---
title: "Managing a team that didn't choose you"
url: https://daily.dev/posts/managing-a-team-that-didn-t-choose-you-wtmpzsy0j
source_url: https://newsletter.manager.dev/p/managing-a-team-that-didn-t-choose-you
type: article
source: "Manager.dev"
published: 2026-04-28T06:08:44.553Z
updated: 2026-04-28T06:09:10.264Z
tags: ["leadership", "agile"]
reading_time: 9
upvotes: 123
comments: 8
language: en
---

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# Managing a team that didn't choose you

**[Manager.dev](https://daily.dev/sources/zaidesanton)** · 9 min read · 123 upvotes · 8 comments

## Summary

An Engineering Manager shares an honest retrospective of his first 6 months taking over an existing team at HoneyBook. He describes three key challenges: abandoning his planned technical onboarding when he discovered the team had been without real management for 6 months and needed people-focused leadership; over-pressuring the team to hit sprint goals without sufficient technical context, leading to burnout and pushback from a senior engineer; and discovering 21 neglected support tickets that required a focused 'hotfixing blitz' to resolve. The core lesson is that rigid 30-60-90 onboarding plans fail in practice — constant adaptation, paying attention to team signals, and willingness to course-correct matter far more than any pre-made plan.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://newsletter.manager.dev/p/managing-a-team-that-didn-t-choose-you>

## Community discussion

Top comments from developers on daily.dev.

**@markojr** · 9 upvotes

> manager explaining how he was busy and achieved nothing with a happy end of taking paternity leave
>
> honestly good people don't need managers
> I think that the biggest problems are that POs and Techleads don't do their job
> Techleads tend to manage Product instead of leading Techstack and POs tend to be Scrum-Masters instead of "owning" their product

**@manlio34** · 6 upvotes

> > "I prioritized the team and people first."
>
>
> Bro, with the pressure you put on your devs, it doesn't seem like it
>
> > "_Someone won $20 on the scratch tickets"_
>
>
> Oh, wow, an incredible prize to maintain mental sanity in that situation.
>
>
> Please, remember that even developers are humans and every human deserve space. If your team is in such a bad state, give more time. Do not focus on someone else method and if there are such team reorgs, be clear with your director that you'll need (more) **_time_**.
>
> At least you learned something from this experience. Wish you luck, and congrats for your...

**@tancaken** · 2 upvotes

> I feel like Junior Dev needs to take on product management skills if they want to vibe code

**@kiriakiangelakis** · 1 upvotes

> The part about rushing engineers during cooldown and then being told to stop by your own senior engineer hit hard. Most new managers make the mistake of proving themselves through _output_ instead of trust. The fact that he listened and course-corrected says more about his leadership than any sprint completion ever would.

---

Tags: [#leadership](https://daily.dev/tags/leadership), [#agile](https://daily.dev/tags/agile)

[View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/managing-a-team-that-didn-t-choose-you-wtmpzsy0j)