Show notes

1:27 - Tell us about yourself

3:10 - Last fall you transitioned into a new role as an Engineering Manager at NPM. How did you make that leap?

5:38 - What does your day to day schedule look like?

8:32 - What’s the hardest thing about being a manager?

13:37 - Hands on vs. hands off management style

17:01- How long have you been in engineering management?

18:33 - What’s the best thing about being a manager?

21:49 - Do you think someone should be an engineer prior to being a manager?

30:15 - Do you still write code?

33:13 - Do you have any book recommendations for management?

36:53 - How do you build personal relationships w/ employees while working remotely?

42:13 - Advice for those looking to become an engineering manager

46:44 - Where can we find you online?

Resources

Transcript

We provide transcripts for all of our episodes. You can find them here!

Ali 0:00
In one of our previous episodes, we talked about the different jobs within tech, one of which is engineering management. Today, we’re joined by the wonderful Amal Hussein, engineering manager at MPM. And we’re going to chat more in depth about engineering management. Let’s get started.

Unknown Speaker 0:20
Welcome to the ladybug podcast. I’m Kelly. I’m Allie. And I’m Emma. And we’re debugging the tech industry.

Unknown Speaker 0:28
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Ali 1:27
So Amol tell us about yourself. What got you into engineering management?

Amal Hussein 1:31
I, Ali and Emma, first of all, thanks so much for having me on the show. I’m really excited to be talking about a new role. For me. I still identify as a software engineer who’s maybe crossed over to the dark side or what can be known as the dark side to some. But I was a software engineer working at focu as a tech lead and had been a project lead before and other roles and You know, working at Boku there’s a lot of, I would say, lots of different types of things that you’re doing on a project that really extends beyond typical engineering, you’re doing a lot of product work, figuring out stuff on blocking, managing up, sideways, etc. and managing up has been something that I’ve, you know, done successfully for a long time in my career. And it kind of led to kind of, I think, an acknowledgement and, and my leading into just, you know, being comfortable with being a leader being in charge of things. And that kind of, you know, it was it was a tough acknowledgement for me because I didn’t really, I think walking away from day to day software engineering, was is was is, is it is and was a big decision. But ultimately, you know, I realized that as an engineering manager, especially depending on the role you’re still doing Software Engineering, you’re just doing it through people. And literally also just you’re still, you’re still writing software sometimes, but you’re just, you’re not responsible for the day to day delivery cycle.

Emma 3:10
Yeah, that that’s a, that would be a tough pill to swallow. If you are like, kind of on the fence. I’m curious, like, what, like, how has that been for you? Is that harder having to deal with people on a day to day basis as opposed to computers?

Amal Hussein 3:28
Um, I think people are way more complicated than machines. And yes, I would say that human problems are intersectional. And they’re very different than, you know, the kind of binary problems that you run into when trying to scale a project or, you know, trying to, you know, debug a flaky test. So, you know, you have to really be adaptable. And I think one of the biggest challenges is really understanding that everyone doesn’t think like you and so you know, having to kind of calibrate to your team It’s something that’s really important. And that’s that’s been, that’s been something that’s a muscle that I’m still exercising, you know. But you know, so anyway, so I’m new at this role. I joined NPM a few months ago. And so it’s a new role, new company. So lots of challenges there. But, but it’s been a really interesting, like, very interesting journey. And I have a really incredible team. That’s very humbling. And, you know, I’ve been, it’s been, I would say, a firehose experience. So, so for those of you who haven’t, like, maybe seen or heard from me in a few months that’s been been under the MPM firehose of just really like learning how to do this new job, but do it do it well, and also, yeah, just learning, learning all things NPM and you know, all the, you know, the wonderful world that is the registry, which is a magical cave, full of wonderful, lots of mysteries.

Ali 4:57
That’s a really cool. I also made the transition from engineering to a more people centric role with TJ and can definitely agree that the people challenges stay challenging and stay different, whereas engineering challenges, I think kind of repeat themselves to some extent and tend to tend to be savola in a more predictable way, then people problems do so definitely relate to that, even though it’s a little bit different teaching than doing a strict management. As an engineering manager, what does your day to day schedule look like?

