Snacking and Working on What Matters

I stumbled upon the article How to build a career you enjoy as an engineer and was reading this from two sides: personal growth and pushing my team for growth. As a manager, it's my role to supervise and guide the team to work on what matters, as an individual I also need to make sure I can have an impact. The latter changes since it becomes increasingly difficult to have direct contributions so it's important to drive while not being a blocker for the team.

Starting with the personal side, as a lead, you just can't afford certain tasks. Specifically, the so-called "snacking", simple tasks that take little effort. I think that's generally true but, someone's gotta do it. I strive for a balance, I delegate things that require continuous focus as much as I can. The nature of the manager's position is filled with context switching which makes it harder to have deep focus (sigh). Some tasks are important for my learning and understanding, in that case, I carve time in my calendar for them. While I try to distribute learning opportunities, I take some to support the team better.

It's also true that you should not take on critical work. If I'm the only one who can do it, I consider that a failure. I should have shared my knowledge with the team so that I wouldn't be a blocker. What I find myself doing is quick bug fixes or small refactors. I enjoy doing those, I pick up a thing or two and I make things better on my way there. Just the other day I started a refactoring that deleted plenty of unused code, this also gives some time back to others as they don't have to maintain dead code anymore (in their defense, they didn't know it was dead code).

However, the article mentions the importance of being proactive in your career. Getting a promotion in certain companies seems to be driven by high-impact work. Let me start by saying that I agree with that. Just getting tasks done day over day doesn't move the needle as much. When reading Irina's tweet, I was disappointed by the role her manager played. She had to wait until the committee rejected her promotion to learn how to get there. I insist on planning for my team on whatever comes next and keep them in mind for any opportunity, being proactive helps a ton and shows initiative but that doesn't mean I, as a manager, should not assist in any way. I don't know the details of her situation but I would have been upset about my manager's lack of support for growth.

Thoughts

As a manager, it's your responsibility to highlight your team's work when it has an impact that is not visible to external stakeholders. They should not be penalized due to lack of visibility if the volume and importance of their work are there. As an individual, it helps to keep your manager in check and hold them responsible for guiding you through growth at the company. Do your research and be proactive at any given chance, but also lean on your manager if you can. It should be a partnership with your manager and not a solo endeavor.