Engineering Management & Fatherhood - Take #2
In October, I started a new role as an Engineering Manager of an established team (7 strong engineers).
6 weeks ago, my wife gave birth to our second child.
I can't stop thinking about how different it all feels compared to my first time, both as a father and as a manager.
My take on both:
Who’s responsible? ME?
Can I actually do everything?
It’s hard… just not as hard as people say
Who’s responsible? ME?
I remember the day we got back from the hospital the first time. We walked into the apartment, looked at the mirror in front of us, and laughed at each other (that kind of nervous laugh). It felt so absurd.
Now what? What do we do with this little thing?
And it doesn’t get easier. You make decisions that impact your kid’s life forever. You’re afraid to fuck them up, but don’t want to coddle them too much. Never feeling like you’re investing enough time, never involved enough.
My first management role, 8 years ago, felt very similar.
One day, I’m the one making the hard decisions. And I’m not talking about only the classical ones - what tech to choose, what timeframe to commit to. Those are hard, but the people problems are the ones we obsess about.
Giving tough feedback, fighting for promotions, dealing with our own difficult managers. Letting people go - people with families. A decision you make that has a huge impact on someone’s life.
I remember many days when I just wanted to crawl into a hole and become an engineer again.
The second time around, things are much better.
Yes, I’m the one responsible. Me, the 30-year-old who feels like high school was not that long ago.
But after years of responsibility, it doesn’t feel that absurd anymore. Dan seems to be growing up ok - he’ll go to a psychologist in 20 years anyway, they’ll figure it out together.
Same with managing my 3rd team. Yes, I’m the one responsible. Yes, I don’t know everything, and I might make wrong decisions. But I don’t need to make all the decisions — I have a team I trust.
Having tough conversations is still… tough. But I know I’m just doing my best, and I don’t beat myself up about it.
Thanks Linear for supporting today’s article!
Since I started using Linear, my toddler listens to me, my newborn sleeps 8 hours, and my wife says I’ve never been more attractive.
…None of that is true (well, hopefully the last one is). But in my new role I’m using Linear for the first time, and boy, it’s a pleasure. The only thing in my life right now that works exactly as expected - offloading so much of my mental load.
You don’t realize how much a bad project management tool drains you and your team until you use an amazing one. There’s a reason OpenAI, Brex, and thousands more already switched.
Seriously, no excuse. Free to try, unlimited people, painless switch. What are you waiting for?
Can I actually do everything?
For 23 years, I had just my career, friends, and a couple of hobbies. Plenty of time for everything I wanted.
Then came my first serious relationship. Slowly slowly (but then quite suddenly), not all your evenings are free, and you have less time for your friends. Still, very manageable.
Then I started some side projects. Weekends got a bit more packed.
I also decided I want to do a Triathlon, so tons of training. Mornings got busy.
By the time our first child was born, I had: career, wife, hobbies, side projects. I’d probably need 30 hours a day to do it all… How the hell am I supposed to do everything?
Initially, I went for “super-efficiency mode”. Every time my wife replaced me with the baby, I immediately went to the computer. No sense in both of us being with the kid at the same time, right? (spoiler: not right)
Took me a while to figure out the balance.
As a first time manager, it was similarly hectic. I was a developer just a minute ago, super passionate about the projects I was working on. Now, on top of coding, I had 4-5 hours (best case) of daily meetings, and the needs of 5 engineers to take care of. And of course, urgent incidents I had to deal with, and support requests that still kept coming my way.
The only solution seems to be working more. And more. And more. Until you figure out it’s an endless pit, and you cannot do everything.
Second time around, I know I’ll have to drop some balls, and I’m ok with it. As I started managing an existing team, it’s also easier to achieve - they know the job much better than I do.
The challenge this time is different - figuring out where I’m actually needed, and how to invest my time. How to be relevant, and not fall into the “slow death of the hands-on EM” trap. But I’m in no hurry, I know I’ll slowly prove myself. Yes, I work in the evenings now and then, but because I want to, not because I feel I must.
As a second-time father, I don’t even try to do everything.
There’s less quality time with my wife - that’s ok, we know the first months are hard.
