Engineering Management is a Fundamental Discipline
Traditionally in technical fields such as software, it is not uncommon to experience an atmosphere of mistrust and sometimes a feeling of total rejection of leadership positions. The famous video game company, Valve, adopted a flatness organization by totally removing hierarchy. The success of this company emphasized the initial feeling of mistrust proving that it was possible to succeed even without management. By reducing management, they succeed in removing the burden of toxic management, but they have also cut down on good managers who can have an extremely positive influence on increasing the potential of individuals.
There are two main reasons why it is useful to be concerned about this discipline. The first is that even for a career of an individual contributor there is always a management aspect, take for instance a position of tech lead, they will face management tasks. These tasks can be from supervising onboarding to transmit knowledge on certain parts of the code to make sure the team improves technically. Secondly, being interested in this discipline allows you to understand what your own manager is doing and get the most out of that relationship.
In almost all companies there are annual or semi-annual performance reviews. But 6 months to 1 year is far too long. During this time and without a simple platform for private discussion, some important topics can never be put on the table and resentments can grow to a point of no return. One-on-one meetings are designed to fill this gap and, because it is a time-consuming activity, they should be meaningful. Several themes and options are available to properly conduct these meetings:
