How to Become a Manager

A question I often get from early career folks is, "How did you become a manager?" Usually what they really mean is, "How can I become a manager?" They aren't quite the same, but my journey can illustrate some common principles.

From the beginning of my career, I told my managers that I wanted to become one. I was fortunate to have mostly good managers who helped me start building management-related skills. For example, when my teammates were having a conflict, my manager asked me what I thought we should do about it and encouraged me to play an active role in the solution. They also helped me lay out a formal career path using the career planning tools available at the companies I worked for.

A basic prerequisite to becoming a manager is having a good track record as an individual contributor (IC). You don't need to be the best engineer on the team, but you need to be able to ask good questions, call out BS, and create a technical strategy that makes sense. You also need to demonstrate general competence. If you don't consistently do a good job on your IC work, you aren't going to be trusted to become a manager or even to lead a smaller project. I wasn't the most senior or best engineer on our team when I became a manager, but I had a history of good reviews and had earned the trust of our management team.

Perhaps the biggest key to becoming a manager is experience leading projects. I started my career as a Program Manager, so I got lots of leadership experience quickly. Due to a quirk of org structure, I wound up managing projects spanning the whole Microsoft Office division starting in the first year of my career, so I had a long record of project leadership. The key here is to be accountable for the work of others. Before you become a manager, you need to demonstrate that you can achieve success by organizing, motivating and mentoring others, and not just by doing the work yourself. Ideally this work will involve an element of strategic planning that guides part of the team's work over the next 1-2 years, although this isn't strictly necessary.

The other critical skill to demonstrate is mentorship and team development. You need to show that you can help others improve their skills, resolve interpersonal conflicts, and develop a positive team culture. You can build this skill by becoming a mentor, identifying and resolving team chemistry issues, and generally being the kind of person who brings the team together and makes everyone better. You don't need permission or a formal assignment from your manager to do this stuff - just go do it. I don't think I was ever officially designated as a mentor or assigned to fix a team chemistry issue, but I always tried to help those around me to improve their skills and get along better with each other.

All of this will prepare you to become a manager, but there still needs to be an opening. Almost no companies will hire a new manager from outside, so you need to put yourself in a position where you are the obvious choice when your organization needs a new manager, and then wait for that opportunity to arise. The best place to be is in a fast-growing org where expanding team sizes lead to new management positions. Tough to find these days, though. You may have to wait 1-2 years from the time you're ready to become a manager for a role to open up.

My experiences are at US-based big tech companies and this post reflects that perspective.