Amal Hussein 5:41
Now? That’s a great question. It really varies from you know, debugging things with my team, to doing design reviews to doing planning for our like cadence to talking to other stakeholders. You know, getting security review done, it really varies. You really have to kind of exercise all aspects of the software delivery cycle, because you’re really responsible for like the end to end delivery of a thing. And so, you know, it really, it also means like stretching outside of your comfort zone, right. And also, knowing that, you know, you’re not the expert at everything, and it’s very important that you lean on the experts, you know, and you fill in the gaps where you can and so I it’s been amazing for me just how, like, how, like, how much more well rounded I think I’ve become, and a lot more comfortable with, I would say, just like literally all aspects, you know, from QA to release, right? To like inception, for ideation, whatever it is. There’s just a lot of, yeah, there’s just a full cycle that you’re now involved in and that you’re responsible for seeing through you know, and so everybody kind of has this If you can imagine, like a baton, and ultimately, like different people have the baton and give it at different times, but ultimately you’re responsible for getting that baton across the finish line. And so, so I think that’s, that’s been a very interesting shift for me, like the accountability factor and the buck stops here factor like, it’s, it’s always great. Even when you’re a tech lead, there’s always someone else to blame, right? Like, when you’re engineering manager, you know, you’re really responsible for the delivery and the output. And, you know, whether you’re using whether your team, you know, is aware of it or not, right, like, ultimately, the accountability falls on you necessarily, not necessarily even your team. And so, steps I think my day is varied and it’s full of lots of different types of responsibilities. So

Emma 7:48
that’s awesome. Yeah, I, I always thought I wanted to get into management but I, I loved your comment about managing people being intersectional and not binary. Because that’s something I never consciously had thought about before, I guess. I always thought, you know, I, I love communicating with people, I think I would be a good manager, but it’s not that cut and dry. And to your point, like, being a manager is hard, like managing people is not an easy task. And I think that we perhaps can take our managers for granted occasionally, perhaps because we don’t necessarily see all of the things that they’re doing for us are seeing all the battles that they’re fighting for us. What would you say is the hardest thing about being a manager?

Amal Hussein 8:37
So I would say one thing I kind of want to rephrase a little bit is is if I don’t feel like I managed people, I support them right? So ultimately, like you’re there to support them and get shit out of their way and like and or get shit into their way if that’s what they’re looking at. But But, but really like I would say, especially for software engineers who are incredibly talented and you know, really all knowledge workers. I think this is a rule that applies to all knowledge workers. You know, there’s, you know, people often know what they want. And so ultimately you’re there to support them and guide them and sponsor them. And, you know, I meant to them, but it’s different types of, like, I have a different relationship with everyone on my team based on kind of where they are in their career and, you know, and where they are with what they want to do in the company. You know, some some of my teammates, I’m sponsoring more, you know, for and like advocating more, you know, for them, some folks, I’m doing more mentoring, you know, some folks I’m doing more coaching, you know, so it’s different kind of relationship with every person. So I think, kind of calibrating myself and the way I operate and the way I think and the way I would get stuff done, you know, kind of calibrating that to someone else is probably Probably the hardest thing, right? Because people don’t think like you, they, and they shouldn’t, because that would be a bad thing, right? If we all thought alike, but there’s a bias that comes with your thinking, you know, and so trying to I think part of being a good manager, and one of the hardest things is really being conscious of your bias, right and making room for others in the way they solution and the way they problem solve, and in making and making it like a having an inclusive environment where people feel comfortable sharing their opposing views, right, or opposing approaches to set thing, you know, so it’s very important that everybody can bring their full selves to the table, and they don’t feel rejected in any way. Right. And so, so I think, you know, just creating that safe space, being conscious of your bias like these are these are all really challenging things. I think context switching is another challenge. Like You’re doing a lot of context switching. And sometimes it’s really exciting. And sometimes it’s exhausting, you know. And so being conscious of how you schedule your day and what you’re tackling at a given time is, is a huge challenge. Another challenge I would say is, you know, your day gets hijacked, you know, and so you kind of start out your day thinking, Okay, I’m going to accomplish ABCD. And then like, you accomplish a and half of B, and that’s because, you know, you you were firefighting, or dealing with other problems. And so, I like knowing that your day is not your own. And, like, that’s a very big shift from being a software engineer, right? It’s like, where you’re like, Okay, here’s my day, you know, I set I set I set the pace for myself. You have to really be flexible to like other people hijacking your, your, your day, and you know, for good things right. But um, but you have to be Yeah, flexibility is like key, I think to staying sane and To kind of Yeah, like not having like a Who Moved My Cheese moment every day. So But yeah, I mean it’s it’s it’s a hard job I have a really a newfound respect for managers in general, I would say good managers or people who strive to be good managers, because I’ve had plenty of bad and good managers. And you know, it’s easy to know the difference. But, but yes, it’s a hard job. And being an engineering manager in particular, like you’re switching from, you know, like, something that’s so binary to people which are like the opposite of that, and, you know, kind of transitioning between software and people problems, both really complex in their own ways, is a big challenge. So, I think it might be the hardest management job, to be honest, is to be an engineering manager, but I’m like now tooting my own horn.

