The Hard Parts Of Engineering Management

Joining a new company, you are totally out of your element because you don't know. You have no historical context. You have no institutional knowledge here. And your job is literally to learn as much as you can. And that might mean that you're not actually doing a lot of work right now. Welcome to the Ladybug podcast. I'm Kelly.

And I'm Emma.

And we're debugging. Hugging the tech industry. I didn't start the episode by saying, hi, Emma.

I was waiting for it, but it didn't come. So now I have a question.

Now I don't know what to do.

Now I have a question for you.

What's that?

Do you know who Dwayne the Rock Johnson is?

No. Please tell me.

I don't actually really know much about him. All I know is that my outfit today reminds me of him. Because every time I wear a black shirt with a gold necklace, I feel like that picture of him where he's wearing a black turtleneck with a gold chain. So if you're not watching on TikTok or YouTube. Well, maybe you should, because maybe you should.

You're missing out. That was my Halloween costume last year, actually. Oh. I'm a really lazy Halloween person. I like to Halloween minimum. I. Yeah, I don't really enjoy doing it.

I'm going to get canceled for saying this. And I hate Halloween. I hate it. I hate the idea of trying to come up with a costume and then putting it on. Even though I understand that everybody else is dressing up, I still feel like I'm gonna be the only one.

Yep.

But also, in Sweden, like, kids don't necessarily wear, like, tons of different costumes when they trick or treat. It's like most of them just dress up as witches.

I like that. Like, take the pressure off of it.

Maybe I'm lying. Maybe it's Easter that they dress up as witches and come to your house. I don't know. It's a different culture in different countries. I don't know.

I have so many questions. But, hey, this is our final season. Speaking of witches, this is our final season. Oh, my gosh. This is our final episode of the season. We are covering the difficult parts of engineering management. So we're kind of talking pretty heavy topic for our final episode, but I think it is an important one.

What do you think it is? It is. Let me ask you a spicy question. What's your least favorite part of your job?

My stomach just growled and I got distracted. My least favorite part of my job is there's often, like, a sense of overwhelm that I get when I want answers that I'm not getting from the top down. And I feel like I'm just kind of, like, spinning in circles and not actually getting anywhere and not feeling productive, and I don't want my team to feel that. And so it becomes a delicate balance of being like, we're working through these things even though we don't have answers. And I'm like, I am pulling my hair out.

Yeah.

What's yours?

Having to address low performance with folks who don't think they're underperforming.

Ooh, that's a. That's a good one.

That's a hard one. Also, having to give constructive feedback is always really hard, but I don't mind it because I think it's a nice thing to do. Like, it's a kind thing to do.

Yeah.

But it is a delicate balance.

I would say that there was a time, like, having known you for a long time there. There was. There would definitely be a time in the past if it had that come up, you would have avoided that entire thing. You would have just kind of, like, gone with the flow. Like, it's okay. We'll just kind of figure things out as we go.

Yeah.

Like, that is such a sign of growth, and I love that.

It's also hard if you're, like, really close friends with someone and you've known them a long time and you just happen to manage them, and then you have to have those conversations. Like, we talked about setting really strict boundaries on work and personal life. And that's something that I also have to do is, like, I can be a little bit frustrated with you on a professional level, but I still love you a lot as a friend, like, and it's not going to affect either way.

Yeah. So, yeah, that's definitely a. A delicate balance. You need to walk. Also. I also, like, this is why I don't like working with friends. And I don't mean, like, I make friends when I'm working. That's. That's great. I don't like necessarily bringing outside friends into the company when they're going to report to me. I like keeping that line because it can get really hairy, and I would rather. I would rather avoid having those conversations if I can help it now. I mean, if, like, if I have a good friend who is looking for a job and there's, like, the perfect fit at my company and I think they would do great at it, I'm not going to be like, no, don't apply, or I'M not going to hire you. I'm just going to, like, take it to be like, okay, I need to be a little bit more careful with this relationship moving forward, because now they're not just a friend. They're. They're. I'm responsible for their. Their professional career.

You don't want to work with me.

I do want to work with you. Oh.

Well, we actually started working together as co hosts before we became, like, super close friends, I feel like.

Yeah.