I also stopped running for a while, without feeling any resentment. I’ll get back to it once things stabilize.
Two days a week, I finish work early. I don’t open Slack during those hours, and never schedule meetings.
I post much less on LinkedIn, and I’m ok with skipping some weeks with the newsletter.
But I’m NOT stopping my life. I’ll have long days at work now and then, and we have a babysitter as backup. During the kid naps on weekends, I use the time to work on my business instead of resting (a very hard decision to make repeatedly…).
I have a simple weekly system to figure out my capacity (both mentally and time-wise), and adjust. And even if I plan something for the week and I don’t manage to finish it - I just let it go (it may sound minor, but I hate not achieving goals I set for myself).
It’s hard… just not as hard as people say
I don’t know who complains more, parents or engineering managers.
I remember when I started my previous job, there were 2 guys there with a young kid each. They loved to complain. How your life is basically ruined, you don’t have time for anything, how they sacrifice so much, and so on and so on.
As someone who was expecting a child, it was scary. Society keeps telling you how difficult and sleepless it is, and you brace yourself for the worst.
It’s similar with management - you’ll read everywhere how it’s a “thankless job”, how lonely it is, how you’re pressured from above and below. Every other LinkedIn post is about burnout, about how nobody prepares you for the emotional toll, about how you lose your technical edge and gain nothing but stress.
In both cases, I really wanted to prove them wrong.
Of course being a father is hard. There were moments I thought I would never sleep again. (Dan’s first full night sleep was at 1 year 7 months. And as my wife doesn’t function well when she’s tired, it was mostly me.)
You have small moments of despair, feeling like a black cloud covers your life. No mental energy for anything.
As a first time manager, I had similar despair moments. A critical deadline is coming, you’re trying to do everything yourself, afraid to ask too much of your developers, can’t say no. A shitty day full of meetings where nothing got done, and you hate your life a bit. Why am I not a developer anymore? You go to sleep thinking about work, mentally exhausted.
But - and it’s a huge but! - those moments pass quickly. You learn to use your support system. My wife and I have a deal: if one of us feels close to the edge, they give a sign, and the other takes over, no matter what. An evening off, or a few hours of sleep during the night.
As an EM, you learn you have a whole team that can support you, as long as you stop being stubborn. I don’t think it’s thankless at all - there are lots of fun and proud moments.
The second time around, I don’t even have those despair moments. I know that Alon will grow up, he will sleep, and he’ll be the cutest kid ever. When I’m awake since 3 am and need to go to work I’m of course tired, but I know that by 7-8 I’ll feel ok.
Just knowing that every hard stretch will end, and that I have someone to lean on from day one - that’s enough to avoid those pitfalls.
Starting this EM job was a different story too. Yes, it was hectic, tons of people to meet, a lot of work to do, lots of things to learn.
But I was never once overwhelmed. I know my capacity, I know what I can do. I’m ok with not knowing things, with looking a bit dumb. I focus on what matters, and slowly get on board.
I’m happy to go to work every day. I feel much more centered. It’s so much harder to get me frustrated.
Final words
For me, the main difference between the first and second time is mental resilience.
One trick I developed is to do a weekly mental scanning of the 5 areas of my life I currently care the most about: marriage, family, career, body, and business/side projects. I try to diagnose what bothers me now, and if there is anything I can improve there. It helps me treat hidden frustrations and put efforts where it matters the most.
For all the EMs, parents, and EM-parents - every bad stretch passes :)
Discover weekly
A child psychologist’s guide to working with difficult adults by Lenny Rachitsky.
Will Money Ruin Your Kids? by Marc Randolph. One of my major worries going ahead - how to raise non-spoiled kids while giving them full support.
My SaaS crossed $100K/year. I've never been more anxious by Orel. I’ve met Orel a few years ago, before he quit his job. We even collaborated for a few months on a project that didn’t take off. Since day 1, he told me he’s sure anybody can succeed in a side business, and he’ll prove it. Took him almost 2 years(!) to reach the first dollar, and I’m so happy he actually proved his point.
Belated congratulations on the new baby and the new team, Anton! That's a lot to take at once.