description":"Ryan Murphy, former engineering manager at Yelp and founder of EM Accelerator, shares hard-won insights on engineering management. 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