But we've also had situations where, like, we've had to be honest with each other about stuff. Like, I don't know, like, when you. You came to me once and you were like, I know that you're start to get into, like, online, like, not merch. It wasn't merch. It was, like, stickers or something. You're like, it does feel a little bit, like, close to what I'm doing at the moment. It's making me maybe a little bit uncomfortable. And I was like, I totally respect you for saying that. Like, it's harder when you're friends with someone.

Yeah.

And it will complicate it, but hopefully you're both able to, like, put that aside. Like. But the other thing is, like, I was roommates in college with my best friends, and we had to stop living together in order to maintain our friendship. So.

Yeah.

So similar. You know, it doesn't always work out.

Exactly. And it. It's very dependent on personalities. You know, if you have two very strong personalities, they're going to butt heads a lot more. It's true. I think you and I balance each other out really well, which is why we're able to record another season of the Ladybug podcast.

Indeed. Let's talk about something that has been very difficult for me for the first six to 12 months, which was feeling productive.

Ooh. Yeah. This is. This is an interesting one from multiple angles. I think the first. The first part is joining a new company. You are totally out of your element because you don't know. You have no historical context. You have no institutional knowledge here, and your job is literally to learn as much as you can. And that might mean that you're not actually doing a lot of work right now. And it takes time to onboard, like, you know, three plus months. And you were saying, like, for engineers, like, it could take, you know, six plus months to really understand the code base. It could. It could. You know, you might not feel very productive because your. Your job is to learn, and it's no longer, like, so tactical that you're Delivering specific tasks, if that makes sense.

Yeah. Your tasks are now split across different types of tasks, which are perhaps meetings. You'll spend a lot more time in meetings, and that is productive, but often doesn't lead to you feeling like you've had a direct impact on something.

Yeah.

Tangible. Then there are administrative tasks like approving holidays or sick days or, you know, whatever it might be. And then there are actual tangible pieces of work that you can cross off your to do list to, like calculating engineering capacity for the upcoming launch cycle or obtaining your roadmap or whatever it may be. But yeah, the. There is a definite lack of immediate gratification which, frankly, for me, as somebody who struggles with like impulse control and needing to feel validated very frequently, it's. It was very difficult.

Yeah, yeah. No, it's, it's. It's a tough one that even I deal with now. Like, I, and I go through phases of it as well. Like sometimes I'll feel super productive that I'm getting a lot of work done that my team's delivering on a lot of great things. And there are other times where I feel like I'm totally useless. And it is something that I, I struggle with personally. And this is like a fun topic for me and my therapist because I am a high performer. I've always been a high performer and I've always been like a perfectionist, pushing myself. And when I don't feel productive, it ends up being one of those things where I'm like defining myself by the lack of productivity. Perceived productivity, I'll call it.

Right. This is something that I'm addressing with almost everybody on my team at this point because it feels like everybody has this feeling lately that they're not being productive and it's very demotivating. And they feel that way because they're not closing tickets or opening pull requests, when in reality they're writing RFCs or requests for comments where they're attending meetings with other product areas to decide how to architect something that we need. So, you know, when I challenge their concept of what productivity is and say like, maybe we should. So it's not just management that requires a mindset shift. It's also once I would say, once you get up higher and higher on the engineering contributor side of things, you start to be more high level and less like closing 15 tickets a day.

Exactly. Yeah. Which also I would say, like, that's another difficult part on the technical side of things. And we just did an entire episode about this last week. If you missed it on, you know, like being an engineering manager when you're not technical. Staying technical in a leadership role requires a lot of intentionality. And like, deciding how technical is actually necessary for you to be is also something that is going to differ from team to team, from company to company. And it could be, it could be really tough at times to figure out what that balance needs to be, especially when you need to be the tiebreaker to make a difficult call and you don't actually have all the information. You need to feel confident in your decision, especially if you don't understand everything that's going on technically.

Absolutely. I think, yeah, I had mentioned this earlier. Handling conflict and interpersonal challenges has been the biggest, one of the biggest difficult parts of management for me. And I think a lot of it just comes down to the uncertainty of you don't know how other people are going to react. You can control how you communicate information to people, but you cannot control their reactions to things. And I can assure you they're not always going to be positive. And the other thing is people are not always going to like you. In order to be a good manager, you sometimes have to put yourself in positions where people will not like you because it's not synonymous. Like, being a good manager means people are not going to like you at sometimes. Right. Like let's say you have a team of five engineers and one, one of them is underperforming heavily, requiring the other team members to pick up their slack.

