How a Software Engineer became an Engineering Manager at Tokopedia
After commuting to office through the infamous Jakarta traffic, some of us might be expecting to start the day with relaxing morning coffee, taking their time to check emails, or chit-chatting with their co-workers. For some of the Software Engineers, it might be the best time to start building cool features or just spend some time to add our skills watching Udemy or videos from objc.io.
But, on the typical calendar of Tokopedia’s Engineering Manager, it would be filled with a lot of meetings — regardless of the importance. Most of the time, EM will be invited on most of the product creation discussion, either to get our opinion on things or to just simply listen to the team’s project planning. It’s pretty common to have your day filled with back to back meetings.
We started to make jokes, changing the abbreviation for EM as Engineer Manager into Engineering Meeting.
Some colleagues often asked me questions such as:
“What did it takes to become Engineering Manager? What is EM jobs description? Why you guys seems having so much meeting?”
So, to follow up on those with good intention, I will try my best to describe, as clearly as possible, about what I’m actually doing as an Engineering Manager in Tokopedia.
I started the role as Software Engineer back when Tokopedia still consisted of less than 20 engineers. It was such a fun experience — I was able to contribute to both of our Android and iOS apps in their early development. That was a lot of learnings and experiences for a fresh grad.
We tried to port every feature that existed on the desktop into mobile app experience with Java, with an array of tasks such as:
- Brainstorming with the designer on UI.
- Creating web services (APIs) that interfaced with the backend. Yes! The Frontend guys were also doing Perl since we were short of engineers back then.
- As full-stack engineers, we were also concerned with the security of our apps (looking back to our method to do API encryption then, since we were also confused, we considered our implementation quite secured at that time :P).
- Translating designs from photoshop and also thinking about the UX for a small screen.
- Coding, for sure.
- Last but not least, we also became empathetic to the Customer Service who handle and reply to all complaint emails from users who were using our Apps.
Back in 2014, our team only consisted of 3 engineers, 1 designer, and 1 QA. After launching the Android app, our CEO also announced the new funding that became our milestone. It was a fantastic moment for Indonesian startup landscape, and for our team as well. Post funding, we hired lots of Engineers and by the time I wrote this post, our team has grown into 36 Android engineers and 12 iOS Engineers.
After a couple of years maintaining apps development, I was thrown into the middle management position as an Engineering Manager. That title was still fresh in Tokopedia and a couple of engineers, including me, were promoted. We were all equally confused! With not much of a briefing, we tried to work on this title and read as many articles as possible to help us going.
In the early phase of the new role, I was still doing what I knew best: Code! And so I was still developing big features while leading the team and confirming multiple meetings on the same day. It was a thrilling moment when you learn that you multitask.
But then the fire country strike (guess what reference :)) and I’m feeling regretful about my decision to do all kinds of work without a good strategy. My work couldn’t sail, the team that I led were all confused about their work, and my peers also find it difficult to plan discussion meetings with me.
Before we dive into the contrast, it’s good to know the similarities between these roles. For me, both roles require a problem solver in their heart.
SE solves problems by their piece of code while EM does that by empowering the people within their team. What I mean by empowering is that a Manager does not only assign the task and leave their teammates to solve it on their own. It’s more like they are playing as a support for their team — SE in this case, to get the task done.
The support can be done in various forms, such as :
- Helping in technical problems, such as recommending a better approach to a certain problem or designing a good solution for early development.
- Naturally, an engineer is someone who’s an introvert and are not so into starting a conversation. But they are the best on breaking down problems into some executable solution and be a very logical thinker. In this case, a manager can help to fill in the gap in communication so the engineer can focus on crafting the software piece.
- A manager can also become the facilitator between Upper Management and Engineer. Sometimes, the company has a certain vision where it seems against the engineer creativity or willingness. In this case, the manager should find a way where both of the stakeholders have a win-win solution.
- Developing a personal development plan. Sometimes, engineers just need someone they can trust and discuss their career path with — be it on soft skill part or the hard skill. Usually, personal growth discussion can be done in a 1 on 1 session or maybe over a coffee break where they can jot down their mission within the company and how to achieve it.
Aside from the personal attributes and the tasks that both of the roles do, another aspect that is quite significant is how the roles define what success is. A software engineer can be deemed successful when they solved the hardest problem and maximize their individual efforts, while a manager’s success is determined by the team’s success in delivering the result.
All in all, these two roles required quite different skill sets to succeed. Good engineers do not necessarily make good managers and vice versa.
On the next series, I am going to post about the challenges as an Engineering Manager. Stay tuned!
Thanks for reading.
Originally published at medium.com on October 1, 2018.
