工程师/经理钟摆的双重焦虑

I have written a lot about the pendulum swing between engineering and management, so I often hear from people who are angsting about the transition.
我写过很多关于工程和管理之间的钟摆摆动的文章，所以我经常听到人们对这种转变感到焦虑。

A quick recap of the relevant posts:
快速回顾相关文章：

• The Engineer/Manager Pendulum  Pendulum工程师/经理
• Engineering Management: the Pendulum or the Ladder工程管理：钟摆还是梯子
• If Management Isn’t A Promotion, Engineering Isn’t A Demotion如果管理不是晋升，工程不是降级

There are two anxieties I hear people express above all the rest.
我听到人们表达的焦虑中有两个最为突出。

The first one is something I hear over and over again, particularly from first-time managers as they contemplate the possibility of leaving management and returning to IC (individual contributor) work as an engineer:
第一个是我一遍又一遍地听到的，特别是从第一次管理人员那里听到的，因为他们考虑离开管理层并返回IC（个人贡献者）工作作为工程师的可能性：

“What if I never get another shot at people management?”
“Maybe this is the only chance I’ll ever get … and I’m about to give it up??”
“Am I going to regret this?”
“如果我再也没有机会做人事管理了呢？“也许这是我唯一的机会而我就要给予了？”“我会后悔吗？“

“WILL I EVER GET ANOTHER SHOT AT MANAGEMENT?”
“我还会有机会在管理层工作吗？“

People decide to go back to engineering for lots of reasons. Maybe they’re burned out, or they work someplace with a poisonous management culture, or they’re having a kid and want to return to a role that feels more comfortable for a while. Or maybe they’ve been managing teams for a few years now, and have decided it’s time to go back to the well and refresh their technical skills in the interest of their long-term employability.

人们决定回到工程学有很多原因。也许他们已经筋疲力尽了，或者他们在一个管理文化有毒的地方工作，或者他们有了孩子，想回到一个感觉更舒服的角色一段时间。或者他们已经管理团队几年了，并且已经决定是时候回到井里，为了他们的长期就业能力而更新他们的技术技能。

Regardless, these are not typically people who disliked being a manager. Rather they tend to be engineers who really enjoyed people management, and find it bittersweet to give up. Maybe they will miss the strategic elements and roadmap work, but they’re excited to clear their calendar and spend time in flow again, or they will miss having 1x1s but can’t wait to have time to mentor people. Whatever. They want to manage teams again someday, and worry they won’t get another chance.
无论如何，这些人并不是典型的不喜欢当经理的人。相反，他们往往是真正喜欢人事管理的工程师，发现给予是苦乐参半的。也许他们会错过战略元素和路线图工作，但他们很高兴能清理他们的日历并再次花时间在流程中，或者他们会错过1x1，但迫不及待地想有时间指导人们。随便啦他们希望有一天再次管理团队，并担心他们不会再有机会。

Their anxiety is understandable! Lots of people feel like they waited a long time to be tapped for management, or like they were passed over again and again. Our cultural scripts about management definitely contribute to this sense of scarcity and diminution of agency (i.e. that management is a promotion, it is bestowed on you by your “superiors” as a reward for your performance, and it is pushy or improper to openly seek the role for yourself).
他们的焦虑是可以理解的！很多人觉得他们等了很长时间才被任命为管理层，或者他们一次又一次地被忽视。我们关于管理的文化脚本肯定有助于这种稀缺感和代理的减少（即管理是一种晋升，是你的“上级”授予你的，作为对你表现的奖励，公开为自己寻求这个角色是咄咄逼人或不恰当的）。

This anxiety is also, in my experience, ridiculously misplaced. ☺️
根据我的经验，这种焦虑也是荒谬的错位。☺️

