Engineering Team Management

Engineering managers balance people leadership with technical direction—helping team members grow while ensuring the team delivers quality software. GitScrum provides visibility into team workload and progress that enables data-informed management without micromanaging how individual engineers do their work.

Engineering Manager Responsibilities

Management Frameworks

ENGINEERING MANAGER FOCUS AREAS

                    ┌─────────────────────┐
                    │      STRATEGY       │
                    │  Vision, roadmap,   │
                    │  priorities         │
                    └──────────┬──────────┘
                               │
        ┌──────────────────────┼──────────────────────┐
        │                      │                      │
        ▼                      ▼                      ▼
┌───────────────┐    ┌─────────────────┐    ┌────────────────┐
│    PEOPLE     │    │    DELIVERY     │    │   TECHNICAL    │
│ Growth, hire, │    │ Ship, quality,  │    │ Architecture,  │
│ feedback      │    │ predictability  │    │ standards      │
└───────┬───────┘    └────────┬────────┘    └───────┬────────┘
        │                     │                     │
        └──────────────────────┼──────────────────────┘
                               │
                    ┌──────────┴──────────┐
                    │      CULTURE        │
                    │ Safety, norms,      │
                    │ collaboration       │
                    └─────────────────────┘

1:1 Meeting Structure

EFFECTIVE 1:1 FORMAT (30-45 min)

Their Agenda First (15-20 min)
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  "What would you like to discuss today?"        │
│                                                 │
│  Listen actively                                │
│  Ask clarifying questions                       │
│  Help them solve, don't solve for them          │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Your Check-ins (10-15 min)
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  • How's your energy/workload?                  │
│  • Blockers I can help with?                    │
│  • Feedback on recent work                      │
│  • Career development check-in                  │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Action Items (5 min)
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  • Summarize takeaways                          │
│  • Confirm action items                         │
│  • Note follow-ups for next time                │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

FREQUENCY: Weekly or biweekly, never skip

Team Health Monitoring

TEAM HEALTH INDICATORS

              GOOD                      WARNING
         ┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
Delivery │ ████████████░░░░░░ │ Slight delays   │
         │ On track           │                 │
         ├──────────────────────────────────────┤
Quality  │ █████████████████░░│ Minor uptick    │
         │ Low defects        │ in bugs         │
         ├──────────────────────────────────────┤
Morale   │ ████████████████░░░│ Some fatigue    │
         │ Team engaged       │ signals         │
         ├──────────────────────────────────────┤
Growth   │ ██████████████░░░░░│ Need training   │
         │ Skills developing  │ plan            │
         └──────────────────────────────────────┘

MONITOR THROUGH:
• Weekly team check-ins
• Sprint retrospectives
• Anonymous surveys (quarterly)
• 1:1 conversations
• GitScrum activity patterns

Best Practices

1. Protect your team's time from unnecessary meetings
2. Give frequent feedback not just annual reviews
3. Create growth opportunities proactively
4. Stay close enough to tech to make good decisions
5. Build psychological safety where failure is learning
6. Delegate outcomes not just tasks
7. Document decisions and context
8. Model the behavior you want to see

Anti-Patterns

✗ Being the hero who solves everything
✗ Micromanaging technical decisions
✗ Skipping 1:1s when busy
✗ Only giving negative feedback
✗ Creating single points of failure
✗ Ignoring team dynamics and culture

Related Solutions

• Engineering Team Visibility
• Managing Growing Development Teams
• Cross-Functional Team Management