A Manager's view of an engineer

 I have seen life in cycles, started as a developer and moved to lead manager and above and then became a lead, individual contributor and repeated the cycles.  Have seen lot of OK  managers  few really bad ones and  very few amazing leaders in my own career.  It is always confusing state of mind for engineer on what "Manager" will be thinking about me or my work and will it affect my next pay revision, what impact does it have my career progression wishes etc.

Here is my view on what manager's view around his team and their work. This is based on the industry experience in software industry ( both consulting and product development firms) and on a positive side.

I did that and will reap dividends for ever

You may have done something great and everyone agrees that and if you think you can get easy and get dividends on it forever, sorry you can't.  While you have done something amazing, everyone in the team and elsewhere in the world are doing amazing stuff too.  Keep enhancing yourself and keeping doing good work.  Growth is a not a past tense but a  present continuous tense. 

I am worried, I didn't work enough today

Your manager knows what you are, just because you didn't do much work today, doesn't mean he is going to do something with you.  Your manager knows pretty much all about you and your strengths and weaknesses and most importantly you are not a robot, so its  Ok, but just make sure you don't make it a habit.  just a side note, your manager may appreciate if you state about your non productive day because of what ever could be reason.

My Manager has more meetings with other team members

It doesn't mean that he  is discarding your identity, may be there is a serious need on the topics that other team members are working on and are solving a big problem that customer is facing or that the task the other engineers are working is a complex one and they are deliberating analysis or design.  May be their performance is not at par and manager is reviewing that with them.  So don't think too much around it, but see the end results, if your manager is making decisions that you are not able to understand at all and that happens continuously then thats a matter of concern but that would be not so common.

My code is perfect

This is really stupid perspective, no human is perfect and no line of code is perfect.  If the contrary is true, we wouldn't have explosion of products in the market. The kind of digital garbage being created now is too much.

Never grow affinity on the code you wrote. Be open to change it, refactor, redesign or even trash it and re implement the whole feature again. Not because you want to run in cycle but because the situation demands it.  When you started writing that code, you didn't know the problem in full and got lot of feedback as you implement. It is not too uncommon to get a realization that the feature you built is not at all relevant to customers and may become a  unnecessary liability in the future. 

So be open,  if QA says something is not working, don't push them to corner saying "No that is not a bug, it's an enhancement or change",  QA engineers are not there to execute developers.  They are doing their Job.

I am doing great

I am doing all tasks that are given to me and I feel I am doing great. I need a promotion.  

Well, let's look at how schools grade students, may be others are doing lot better, so don't get  conclude about your performance your self. Discuss with your manager, may  be he thinks "you are always doing given tasks and need someone to do book keeping around your work". May be  doing what is given is  good for your current role and to get promotion you may need to do something more or differently.  May be there are few things you can take special care and be a star performer.  Always make sure to review your performance with your manager and do not conclude yourself. Performance is not a one way street.

I want to keep doing what I am doing

My manager is asking me to work on something new that I am not familiar with and I like to continue work on the current tool set or technology or feature. 

Well, your manager knows more about you and is thinking of the future. His responsibility is to exploit your potential.  You may not understand upfront but you will eventually. Be open to challenges and unknowns.  Being in comfort zone may cause uncomfortable situations in the future.

I am afraid my manager won't tolerate failure

The definition of failure is relative, A failure could be not meeting a timeline, not building a feature, not building a feature as intended or  building a feature that doesn't work (too many bugs).  But  do you think it is possible to succeed without failing?   For me aversion to failure is a failure. You will remain a big failure if you do not try. Your manager is not there to give trophy when you win, but to help you through the process of building something new everyday. He knows what you are and come what ever may be the outcome, he will be supporting you.   So have courage, be free, let your innovative mind do the trick. Your manger is  going to reward you when you succeed and take ownership of the failure on his name when something fails.   Your manager is your insurance.

This feature doesn't work and I wont test it until it is resolved

This is specific to QA,  yes a particular use case you encountered may be buggy, but if you got 10 use cases and 1 is working partially, you can report the bug on it but it doesn't mean you do not test the remaining 9.5 cases. Please make sure to test and report all issues around the feature,  who knows you may even realize that the feature that you thought is breaking may be intentional.  The cost of context switching for developers and testers is too much.  We are still the same humans and not much of evolution happened (obviously who wants change?, I don't know what I will do If I got one more extra hand or any other sort of limbs in my body), while the computer hardware and software is growing too fast. Our computers can do multi processing but it's hard for humans to keep switching. 

So Please test it thoroughly and report it, it is lot lot cheaper to stabilize the feature in the early changes 

I didn't finish recent task on time or properly and my appraisal is due

Your performance appraisals and pay reviews are not based on your recent task. If you did well during the period of review, you shouldn't worry.  May be the requirement was not clear or the technology solution is complex to implement or even may be a case of wrong solution for the right problem causing so much of the delays.  There could be many reasons. Your manager is responsible for many things outside the team and for the team's overall work but at the same time, he does understand reasons behind some delays or failures.  So unless your manager is worried about something about your performance, you do not need to worry.  Not convinced?  why don't actually talk to your manager.

My Manager is close to Mr/Ms X

We are all humans,  it is possible that your manager has some personal connection with some of the team members, may be they like same sports team or they smoke or drink or so many other reasons why some one builds affinity towards some or the other.  if Mr A likes Mr B it doesn't mean  he hates Mr C.  Your manager is in the manger position because he worked up for it and he knows what he is doing. It does not mean he is going to promote someone he likes based on what his closeness to him/her. 

Having said that, if you have concerns, please talk to your manager to clarity. It doesn't hurt.  A good manager always likes to read what is in your mind.

I want to say something but does it affect me?

Please talk, express, it's ok. If you want to talk to your manager about something, or even to the people above, please talk to them, write email. As long as you are not indulging in profanity and are talking about your concerns about the current tasks or the team's work or the direction for the future etc, please talk.  You are not going to be fired because you spoke on some topic and shared your views.  

But please do not expect your manger to do what you want,  he knows more about the problems and he may be deciding between a bad and worse decisions at difficult times.  

My Manager is not spending enough time with me

May be the team was small and your manager was responsible for smaller scope and because you all (team) worked hard and your manger's responsibilities increased (and may be your pay check as well) and  he may be running into more complex problems needing his attention.   If your manger is not talking to you too often, it may mean.

• He trusts you and your abilities to deal with your work and expects you to take ownership of the feature you are building or testing.  Your manager doesn't need to baby sit each engineer all the time.
• He has more bigger responsibilities, he may now he need to spend time on the feature you are working on with you but has to attend too critical issues.   Your manager may be in a situation to decide  between emergency and urgent care. 
• May be he knows the feature you are working and its failure may not cause too much of a trouble compared to some other features.

I don't like my manager

You are not dating your manager and there is no need to dislike your manager because of how he speaks or dresses or based on his race or religion. Unless  you have serious reasons against your manager which in turn is a HR topic, do not grow unnecessary enmity with your manger.  You report to your manger and he doesn't report you. If you are in case where you do not like your manager for no mistake of him, find another job.  

I will talk to my manager's manger

This is a tricky thing, we encourage skip level access and pretend it is a flat world. But remember our planet is not flat, it took ages to discover the truth.  The distance between you and your manger's manager is lot more than the distance between your manager and his manger. Remember this when you are trying to talk against your manager with his manager.

At the same time, engineers should have freedom to talk to skip level manager but trade carefully, at this point of time you are asking too much. You may be bringing a big change to  your team or company or you may be finding another job.