ONCE A MANAGER, MARKED FOR LIFE AS A MANAGER
一次经理，终身经理

You may have struggled to get your first opportunity to manage a team. But it’s a whole different story once you’ve done the job. Now you have the skills and the experience, and people can smell it on you.
你可能一直在努力争取第一次管理团队的机会。但一旦你完成了任务就完全不同了。现在你有了技能和经验，人们可以从你身上闻到它。

I’m not joking. If you’re a good manager it’s actually nearly impossible to hide that you have the skills, because of the way it infuses your work and everything that you do as an IC. You get better at prioritization, more attuned to the needs of the business, and restless about work that doesn’t materially move the business forward. You get better at asking questions about why things need to be done and at communicating with stakeholders. You get better at motivating the people you work with, understanding their motivations and your own, and mediating conflicts or putting a damper on drama between peers. People come to you for advice and may seem to just do what you say, or go where you point.

我没开玩笑如果你是一个优秀的经理，你几乎不可能隐藏自己的技能，因为它融入了你的工作和你作为一个IC所做的一切。你能更好地确定优先级，更好地适应业务需求，对那些不能实质性推动业务发展的工作感到不安。你可以更好地询问为什么要做这些事情，并与利益相关者进行沟通。你能更好地激励与你共事的人，理解他们和你自己的动机，调解冲突或给同事之间的戏剧性事件泼冷水。人们向你寻求建议，可能看起来只是照你说的做，或者去你指的地方。

Senior engineers with management experience are worth their weight in gold. They are valuable contributors and influential teammates. It’s a palpable shift! And every experienced manager in their vicinity will sense it.
有管理经验的高级工程师是无价之宝。他们是有价值的贡献者和有影响力的队友。这是一个明显的转变！每一个有经验的管理者都会感觉到。

So yes, you will be tapped for management again. And again and again and again. You are more likely to spend the rest of your career fending off management “opportunities” with a baseball bat than you are to wither away, pining for another shot.
所以，是的，你将再次被任命为管理层。一遍又一遍又一遍。你更有可能在职业生涯的剩余时间里用棒球棒抵挡管理“机会”，而不是枯萎，渴望下一次机会。

There is a chronic shortage of good engineering managers, just like there is a chronic shortage of good, empathetic managers in every line of work. The challenge you will face from now on will not be about getting the chance to manage a team, but about being intentional and firm in carving out the time you need to recover and recharge your skills as an engineer.
优秀的工程管理人员长期短缺，就像各行各业长期缺乏优秀的、有同情心的管理人员一样。从现在开始，你将面临的挑战将不是获得管理团队的机会，而是要有意识和坚定地抽出时间来恢复和充电你作为一名工程师的技能。

“AM I TOO RUSTY TO GO BACK TO ENGINEERING?”
“我是不是太老了，不能再回到工程部了？“

The second anxiety is in some ways a mirror of the first:
第二种焦虑在某种程度上是第一种焦虑的镜像：

“Can I still perform as an engineer?”
“我还能当工程师吗？“
“Will anyone hire me for an engineering role?”
“会有人雇佣我做工程师吗？“
“Has it been too long, am I too rusty, will I be able to pull my weight?”
“是不是太久了，我是不是太生疏了，我能不能发挥我的作用？“

This is a more materially valid concern than the first one, in my opinion. Your engineering skills do wither and erode as time goes on. It will take longer and longer to refresh your skills the longer you go without using them. Management skills don’t decay in the same way that technical ones do, nor do they go out of date every few years as languages, frameworks and technologies tend to do.
在我看来，这是一个比第一个更重要的问题。随着时间的推移，你的工程技能确实会枯萎和侵蚀。你不使用技能的时间越长，更新技能的时间就越长。管理技能不会像技术技能那样衰退，也不会像语言、框架和技术那样每隔几年就会过时。

If you aren’t interested in climbing the ladder and becoming a director or VP — or rather, if you aren’t actively, successfully climbing the ladder — you should have a strategy for keeping your hands-on skills sharp, because your ability to be a strong line manager is grounded in your own engineering skills.

