Engineering Management Q&A and Videos

I've two engineers who report to me, and both are average and one is towards PiP. The problem is they don't listen easily get influenced by other engineers and frequently change what I've asked them to do.
I'm now angry because the pile of feature requests are piling on me, I tend to do some work for them but this really not at all productive for my career, like managing, I rather behave like an IC altogether, because I want to learn and do my own stuff instead of getting caught in these bad situations that makes me angry.

What is the right way to handle these stuff from leadership point of view? How much involvement should I have?

I'm currently equivalent of Google L4 in my org but I want to move towards L5

I have been generalist my whole career, I have moved from front end web development --> platform as a service web development --> microservices cloud development and now as a ML engineer, all on different tech stacks. I am pretty late in career now, 12-15 years in. What do you recommend, in terms of going forward, do I have a chance with trying to be a staff, or should I switch to PM/EM role? I would eventually want to be a good EM.

From what I have heard so far, Staff is: The person needs to be technically very sound, guide the folks, find projects, carve solutions, and lead without authority.

Engineering managers on other hand: Would work these folks to approve/disapprove these projects, get resources, manage the people (promotions, growth of team - product as well as people).

From this I derive that managerial role is subset of staff + people management. But I am sure I am missing something, what am I missing? Why do people choose to be staff over manager, expect for passion to stay IC (not manage people)? Also, is there a pay difference?

I've heard this many times be true for senior and above level SWEs at FAANGMULA companies, but wasn't sure how true this was?

As I look to take on other interviews at FAANGMULA companies, the main issue for me when it comes to role whether a senior SWE or EM/TPM is time. Will I have inevitably with more meetings as a senior EM/TPM because of management by itself and having to work over 40 hours/wk in order to get promoted or stay at my level (I have heard this is the case at some FAANGMULA companies), or is it possible to be a code machine and manage your own team and workload to the point that it is automated you can build your own side projects (like how some people build their startups on the side while working "full time" at a FAANGMULA company)?

Personally, I still have the entrepreneurial itch and want to continue working on something on the side, but have issue with working at FAANGMULA 40+ hours a week in order to maintain my level and be promoted, if I know it is indeed possible to be more efficient with my time and achieve my metrics/results with half the time (say 20-30 hours a week instead of 40-60 that I'm hearing is quite common for some senior SWEs as ICs or managers).

After 10 years as a full stack SWE and eng manager, I pivoted into AI while working at Shopify, and was recently laid off as Head of AI at a collapsing pharma startup. Title is nice, but I only really have two years experience in ML. While it is high quality experience (training and shipping models and LLM apps at web scale)-- I'm feeling a bit scared. I don't have a ton of savings and two kids so I need something soon.

I'm deeply passionate about language models, for the first time in my career working with a particular technology has felt like a real calling-- staying up nights and weekends just to learn and build. My first research paper ever was published at NeurIPS last year.

However, I'm feeling fairly unconvincing as an ML engineer after the layoff. Probably the perfect role would be something in between web and ML. So now we're at the question:

Given that I'm pretty desperate to land anything (3 mos runway before pulling out of investments, wife really against this) I'm wondering how to approach my search:

1. Go all out for AI Engineer Roles (passion forward)
2. Go for senior / staff web dev roles (safer, maybe, given 10+ yrs exp)
3. Go for 1 or 2 plus eng manager roles
4. Go for all of it at once

Some confounders:

I have referrals at Google and Microsoft, but don't want to burn them on ML roles if I'm obviously unqualified having only 2 years ML. I know I can absolutely add value wherever I land, but these feel like precious gold to me, and I don't want to get tossed out of the running for playing it silly. I can likely get some at Meta as well, but again, I don't want to play myself going for stuff that's just inappropriate. This has never been an issue in the past, I've been able to land stretch roles or at least get the interview but stakes are different now and my confidence is lower.

I am a good eng manager, and would do it again, but I have a feeling it's an altogether different search. Is there a way to increase the surface area of possible roles by applying to manager jobs too-- without splitting my energy?

Anyway, its helpful just to think out loud, would appreciate any advice here. Current plan is to create 3 resumes, start blasting applications and networking to get the interview funnel spun up before the leetcode grind.

Thanks.

I'm exploring distance MBA courses to enhance my career as a software engineer. Could you recommend a program that offers a strong alumni network, opportunities for leadership development, and a comprehensive curriculum in engineering management? I'm particularly interested in globally recognized institutions like Indian School of Business or IIM, but I'm open to suggestions for the best fit. My goal is to improve my organizational skills, gain business acumen, and expand my network to excel in leadership roles.

I recently read an existing question "Do FAANG...ever hire M1 from outside?"

I am aware that M1 is usually filled internally. The part that shocked me is that the questioner stated they are a Sr EM with 10 years of management experience. I would expect they would interview for Tier 1 as a Sr EM with that background.

This relates to my own career strategy as well: I plan to move from Sr IC to EM at my current company, gain 2-5 years of experience, and consider interviewing out for promo if I can't achieve internal promo in that frame.

Am I thinking about this the wrong way? We know promo to senior for engineers by interviewing is often easier than internal promo, but is that a poor mental model for EM?

I would like to get some ideas for team match interviews with EMs. Most times, the team match interviews are the last ones after the entire loop with the company has finished. These interviews are very unstructured and very EM specific. Since there is no structure and most times, the team details are not known upfront (except team names), I was wondering how I navigate these and make sure I can show my full potential and upsell for this interview.

I am a Sr Engineering manager with 10 yrs of engineering management in Tier 2 type of companies. I am thinking to switch now and want to work for more tech geared companies. Do they ever hire M1 from outside?