Emma 12:57
No, I mean, I think it’s wonderful and I To hear someone who’s so self aware and understand that people are not all the same, and we can’t put them all in one box and expect them all to thrive. It’s quite refreshing, it takes a special type of person to be a great manager. And we’ll get a little bit more into that and just a little bit, but I’m curious what your, what your management style is. So when we talk hands on versus hands off, I’ve had managers on both ends of the spectrum. And you had mentioned that you work remotely and you work with teams, you know, all over Europe in the US and and we’ll talk more about remote working a little bit later. But what’s your management style? Do you have set meetings with your with your employees, like once a week or what does that look like?

Amal Hussein 13:44
Yeah, that’s a great question. Thanks so much. So I have one on ones with my team every week, which may be sound excessive for some or maybe not, but, you know, it’s really important to kind of have that pulse of what’s happening in Kind of having a consistent communication channel that’s there. But you know, I have team weekly team meetings and one on ones with my team. And beyond that, you know, there’s just company wide engineering wide meetings that happen on a weekly basis. So for like a distributed company, we’re all meeting and talking fairly often, like in a synchronous way. But then there’s also being connected off, you know, on Slack, and there’s pairing sessions that my team sets up with each other, that I joined some times and you know, so we’re all kind of in various types of communication throughout the day and throughout the week. But in terms of hands off, versus hands on, I would say I’m very much a hands on manager and because I jump into debug pair test, code review. You know, I kind of Do I’m I’m kind of alongside my team for every aspect of the delivery cycle. As well as, like, all the other stuff with like, you know, stakeholder, figuring out stuff with stakeholders, and like all the other stuff that’s beyond the scope of like my team’s delivery. So, in a sense, I kind of have two jobs, you know, so we’re one I’m like, I feel like I’m an engineer on the team. And the other job is like, you know, kind of being an external represented representative for my team, like throughout the company. But I mean, in terms of, I think, my style, I’m, I’m very much still in discovery mode. I think I’m still figuring a lot out about, you know, I think, what my preferences are and and I think also what the what the challenges are for, for, like managing such a diverse and like distributed team. So I would say you know, we can check back in but you know, the It’s still very much I would say, promise is not resolved on that.

Ali 16:10
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Amal Hussein 17:00
um, let’s see,

almost five months. So not that long.

And it’s been a firehose experience. Because, you know, being an engineer manager at NPM, there’s there’s a lot to learn a lot of things to come up to speed with about, you know, how things work internally at the red in the registry. And just to give folks some context, I work on a team that is that works on the registry, so it’s not so much the, and the the Seelye or the thing that you kind of think of when you think of NPM but we’re like the, we work on the registry where all of the actual packages like live and you know, so it’s the machine that hosts and runs and you know, it’s like the Time Machine basically, that you know, where all the packages live.

And

so we’re much more you know, internal facing. Not so much external. But our kind of our touch points are the CLA, and you know any other interface, you know any other clients like yarn or

even, you know, the Java community has

some interfaces directly to the registry. So, you know, we’re, you know, we have the endpoints that we set, we’ve managed the endpoints that allow other

package managers to connect with the registry.

Ali 18:33
Awesome. We’ve talked a little bit about management style in the hard parts of being an engineering manager, but I want to know why you transition and why you made the decision to transition and what the best thing about being an engineering manager is.

Amal Hussein 18:49
Yeah, it’s a great question.

