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.