如果你对爬上梯子并成为董事或副总裁不感兴趣-或者更确切地说，如果你没有积极地成功地爬上梯子-你应该有一个保持你的动手技能敏锐的策略，因为你成为一个强大的直线经理的能力是建立在你自己的工程技能之上的。

Never, ever accept a managerial role until you are already solidly senior as an engineer. To me this means at least seven years or more writing and shipping code; definitely, absolutely no less than five. It may feel like a compliment when someone offers you the job of manager — hell, take the compliment 🙃 — but they are not doing you any favors when it comes to your career or your ability to be effective.
永远不要接受一个管理角色，直到你已经是一个可靠的高级工程师。对我来说，这意味着至少七年或更长时间的编写和发布代码;绝对绝对不少于五个。当有人给你提供经理的工作时，你可能会觉得这是一种恭维--见鬼，接受这种恭维吧🙃--但当涉及到你的职业生涯或你的有效能力时，他们并没有给你任何帮助。

When you accept your first manager job, I think you should make a commitment to yourself to stick it out for two years. That’s how long it takes to rewire your instincts and synapses, to learn enough that you can tell whether you’re doing a good job or not.
当你接受你的第一份经理工作时，我认为你应该对自己作出承诺，要坚持两年。这就是需要多长时间来重新连接你的本能和突触，学习足够的东西，你可以告诉你是否做得很好。

After two or three years of management, it’s still pretty easy to go back to engineering. After five years, it gets progressively harder. But it can be done. And it should be worth it to your employer to invest in keeping you while you refresh your skills over the six months or whatever it may take. Insist on it, if you must. It’s better to refresh your skills while employed, on a system and codebase you’re familiar with, than to find yourself struggling to brush up enough to pass a coding interview.
经过两三年的管理，回到工程师岗位还是很容易的。五年后，它变得越来越难。但这是可以做到的。对你的雇主来说，在你六个月或其他任何可能需要的时间里更新你的技能，投资留住你应该是值得的。如果你一定要坚持的话，就坚持吧。最好是在工作时在你熟悉的系统和代码库上更新你的技能，而不是发现自己在努力复习以通过编码面试。

ENGINEERING FLUENCY == JOB SECURITY
工程流畅性==工作安全性

There is one more reason to refresh your engineering skills from time to time, one I don’t often see mentioned, and that is job security and optionality.
还有一个原因，以刷新您的工程技能不时，一个我不经常看到提到的，这是工作保障和选择性。

The higher you go up the ladder, the more money you will get paid…but the fewer jobs there be, and the fewer still that match your profile.
你爬得越高，你得到的报酬就越多......但工作就越少，符合你个人资料的就越少。

As a senior software engineer, there are fifteen bajillion job openings for you. Everyone wants to hire you. You can get a new job in a matter of days, no matter how picky you want to be about location, flexibility, technologies, product types, whatever. You’ve reached Peak Hire.
作为一名高级软件工程师，有15个职位空缺。大家都想雇你你可以在几天内找到一份新工作，无论你对地点、灵活性、技术、产品类型等方面有多挑剔。您已到达峰值租用。

If you are looking for management roles, there will be an order of magnitude fewer opportunities (and more idiosyncratic hiring criteria), but still plenty for the most part. But for every step up the ladder you go, the opportunities drop by another order of magnitude, and the scrutiny becomes much more intense and particular. If you’re looking for VP roles, it may take months to find a place you want to work at, and then they might not choose you. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
如果你正在寻找管理职位，机会将减少一个数量级（以及更特殊的招聘标准），但在大多数情况下仍然很多。但是，你每往上爬一步，机会就会下降一个数量级，审查也会变得更加激烈和特殊。如果你正在寻找副总裁的职位，可能需要几个月的时间才能找到你想工作的地方，然后他们可能不会选择你。¯\_（）_/¯

Maintaining your technical chops is a stellar way to hedge against uncertainties and maintain your optionality.
保持你的技术印章是一个恒星的方式来对冲不确定性和保持你的选择。