Well, you need to address that with.

The underperformer and if they're unable to get it together, you've got to fire them. That person's not going to like you, but the rest of the team will respect you and probably appreciate you a lot more. So as, as a, you know, a lifelong people pleaser, that was difficult for me.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And just like providing constructive feedback to people who you genuinely like, like, it does, it's, it's that whole what you said earlier, like separating out the professional side of things from the personal side of things. And that's, that's a challenge. Um, this is one of the things that I see most people who step into an engineering management role the first time they struggle with, especially if they move from being peers to their peers, are now the direct reports because you're moving from being friends to being friendly. And it's also, that's different.

It's also not knowing when is appropriate to give constructive feedback. Right. Like how many times does something need to occur for it to become a pattern? I would say if it happens More than twice within a short period of time. It's something that you should address. Like if somebody continually shows up to meetings or forgets to join or just doesn't show up. Okay, once, fine. Like life happens twice. Okay, it's starting to look like this could be a pattern, but let's figure out why. And then by the third time, I'm like, okay, I need to address this. I think another big thing that I struggled with during my first years in EM was how to work through other people's mental health journeys. Because we've talked about this previously. You are not a psychologist. You are not there to diagnose them, to help them through these tumultuous times in their life. But the end of the day, you are responsible for the success of your team.

Yeah.

And while there are certain measures you can put in place, like let's say somebody struggles with getting up in the morning due to a mental health challenge that they're facing. Okay, maybe we can move stand up a little bit later in the morning. It still works for everybody on the team. Like, maybe 10 in the morning is a better time than nine. Right. So there you're trying to make concessions to see if we can meet in the middle and find something that works for everybody. But at some point, if it's affecting their job to the point where they can't work, okay, let's talk about long term sick leave, or if it gets to the point where that's also not working and it's not an option. Or we need to talk about a performance improvement plan.

Exactly. And, and it can be tough if somebody's struggling a lot, but they're also not delivering what needs to be done. Um, and, and again, like, the most important thing to remember through all of this is you should not be doing this yourself. Like mental health issues, performance improvement plans, like true performance issues, and needing time off. HR has to be involved. Like, this is exactly why HR exists. Um, this is not the kind of thing that you should be trained on handling on your own. It's also a major risk for the company for you to handle it on your own as well, because you never know what you're accidentally going to say when you think you're helping and ends up being very, you know, destructive.

Yeah. It's also like, I mean, I try to lead by example, Right. So, like, the past few weeks of my pregnancy have been really taxing on me physically and emotionally, like, to the point where I feel like I can't do my job well. And I found that I was just taking like, sporadic sick days to try to remediate this, and it just wasn't consistent. So instead I was like, okay, well that's not fair to my team to have, like, you know, mental and physical health difficulties that I am not doing anything about.

Right.

Like, that's not a good example for them. And so I, like, came up with a plan with my manager. I said, here's my plan. I want to take two days off vacation time per week. Like, look, I've got over 30 days of vacation to use this year. I'm going to be off on seven months parental leave anyway. I need to use them. So why don't I take two days off? Here are the days each week I want to take off off. And that way, like, I tell you what, this is the second or third week of me being off two days a week. It has drastically improved my mental and physical health.

Good.

And so, like, leading by example, recognizing that, hey, I've got something I need to work through and I need to be an example to others on the team that if they're also struggling, they, they should address it themselves and it's okay. That does make a difference.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think another one that I, I have learned over time is choosing your battles. This is definitely on the conflict side of things where not everything needs to be addressed. Some things can stay annoyances, and so long as it's not preventing the team from being able to deliver, if somebody is changing the font and you don't like the font that they're using is probably not worth your time. I'm not saying like changing the font product. I'm saying like changing the fonts on like a word doc or something like that. Like, it really doesn't matter if it's just like an internal thing. There are much more serious battles that you probably should be fighting.

