Going from Senior/Staff Engineer to Manager feels like starting over…

My old super powers are not what makes a great manager 👇🏼

Old superpowers:

– Staying ahead on new technologies

– Solving a complex bug no one could figure out

– Spotting scaling bottlenecks and leading the re-architecture efforts

– Adding missing docs for complex systems to help others onboard 

– Writing and reviewing technical specs on all our important projects 

New superpowers:

– Saying the hard thing out loud – career/job/team advice to help my team grow

– Running late-night cross-team incidents to help us triage, solve, and get our systems back up

– Helping remove dumb jira bottlenecks that slow the team down and cause dev frustration

– Zooming out to see the big picture of how we get from “today sucks” to “wow we are making progress”

– Helping build a culture of transparency, trying things, and no-blame so others know its ok to move quick, make mistakes and grow together

The last 2 yrs in management have been some of the hardest in my career.

But also some of the best – I wouldn’t trade back what I’ve learned for an easier time.

One of the biggest learnings is – what got me here, won’t get me where I need to go.

Doing more and doing it better isn’t always the key to more success.

If you are looking to grow, or make a jump in your career, a lot of times it takes zooming out, being willing to be the dumbest in the room and slowly working to level up in new superpowers as you go.

If that’s you, I’d love to hear from you and cheer you on!

What skills are you looking to level up in, in the 2nd half of 2025?