I think I made the decision to transition but my the, like, the reason why I was like, Okay, I think I want to do this is because I noticed just the pattern and like all of my projects and jobs where I was like always, you know, I always ended up being the person that was like the go to person for something or I ended up being, I don’t know, you know, being the project lead or tech lead for something, there was just kind of a trend and I, you know, I feel really comfortable kind of stepping into into roles where there isn’t, there’s uncertainty and there’s lots to figure out. Like, it’s those those kinds of things didn’t faze me. I also was really comfortable working with stakeholders and managing up or sideways like depending on like, what the situation needed. So I, I think it was a realization that like, through talking with other people in this role, you know, that like, hey, maybe this would actually be a good fit for me. It was really important that I was somewhere that had a hands on On engineering management culture because this is my first role and I’m I was I’m, I’m still not sure if I want to do this full time, like forever and ever and ever, like, I might want to go back to being a principal engineer in a few years or, you know, maybe do a pendulum swing, right, like do management for a little while, you know, go back to hands on. I haven’t really decided if this is like a permanent track for me yet. But, but I but I knew that it was something that I wanted to try. And, you know, I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to try it at the creepy craziest place in the world to try it so. So yeah, you know, they like yeah, took a chance on me and, you know, like, I’m like learning a ton and really enjoying it so far. But I can you know, if I’m honest, I can totally see myself in a couple of years saying I you know, what I think I want to like be a principal engineer. For a little while and kind of do that pendulum swing, which is something that’s very common, you see that a lot with engineering managers, they’ll, they’ll go back to writing software full time for a few years and come back into it because it you know, it’s, I think it’s important to, to if you’re staying at this level anyway to make sure that you’re you’re not, you know, you don’t have any attrition with your, with your software, right, you know, skills. And I think you’re more effective. I don’t know, the closer you are to the code, the more effective you can be even just guiding your team. But, you know, we’ll see I might want to do that and or move into like an executive role in a few years as well. I’m still it’s still TBD for me, I wish I had like a better answer, but

Emma 21:49
that’s quite all right. Yeah. No, I’m I’d be looking forward to chatting with you again, and you know, several months or a year and seeing what were your heads up on that but i think it’s it’s good to note to That you can do the so called pendulum swing and go back to development if something that you want. You know, with any role you can get burned out if it’s if it’s a ton of work, and it’s okay to switch different domains every so often. So it was nice to hear you say that. My question is, do you think someone should be an engineer prior to being a manager? Do you think that that’s helped you? And do you think it’s something that engineering managers should look to have on their resume before they switch into management?

Amal Hussein 22:31
Yeah, that’s an awesome question. I just realized I didn’t answer all these questions about what’s the best thing about being a manager, I, I’ll tell you that first, best tour by by far, I think the best thing about being a manager is just the impact that you can have and like, especially for me as a woman person of color, I mean, I have both, you know, people on my team that identify as women and people of color, and so it’s just a phenomenal thing for me to be able to actually, you know, I would say relate to them. At a different on a different level, which isn’t very common in our industry. But specifically, like just being able to kind of push people or identify, like, work with people on their goals and identify like, what is the thing that you really want to achieve? And okay, cool, let’s make it happen and then making it happen, you know, just that gratification of I think, really actually being able to push the needle in someone’s life and career has been incredibly gratifying. And that’s the thing that for me, like, you know, makes me want to do this forever. But I think that the challenges of you know, I think the challenges of middle management in general are are pretty burnout prone. Right. Like it’s, it’s a it’s I think it’s challenging to stay in the middle management role for several years because I think it’s, you know, you’re you’re in you’re in a very tough spots where, you know, you’re, you’re, you have you’re managing like the next Team and then you’re managing expectations from your team. And it’s tough, like being a middle manager is not easy. And so I think kind of, you know, continuing to take all the lessons that you learned as a middle management and then move into an executive role where you can make an impact and at a team level, make sense? Or, you know, going into a principal going back into principal engineer role where you can you know, make it make make things more effective at the team level. You know, it’s an another is another is another out. So back to your your original question. No, I do I remember it, which was, um, should someone be an engineer prior to being being an engineer manager? I would say absolutely. If you can’t do the job of people on your team, like you shouldn’t, I don’t think you should be you. I don’t know if you should be leading them by I don’t know that. That feels like really conservative. Maybe thing to say, but I think you You have to have some element of relatability to team. So I would say, yeah, you need to definitely be an engineer and you have to understand what the challenges are, that come with being an individual individual contributor at, you know, and knowing what those challenges are allows you too, you know, I think be more effective at guiding your team through challenges, solutions, etc. So if you can’t relate, you can’t like, you know, yeah, if you can’t relate to them, you can’t be effective. And, you know, then I’m not sure that bill like it would be good for your team, as well, like, you know, to have to have someone that doesn’t have experience writing software. But, but I guess it doesn’t mean that you’re going to be a bad manager. It just there’s going to be really there’s aspects of relatability I think, you know, that are going to be challenging and depending on how the company is structured like it might be difficult for you to even do your job? Well, because, you know, most engineering managers I know are somewhat hands on. So if you’re if you don’t understand the software delivery cycle or what it means to, you know, do a code review, then, you know, like, there’s parts of your job that I think would be challenging to do.