Yeah. Handling my own emotions was a big challenge as well, because, shocker, I'm an emotional person. And I also have very quick and often angry and frustrated responses to things like, I'm just impulsive by nature. And so I will say having a three year old has drastically changed how I respond to situations. And ironically, parenting books has helped me more in my management career, believe it or not, being able to handle my own emotions, like, not suppress them, but not to recognize like, hey, I'm feeling a little bit pissed off at the moment. I'm not gonna respond to the, like my colleague and tell them why I'm pissed off. I'm going to sleep on it. And if I wake up and I still feel compelled to have a conversation about something that was inappropriate at work or like, I would, would have liked to see differently next time. Okay. But let's sleep on it and come back from a logical, rational point of view as opposed to the reptilian side of my brain that is telling me to set fire to everything. That's been hard, but I've gotten a.

Lot better at it. Yeah, and you're not always going to get it right either. Like, there are times when I say something that I regret saying. Like, that's just human nature. Again, we're not perfect people. But being able to stay calm under pressure or recognize when you are starting to slip and you're getting to a place where this is not going to be a productive conversation. Being able to hit the brakes and say, hey, we need to take a time, like a breather here. Let's regroup about this tomorrow or this afternoon, because this is no longer a productive conversation. And that is the integrated thing to say as well.

Yeah. Also repair after, like, you are going to mess up. And being able to acknowledge that and approach it from a humility perspective. I don't know how to rephrase that in English. So it's proper grammar. Being humble about it and saying, you know what, Like, I could have handled this better and I apologize for it. Not making excuses, just, hey, here's my behavior. It wasn't appropriate. I regret it and I'm sorry. And let's here's what we can do next time to avoid it. That's important in personal relationships with parenting, with working relationships, and then also, like, not getting defensive when people give you constructive feedback, especially as a manager, people are not going to want to give you feedback like constructive feedback. So when they do take it a little bit more serious, like, not all feedback is valid. Right. You have to discern, like, what is actually valid or not. But at the same time, you're going to get less feedback as a manager because people are maybe more afraid of the implications of it. So being more receptive to it and not getting defensive right off the bat is difficult, but necessary.

Yeah. Yeah. Let's move on from conflict and interpersonal challenges because we could probably talk about this the entire episode. And let's talk. You know something that's a little bit more business oriented. That is one of the most challenging parts of your job is just balancing stakeholder expectations because you're managing expectations from the top down. Your team has expectations of you, your peers have expectations of you. The cross functional Relationships, especially as you continue to move up in an organization, you know, making sure your cross functional peers are getting what they need to do, you're enabling them to be able to do their job is so incredibly important. And so figuring out how to manage up, manage down, manage sideways is one of those things that takes a lot of time. And Even in my 10ish years that I have been in management, it's still a very challenging thing for me. Like I had as far as managing, managing up goes. Like I had a situation back in December that I really got to put this to the test for myself and it was the most uncomfortable situation that I think I've had professionally in a very long time. Like I was really pushing, pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable to not say, but like to ask for. Um, but I was very serious about it and I'm, I'm grateful that I actually got through that opportunity because it did serve as a forcing function for what I needed. Um, but it was really uncomfortable. Like it was really, really deeply uncomfortable.

Yeah, it can be tricky. I feel like I don't, I haven't had too many issues managing upwards probably. I don't know, maybe I just haven't had as much exposure to it. I likely as a first time manager, that is the case.

Most people even managing up is still setting expectations with your manager or like your skip level. Like they might not understand why something's taking so long and you need to be able to explain why.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I think another one of the harder parts for me has been taking accountability for failures. I hate the word failures because it feels like such a, like a be all, end all.

It's like terminal. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It doesn't need to necessarily have this negative connotation.

