Ever wondered what makes an exceptional engineering manager? Well, grab your popcorn because we're going to learn from the absolute worst. Meet Chad, the anti-pattern of engineering management, who's here to teach us valuable lessons through his spectacular failures.
While great managers defuse conflicts early, Chad believes in the "let them fight it out" methodology. His favorite technique? Watching two engineers argue about tabs vs. spaces in Slack for three weeks before declaring "interesting discussion, guys" and changing the subject to his CrossFit routine. Bonus points for bringing up the unresolved conflict six months later during performance reviews!
Instead of mediating across the organization, Chad perfected the art of "telephone game engineering." Why communicate directly when you can relay messages across six different teams, three time zones, and somehow turn "we need to update the API documentation" into "we're rewriting the entire backend in COBOL"?
While good managers provide missing context and coach their ICs, Chad believes in the "sink or swim... but mostly sink" approach. His favorite phrases include:
- "It should be obvious"
- "Just look at the code"
- "It's in the wiki somewhere... from 2018"
- "Figure it out, that's what I did back in my day" And his personal favorite: "Let's circle back on that" (Narrator: They never circled back)
Rather than providing constructive feedback with empathy, Chad has mastered the art of drive-by criticism. Picture this: It's 4:59 PM on a Friday, and Chad drops this gem in the team chat: "BTW, that feature you spent three months on? Not feeling it. Let's rethink everything on Monday. Have a great weekend! 🎉"
Instead of helping others see different perspectives, Chad's motto is "my way or the highway, but first let me tell you about how we did it at my last company for the 47th time this week." He's particularly proud of his ability to turn any discussion about current challenges into a story about how he single-handedly saved his previous company by implementing agile... incorrectly.
While good managers set clear expectations, Chad prefers what he calls "quantum expectations" – they exist in all states simultaneously until observed in a performance review. His project requirements are like a good mystery novel: full of plot twists, red herrings, and everyone's confused until the very end.
So, what can we learn from Chad's magnificent display of what-not-to-do? The recipe for being a truly great engineering manager is actually pretty simple:
- When you see conflict brewing, address it early. Don't wait until it turns into a 47-message Slack thread titled "Re: Re: Re: Re: Code Review Comments (URGENT!!)"
- Be the bridge across teams, not the troll under it asking for riddles before letting information pass
- Share context like you're filling in a 1000-piece puzzle where someone's hidden half the pieces and thrown away the box cover
- Give feedback like you're defusing a bomb: carefully, precisely, and with a clear plan of action
- Foster empathy like you're helping your 'this legacy code is garbage' engineer understand that the person who wrote it wasn't actually drunk, but dealing with three urgent deadlines, a different tech stack, and requirements that changed faster than startup pivots
- Set expectations clearer than your planning estimates (we all know how those turn out)
Remember, somewhere out there, Chad is proudly declaring "My team is self-organizing!" while his engineers are organizing a support group. Don't be like Chad. Be the manager who makes their team say "Thank goodness it's Monday!" and actually mean it.
Disclaimer: No Chads were harmed in the writing of this blog post. Any resemblance to actual managers, living or dead, is purely coincidental and honestly a bit concerning if you're relating too much to Chad.