But yeah, I don’t know. What do you think? What do you think?

Emma 26:25
I would say yes, because I have had manager I had a manager previously, and I thought she was a great person, but she was a design director. And this was really difficult for me to advance my career because she didn’t fully understand the software engineering role. And as a result that definitely hindered my ability to achieve a promotion. It was one of those things where I had to meet like the software engineering criteria to move forward. But she wasn’t able to accurately assess whether or not I had met those. So I definitely think it is I don’t want to just sound like gatekeeping at all right? Like, it’s more than just knowing that the technical side of things to be a great manager, but it definitely is a huge factor. I’ve also had engineering managers who, in the past, were so caught up with wanting to code all the time that they kind of shirked their responsibilities to their employees, which was really, really hard for me when I needed support. So, yes, and no, I think it’s a double edged sword, almost. It you can’t just say yes or no, I definitely do think it, it helps, obviously. But it’s more than just knowing the tech stack. It’s also making sure that at the end of the day, you’re putting your people first

Amal Hussein 27:39
Yeah, you know, and, and really, I think that’s, that’s a great like, I’m glad you said that, because I think that’s another challenge of being an engineering manager is that like, or especially a new one, I think is, you know, sometimes you know, you can really get focused on the technical challenges. And, you know, you have to really kind of pull your head out of there and remember, like, there People, people challenges that are that are the priority always, you know, and you kind of have to really remind yourself like, you know, this is like people first like that fix the people problem. The Tech, the tech stuff can wait. Right? So the tech stuff is secondary to the, the the technical challenges are secondary to the people challenges, right. And so, so yeah, I can totally relate to that. And I’m sorry to hear that you had that experience, by the way.

Emma 28:26
That’s okay. I mean, it kind of helped me realize what I want and need, which I think is a good thing.

Amal Hussein 28:32
You know, so part management is like, if there’s a two way street, right? And sometimes it’s really important, like, it’s really important for people to give you feedback, right? And not only should you be like it’s good for them to give it to you, but you should be soliciting it as well. You know, you should constantly be asking for feedback and like having a culture of feedback on your team is going to it’s like the it’s going to be what makes makes you six like You and your team successful, right? Because if you can tell each other what sucks or what’s going well, or what, what what can be improved like you, you’re going to constantly be in a state of continuous improvement, right? But if if it if there isn’t like that open door culture, then it’s then it’s then then there’s constantly back channeling and that’s not that’s not going to be progress for anybody. Right? So ultimately, like you can have the best manager in the world, but if the team is not, um, you know, there’s there there are certain things that need to exist within this team as well in order for like the entire team to be effective, right? Like, it’s not like you’re Superwoman, or Superman that’s gonna come in, like, save the day, like they’re just, they’re, they’re it. It really does take two to tango, like, or Honestly, it takes, you know, a number of people to tango.

Ali 29:50
Absolutely. Awesome. Well, I have a kind of follow up question to what we’ve been discussing and I think a comment main concern that people have when they are maybe deciding whether they’re going to transition to engineering management, especially as women is like, whether they’ll still be able to write code and whether they’ll still be perceived as technical. And I don’t know if that’s like, a concern that you’ve had or if you do feel like you’re still technically progressing and how maybe you you work on that.

Amal Hussein 30:25
Yeah, that’s a great question. So I guess I feel like I’m technically progressing because I have a much I feel like I have a wider, I don’t know, like a bird’s eye view into like, lots of different things that are happening within the company. And like, Okay, this thing is happening this way. Interesting, right? So there are more kind of, I would say, things that I’m aware of from a real sense, but you know, and I write code with my team, I code review I don’t like I’m not primarily responsible for delivery. software, but there’s things that I work on that are like, Oh, I can unblock you with this thing, or, oh, I can help you debug this thing. I would say I’m not, no, no, I still have side projects that I work on outside of work. But I don’t feel like I’m like regressing per se. I think there’s, I would say that maybe my muscle for like, how fast I can solve a problem, right? Or how fast I can maybe write code is like, slowly, slowly getting like that, right? There’s like a slow attrition. But in terms of like, actual software, I mean, I feel like I’m constantly solving software problems, even though I’m not necessarily writing the code. So I don’t feel there’s like an attrition there. I don’t know it’s, I would say like I’m maybe I can check check back in in the year. But I feel like I’m constantly like thinking, thinking or Teaching or, you know, coming up with software solutions. So I have to say, like, I really do miss, like being primarily responsible for just that. But I but I like two weeks later, I would be completely bored. So I don’t know, you know, it’s like, you’re never happy, like you have to just just I think, make make your own variety. But, but yeah, but I still write code just not as much. And and yes, I do miss it but you know, getting to do all these other things is, I think, a much more like, I think there are hundred people that can write code better than I can. I mean, I’m a pretty good, pretty good engineer, but there’s people who can do that. But those people are not maybe willing to do the other pieces which I can do, right. Like there’s really important people problems and process problems to solve that. People who can write software are not necessarily even interested in solving right. So I I can kind of do Both and that’s, I think that’s the advantage that I think that’s the advantage that I have. And it’s a sacrifice, but it’s, um, it’s the path that I’ve chosen. And, you know, I have to live with it for now. So

Emma 33:13
how have you been learning about management? I don’t know. Do you read books? And if so, have you read any books about management?

Amal Hussein 33:20
Yeah, I’ve been like doing some self study. You know? I would say there’s books like I don’t know. mythical man month and radical candor and fire fight five dysfunctional five examples of dysfunctional teams.

What else have I been reading?

Laura Hogan, I think I forgot her last name. Exactly. But it’s a book. I didn’t read the new book, a new book that she came up with a few months ago called resilient management. But I’ve been reading that’s pretty good as a short and sweet book. that’s geared towards new engineering managers. Yeah, I mean, there’s lots of good books. And I’m happy to like recommend some more. But yeah, I’ve been trying to read a few hours a week and go through kind of Google has a pretty good training program for new managers that I started a few months ago. You know, there’s, I would say, there’s a decent amount of resources out there, but, but ultimately, the best trainer is going to be a mentor, which I have like a few mentors at work outside of work. Those have really been the I think, like just really invaluable resources because you know, I can go to them with like a real problem and say, like, Okay, how would you fix this right? Or like, how do I deal with that thing?

Emma 34:46
I have a couple book recommendations for you. My manager sent me that this one for Christmas. It’s called or orbiting the giant hairball and it was written by one of the guys he was very successful and he worked for Hallmark for years. And it talks about how to promote creativity when you’re working in a large company and how to still, you know, benefit from being in a large company without getting lost. So that one’s really, really good. And it’s written beautifully, because it’s not like a traditional book format, like other pages have different layouts and artwork, it’s really, really cool. And then the second is creativity, Inc. And it was written by one of the guys who founded Pixar. And it’s, it’s both a history of Pixar and how they merged with Disney, but also it talks a lot about management, and how, you know, they manage their people effectively. So I think both those are really great. It’s

Amal Hussein 35:38
awesome. Radical candor is one that I’ve been reading. I’m reading right now actually, that’s pretty solid. It’s, you know, it’s about communication and giving honest feedback. And, you know, just like a phenomenal like, thing for not just engineering, not just like managers right. I think everyone Should should kind of, like understand, like, you know how to kind of give good feedback. And I guess the other thing that’s on my list is no hard feelings, embracing the power of the secret power of embracing emotions at work. That’s, that’s, that was recommended by a colleague of mine. So that’s, that’s next up on my list. But yeah, I mean, you constantly have to be, I mean, it’s management is definitely it. People go to school for it. And you can’t understate how important it is to like, take the time to study it, right? engineers, you have a lot of bias, like where you’re like, Hey, I, you know, I can do this like, like npm install, like, you know, MPM install management, like, management alert, you know, knowledge but yeah, you have to you have to really take the time to learn.

Ali 36:53
Awesome. Well, another conversation that we were having before we pressed record was about working remotely. And I want to follow up on that. What is it like building personal relationships with employees while you’re working remote? Oh,

