How to find a good manager

One of the most impactful things in one's career is a good manager. Even with the best and brightest colleagues, a bad manager can do a lot of damage to a team. A bad manager has the potential of greatly negatively impacting our careers, and, as they are a big part of how we spend our time, our lives. Thankfully there are some things you can watch out for in interviews, after all the "Do you have any questions for us?" part is there for a reason. And if you don't catch it in interviews, don't feel too bad. Most of this post is written from hindsight, by missing these signals myself. As they say, hindsight is 20/20.

The one mentality I would actively warn against is, if you think it will get better when you join, they won't. I will tell you something that my worst manager told me, paraphrased as it's been a long time. "We need to be at our best when attracting new joiners. Keep the best tasks for them.". What you see in interviews will always be the best version of what you will encounter. It is not going to get better.

Without further ado, as this is meant to be more of a guide to help others, and to remind myself what to listen for in interviews. Here's a few questions to ask your potential manager before you decide to work with them, and what to look out for when asking them.

Note: While most of these questions are focused on a manager, some of them may apply to tech leads, and other people you may need to work with. If you're a junior engineer and think there is no way you can ask these questions, that is ok. You might get lucky and have a great manager. And even if you don't, there's a lot to learn from a bad manager. As they say in Machine Learning, you need both positive and negative examples.

Starter question

This question is only there to see if the manager can answer it easily. It rarely gives much of a positive signal, but in theory it's also a question that should not take long to answer as managers expect this question more than any other.

The question: What is your management style? or How would you describe your management style?

Good outcome: They find this easy to answer. The best managers can switch easily between management styles depending on needs, though they will still have a preferred style. A good manager will have mastered one or two styles, and it's more a matter of preference(yours or the team's) than anything else.

Bad outcomes: They fumble with an answer and are unable to really give you an answer. An answer that sounds like an answer here, but really isn't, is when they describe their responsibilities as a manager. For example having fortnightly 1:1s with their reports (which unless they have a very large number of reports, is quite low) and doing two feedback sessions per year is not their management style, that is literally their job description.

Digging deeper

You may not have time to ask all of these questions, even though each of them gives you important signal. Depending on the manager's answer to the previous question you may want to re-order them quickly in order of priority then ask as many as you can. If you can't ask them all or any of them, after an offer a company should agree to arrange another meeting between you and the manager to ask them more questions. They may even suggest it, or meeting the team. So, don't worry if you don't get through all/any of them.

These are questions that ask them for examples. They are powerful questions because they are open-ended. Most managers I have interviewed with were expecting questions like this, even if not precisely these. Unless they're just out of university, I think most people will have an example for most of these. But here's the important bit, they are the ones choosing their answers, among many examples. This will show you their values.

The question: Can you tell me about a time you had to step in and resolve a conflict? How did it go?

Good outcome: The manager shows awareness of what is going on in their team. A great manager will be able to spot conflicts early and prevent them from escalating. So, even if it's not something dramatic, it could be a good sign that they never allowed a conflict to escalate. It is also important that they show empathy for both parties involved in the conflict. A great manager will understand that the focus of the conflict resolution is on the relationship and not the individuals.

Bad outcomes: There are so many. One manager I interviewed told me he had to step in when the engineers started swearing at each other in the office (which is way too late), and he talked with both engineers and got them to stop swearing until one of them left the company. In other words, he didn't resolve the conflict, but avoided it. I was involved in such a conflict in the past, and the other party moved teams. I wanted my manager's help to understand what happened and improve, and his response was "Why do you care, he left anyway?". Not particularly useful. I, too, left the team soon after.

A deceptive outcome is the happy-go-lucky manager who claims there are no conflicts on his team or with other teams. As a junior this really caught me out. But there are no teams, or relationships that are entirely devoid of conflict. The team is either completely isolated and has absolutely nothing to do (unlikely), or the manager is so disconnected from the team they have no idea what is going on. Even a conflict between two people where they are capable of resolving it on their own can benefit from the manager's support from behind the scenes.

