Camille Fournier on Managing Technical Teams

TL;DR

Camille Fournier argues that good management is a critical technical discipline, not overhead, and that many engineers never experience great managers due to widespread anti-management sentiment in tech.

Key insights

• The pervasive 2010-era belief that "management is bad, flat structures are best, hire smart people and get out of their way" is incorrect; management becomes essential once teams grow beyond very smal
• One-on-ones are initially awkward for new managers but are critical for creating a safe space where team members raise small issues before they become major problems.
• New managers often default to writing code to solve team struggles, but the right response is to fix planning, unblock the team in other ways, or downscope work—not add more code.