Amal Hussein 37:07
great question. Um, so this is actually my first time working on a distributed team. I was a fully distributed team. I’ve worked with people and other offices before. And it you know, my first week, I was like, I want I felt like I was going to be really lonely and like, Oh my god, I’m gonna be so alone. But literally like eight to nine hours a day, I’m connected with various people on slack and zoom calls, you know, team meetings, etc. So there’s always like a sense of being connected. But you’re really forced to, I think, be a better communicator, you know, and especially with like, timezone differences, like you have to, you have to feel comfortable just putting things in writing versus like having a conversation about it with people and really putting things in writing, both in slack or just, you know, in an actual like, markdown document. So it, you know, it really I, you know, I don’t know, it just allows more people to chime into the conversation. It’s like a better shelf life. So even if you were all working in the same office, you know, I think the skills that I’ve picked up working for the past few months as a remote employee are things their skills that are going to benefit me for the rest of my, of my life. But there are serious challenges, right? Like, I like not being able to go out to lunch with your team or not being able to, like buy food for people, which is like, my, my favorite way to, like, thrive and be, you know, bribe people into becoming friends with me is to like feed them. So I think that that that’s the challenge, but really, we’re always connected. And you know, they’re like, there are like yearly initiatives to like technique where everyone gets together to do like an all hands or, you know, that’s the thing that happens, but, but I would say that like there are many upsides to being remote. But there are, you know, the downsides are like, if you like eating with people and, you know, occasionally like giving people real high fives. You don’t get to do that, right? But the trade off is like you get a lot of freedom. And you can kind of work from anywhere in the world. Even though most days I’m just like working from my house, right? It’s funny how everyone’s like, yeah, you can work anywhere in the world and then like you, you’re still home like 80% of the time. But I don’t know it’s supposedly the future of work, you know. So

how about you are you are you are you all like remote ease or

Ali 39:52
I am still right now for another month or so I think so. It’s adventure for me I’ve, I was a remote engineer for the first half of the year. And that was incredibly hard for me. Just felt very isolated and hard to connect with the people that I was working with. But then now I teach remote. And I think that is a lot easier for feeling connected and being connected with the people that I work with and all that so I’m kind of a up and down experience there. But I’m moving back to working in person next month. So

Amal Hussein 40:33
yeah, I mean, I would say would I prefer to be in person like, absolutely, um, you know, I, but I think I think the experience of working remotely is one that I don’t know, everyone should try. You should try at least once. Right?

Ali 40:47
Definitely. We had a whole episode on working remote and I think it’s amazing for a lot of people at a very different stage of life, then. I am at I think, but I think it’s really hard. When you’re maybe at a different stage of life where you’re maybe more, you don’t have a family yet,

Amal Hussein 41:06
which is my situation. But I guess I’m, to be clear, though, I think NPM is still very new at being fully remote. I mean, they’ve always had distributed like, teams, but they, you know, I think this is now like, the first time that the company has been fully distributed. And, you know, there’s a lot of responsibility that the company has in, like, coming up to speed with, like, what it means to build a good remote culture, you know, and so that’s where it kind of it, it doesn’t, it’s not something that should just fall on the, like individual employees, like it really needs to be there’s a culture that needs to be pushed from, you know, from a central place and you know, that then kind of norms and, you know, guidelines that I think the company sets for, like how people should you know, what, what the expectations are for people like when they’re communicating, etc. So, you know, like, if we’re companies that are going remote like It’s work it’s not just like give people a laptop and just say go home like you have to still create a culture of like what it means to like communicate, collaborate, etc and give people the tools and the means to do that you know?

Emma 42:13
Absolutely I and I, as you know kind of one of the last questions What advice would you give to people looking to become an engineer manager?