The question: Can you tell me about some feedback you got from the team and how you incorporated that feedback?

Good outcome: What you want to get from this question is to get signal that the team is comfortable to give upward feedback, and that the manager is self-aware enough to act on that feedback. Occasionally you’ll get a rare gem who shows real growth mindset and self-awareness here. Treasure those.

Bad outcomes: If they never received any feedback it's unlikely it's because they are perfect, and more likely that the team doesn't feel comfortable telling this manager anything. Which is a major red flag. If they feel comfortable telling them, but the manager does not perceive it as feedback to be worked on, that is another red flag. However, in my experience that only happens when a manager is new to a team. People learn fairly quickly that their feedback will be ignored, and will stop giving any.

The question: On a cross-functional project, if there are blocks caused by another team/part of the organisation how do you resolve these blocks?

Good outcome: Blocks are similar to conflicts, in that they are always bound to happen. This is more of a question about how the manager deals with organisational politics. A great manager will be able to shield their reports from the red tape or organisational misalignment If the report's work is permanently blocked due to, for example, a realignment in priorities in the organisation, a good manager will make sure that that work is still rewarded.

Bad outcomes: Again, there are no organisations where this doesn't happen, if they claim so, they probably are too disconnected from the team. Letting their reports be confused about their priorities for a long time is red flag, so a wait and see approach is not usually useful. Letting develop into a conflict is also a red flag.

The question: What is your favourite mentorship story? (if they ask to clarify what favourite means, you can use words like rewarding or fulfilling)

Good outcome: This is the biggest signal about what this manager finds important. Additionally, you want a manager who lights up when he talks about this, as for someone who enjoys their job this is usually the best part. A good manager will find it rewarding to help their reports grow and be there and support them. You want a manager who will support people who are struggling to become better. Even if you think you may never struggle. A good manager will not take credit for the work their reports did to improve, but will be happy to have been there to guide them and lend a helping hand. This will reflect in how they talk about the person they mentored.

Bad outcomes: A universal red flag is if they do not have one, or if they seem particularly bored or annoyed to have to answer this question. It's rare, but it happens. Now, the next red flag will be down to personal preference, but I believe it's more than that. For me the biggest red flag is if their mentorship story is entirely technical. It may be because I don't particularly need help in that matter, but also, I generally don't think that those are the most important things for the manager to be focusing on. I take it as a sign of a micromanager or someone who cannot disconnect from the technical responsibilities of the team, and will drop the ball on a lot of their more managerial responsibilities in order to focus on the engineering bits they find enjoyable.

If their ‘best’ story is about designing deep architecture systems, that is even more of a red flag to me. In The Emotionally Intelligent Leader, Daniel Goleman speaks about observations he made about the mindset required to be able to dive deep into technical systems. It is a fantastic skill and extremely needed in organisations, but not for a leader or manager. In his studies he's found that the way of looking at problems that a good manager has is almost the opposite of that needed for the mindset needed for deep architectural and debugging work. And while switching may be possible, it takes a great deal of time.

The question: Can you tell me about a time somebody on the team made a mistake, and how was it handled?

Good outcome: You want to hear that there was no blaming, that there was support in fixing the problem, responsibility was taken, and ideally, if applicable, growth happened.

Bad outcomes: Anything that seems to indicate a lack of psychological safety. Mistakes will happen, always. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. In a healthy place, after making a mistake it should be easy to take responsibility, fix it, and learn from it. It's how we, as humans, do some of our best learning. If there are no mistakes... well, the team is either too scared to tell their manager about them, or the manager themselves are shoving them under the carpet. Either way, not a good outcome. If at any point you feel bad for the person who made the mistake in the manager's story, that should be your red flag right there.

Other important questions you may find valuable to ask

Question: What do you do to help the growth of your reports?

What to look for: This one is more personal. Like with the management style you don't want a job description, but this is more of a fit question, than one that tells you necessarily whether someone is a good manager. (that is unless they can't answer the question and are vague about it...) So before asking this question, ask yourself, what do you need from your manager to help you grow? The answer to this may vary at different stages of your career.

Question: What sort of gap are you looking to fill in the team?

What to look for: A good manager will be aware of the team's strengths and weaknesses. If the team had no weaknesses, they would not be hiring. A good manager should have a good idea of the spot they need to fill. One exception is when they have more than one spot and there's a bit more flexibility about how the people they hire may fit together to fill it. This may apply to personality types. They shouldn't fumble or be vague. Listen carefully to the answer to this question, as while they may be a good manager you really want to work with, there is a possibility that you may not be a good fit for the team. It's sad when it happens, but you may find these recruiters and hiring managers the best ones to keep in touch with if things change.

Question: What is your plan for me for the first 3/6 months, if I were to join the team?

What to look for: Onboarding is one of the most important things for a company's culture and a team's success. You want to make sure that the manager has an onboarding plan for you. And not just say they do. Even the most senior engineers shouldn't, and can't really, hit the ground running on day one. The purpose of onboarding is not only to teach skills relevant to the company, but also to align on values, working styles, and priorities. Nobody is going to walk in the door knowing all of those things. A good manager will be aware of that.

Did I never have a good manager?

You may think, after reading all these questions and examples, that by these standards you can name maybe one, or even no, managers who would pass. In tech, that is not surprising. At big companies like Google and Facebook, that a lot of tech companies are trying to emulate, you need to reach IC6 before you are even considered for management. But the skills and behaviours required to get that far are about going deep into architecture and systems details. To be good at those things, you develop habits of thought that are not only unrelated to what makes a good manager, but, if Daniel Goleman's observations track, can be antithetical to it. My worst managers happened to be absolutely brilliant engineers.

That said, not every organisation is like this. Take the civil service: while the pay isn’t great, almost everyone I’ve talked to who worked there had good experiences with their managers. Having spoken to someone who joined straight out of university and quickly moved into management, I could see why. They were selected for the traits of good managers and trained to be good leaders. They weren’t made to prove technical mastery of tasks they’d never touch again. Instead, their training focused on breadth: understanding technical language and context well enough to support their teams, which is much closer to the mindset great managers need. Because management is not a promotion. It’s an entirely different skillset.

If you want to spot which kind of organisation this is, ask the manager or the recruiter the following question. I admit, this one is a bit weird to ask if you are not interested in management yourself, but bear with me.

Question: What does the path to management look like in your organisation?

Green flags: You want to hear that there is training and trial periods. Just as there should be an easy path to express interest for management, there should be an easy path out of management if one realises they much preferred the individual contributor role. This is something big tech like Google and Facebook do well, and that is, have a path for advancement for individual contributors which can greatly exceed the prestige and remuneration of a manager.

Red flags: They use the term promotion, as I said before management is not a promotion, and if perceived as such many fantastic ICs will rush into it even if it's neither something they are good at nor enjoy. They require unnecessarily deep technical specialisation and expertise. The training seems minimal, or almost token.

Treasure a Good Manager

If I’ve made it sound like good managers are rare, that’s because, in tech, they are. The system is designed that way. To make it worse, once bad managers become the norm in an organisation, good managers often struggle to survive because their values don’t align with the system around them. And then the system keeps running ineffectively. But they do exist. If you’ve had the privilege of working with one who passes these tests, treasure them. Personally, if I ever got the chance to work with such a manager again, I’d follow them from department to company to wherever they chose to go. I know this because I once did, briefly, as a junior engineer at Amazon. I had no idea what I’d left behind at the time.

And remember, there is no such thing as the perfect company or the perfect manager. There will always be problems, this is about being aware of them and choosing the ones you can handle together with someone who wants to handle them with you. (And if that sounds like the same phrasing as when choosing a romantic partner, that’s because it is, as they’re not as dissimilar as they may look.)