Amal Hussein 42:23
I would say you need to kind of have an honest conversation with yourself on like, what it is why it is that you want to do this right so are you interested in supporting people are you interested in squashing like an combating fires as they come up? Are you okay and comfortable with lots of context switching? Are you Yeah, do you enjoy mentoring and supporting and coaching and sponsoring like people like is because that’s a huge part of their job. You know, are you okay with like, not being the best engineer in the room anymore, right? Because that’s something that I had to be okay with, right? Because you’re now really relying on your team to come up with good decisions and you’re there to, like, guide them and support them. But, you know, you have to you have to kind of give people autonomy, you know, to make make those decisions. So, I, you know, there’s, there’s a diff, there’s a big differences between someone who’s a technical lead or a principal engineer and an engineering manager. And but there’s, there’s a lot of overlap, but there’s, there’s, there’s differences. And so, you know, you really need to kind of dig deep to, to kind of understand, are you trying to be a tech lead? Do you are you trying to lead teams, you know, technically or are you really trying to kind of manage teams, you know, and manage the process that the team uses and, you know, manage the direction for the team like there’s, there’s like, there’s differences there and there’s overlap. So it’s a it’s a big decision, I wouldn’t go into it lightly. And, but I would say that like if, you know, like, if it doesn’t work out, like, it’s, it’s good to know, like you should give yourself like 30 days or sorry, 90 days and, you know, you can fire yourself after 90 days if that’s the thing that you can you can set up a contract with yourself, right? Um, so yeah, I I would say talk to other engineering managers and understand that the role is different at every company. It’s not the same. And so just do your research. And, you know, get a mentor and I would say, if there’s an opportunity for you to do it, within the same company, that would probably be the best move. Because you’re, you’re not learning about the company as well as learning how to be an engineering manager, which is the challenge that I have. You have you have the you know, you You can focus on just like, you’re the new role versus like the new, the new, the new setting, right? So if you have an opportunity to do it, like within the same company, that’s probably the best way to, to make that transition. I guess, you know, what I should say this is that, like, the, you know, one of the most surprising aspects of being an engineering manager has been that, like, you know, when things are good, they’re extra good, you know, like, you feel the amp is amplified. And I think when things are challenging, or they’re bad, like, that’s also amplified because, you know, you’re now responsible for like, more than just yourself. It’s not one x, it’s like five x or four x, right? And so, you know, just that’s something to keep in mind is that like, there’s it’s a responsibility and you have to kind of you have to be okay with the good and the bad, you know, because it’s not always good like, and I think that was like the biggest surprise for me. It was like Wow, like, you know, when if things are challenging, like you really and I’m someone that really, really cares about my team, you know, so you really you really take it to heart you really feel it and you really like, okay, really, I really want to improve this, you know, it’s much different than like when you’re an individual contributor, like, you know, just you’re like, Okay, this sucks, but whatever, like, not my problem, you know, not my monkeys, not my circus, but now it’s they are your monkeys and it is your circus.

Emma 46:28
Awesome. So, first of all, thank you so much for spending time with us. It was a pleasure to get to talk with you again. And I hope we get to cross paths soon in the future as well. Where can we find more? Where can we find more about you? Where can we find you on the internet

Amal Hussein 46:44
at Nomad techie places? Nomad, techie with IE, and yeah, I it’s been an absolute pleasure speaking with you as well. And, you know, yeah, it’s been been great. It’s like Ali been quiet. No, I don’t know, maybe my breath stinks or something.

Ali 47:05
No, this has been amazing. Thank you so much and learned so much about engineering management specifically in this this discussion. So thank you so much. Want to do a quick round of shout outs before we leave? So Amal, do you want to start with your shadow? Yes, sure.

Amal Hussein 47:22
I recently been spending time with Henry zoo, I was hosting him at my house, I want to give him a shout out. He’s one, he’s the kind of lead maintainer of Babel, and has just shown a lot of tremendous leadership. You know, for that, that has kind of let that plus that project blossom. It’s really the backbone of a lot of modern JavaScript, web applications. And so we need to get some more love to Babel. And all the cool like presets that have been coming out as well. So, so yeah, shout Babel and Henry zoo in particular.

Ali 48:04
He’s amazing. And that was such an important project.

Emma 48:10
Emma, do you have any shout outs? I do. So, by the time this episode airs, I will have completed my recording for a lynda.com or LinkedIn learning course, which I’m super excited about. It’s about building a technical resume and I just want to shout out the team that I got to work with a producer has been absolutely a pleasure to work with. So if anyone from LinkedIn learning or Linda is listening, you guys have amazing employees. So shout out to you. What about you, Allie?

Ali 48:40
I have another book recommendation. So Emma actually gave me this recommendation over Christmas break and it was amazing. The seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo, I definitely recommend reading it. I feel like our show is half

Unknown Speaker 48:55
book,

Ali 48:56
focused half tech focused at this point. Did you just as much as Daisy Johnson the six? Yeah, I love both of them. They’re so good. Some of my favorites and the audio books for them are so good to like really well produced. And Daisy Jones especially has a full cast on it, which is really cool. So I highly recommend that some books kind of lose their amazingness and audio format, but feel like they’re even better. Awesome. Well, if you liked this episode, tweet about it will select one Twitter each week to win a Smashing Magazine book. And we post new podcasts every Monday so make sure to subscribe to be notified. Please leave a review as well allows other people to find out about the show and just feels amazing wondering read them. And thank you again so much to them all for joining us today.

Unknown Speaker 49:45
Yeah, thank you.

Amal Hussein 49:47
Pleasure to be on the show. Thank you so much.

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