Being willing to acknowledge that and say like, hey, I messed up and I'm sorry for that is important. And I think the other side of this, and this goes a little bit back to interpersonal challenges, is if somebody like if somebody wrongs you in some way and they take accountability for that professionally, you move on. Like this might change, you know, things might change. Like personalized wow. Like your personal life may change. Like that dynamic of, of how you communicate depending on what it is. But like if they take accountability, you say okay, and yeah, it sucked, but we're moving on. Like you shouldn't be dwelling on this because this is one of the fastest ways for you from a manager perspective, from a leadership perspective to hold yourself back. Because it takes, I mean, you know this like it takes A lot to, you know, have that conversation, to take accountability. It's very uncomfortable. A lot of this is uncomfortable. And if you're like, ah, you know, I'm just gonna hold on to this grudge and be mad about it forever, then it's going to hold you back professionally. Okay, so let's kind of talk career growth, because this one is. This is a challenging one, both for yourself and for your team. One of the most difficult things that you can do as a manager is tell one of your team members why they're not getting a raise or promotion. And it could be, you know, performance related. And hopefully you've been having performance conversations because of that. But sometimes it could be business related. Maybe there's just like, not the money or, you know, a promotion comes from two things. One, the employee is operating at a skill where they should get that promotion. And two, there's a business case for the promotion. And quite often the reason for not getting a promotion is because there's not a business case for it right now, not because they don't, you know, they're not capable of doing it. And that's a difficult thing to explain sometimes. And as you move up in management, you know, the higher you move up in an organization, the fewer opportunities exist for you as well for upward mobility. And you might be sitting in a role for a lot longer than you expect to be, but that's just the nature of the job.

Yeah, but what happens if somebody thinks that they're performing at the next level and they absolutely are not, and you are very misaligned? Because I've seen that happen before where people expect that they deserve a promotion. I think we've, like, now, okay, let's, like, acknowledge the fact that for people who are perhaps underrepresented in this industry, titles are very important for, for, you know, I wish it wasn't for the sake of, like, garnering respect from peers, but sometimes it can be. Yeah, but that being said, I feel that as a whole, in the tech industry, people around our age group particular, like, I'm gonna, you know, I'm 32, turning 33 this year. Like, I think, no, I'm 31 turning 32. This is my life, right? Build. Are you people around? Like, the millennial generation have been accustomed to, like, move fast and break things, switch companies every two years, like, get a promotion every two years. Right? This, like, hustle culture, which doesn't have to be a bad thing, but it also sets. Can set an expectation from someone that they deserve a promotion every two years. And that's frankly, just not realistic in. Especially if you stay in the company. Right. So I've seen cases where people generally around my age, they just expect that they deserve it. They're like, well, I deserve this promotion. It's like, but are you performing at this level? Because even if there was a business case and this role was open today, I can tell you I don't think you're ready. And that's very tricky to navigate.

It is. It is. And it's never a fun conversation to have. I think we talked about that in one of our previous episodes.

We did. We did. Yeah. But having that conversation about, like, look, I'm here to advocate for you. I want you to get all the money that you can. Like, I'm right there with you. But, like, there are times, like, you shouldn't expect it every year. It's something that I would like to give you, but I can't make promises.

Exactly. And you also have to be careful having this conversation, because if you feel you also should be getting more and you're not, like, you can't let that kind of come through as well. You can say, like, I get it. Like, I, you know, I. You know, I'm. I'm here for you. But you can't just, like, turn around and bench and be like, well, I'm also not getting a race. So it seems obvious, but, like, in the heat of the moment, that's what that is. What's going to be going through your head?

Totally. I mean, are most people always wanting more money? Yeah, I think so. I think that's. We don't work for fun, necessarily.

Right. So wouldn't that be the dream? I'm here because I want to be, not because I have bills to pay or anything. Okay, so one. One final topic that I think is an important one for us to discuss is around just feelings of isolation, because if you're, like, deeply under pressure and you need to vent to somebody, you can't vent to your team because it's not an appropriate conversation to have with them, necessarily. And you can't always vent to your peers either, because people talk and you might have some very, you know, strong feelings about something that might even be about them. You know, it could, you know, if I. If I was unhappy because they were getting more opportunities than I was, I'm not going to venture them and be like, well, you're getting all the cool stuff and I'm not getting anything. Like, that's not an appropriate conversation to have with them. So, like, what do you do, like, when you're feeling lonely, you need to vent? What do you do?

Cry?

Same.

I honestly, I haven't figured out a good solution. To be honest. It's really hard not to be able. This sounds so superficial to say, but not to be able to like, gossip about, about work drama. Like, that's been really hard because, like, that is a way that you would typically vent, like with your friends, right? But now, like, okay, my friends also work there, so, like, I can't be doing that. That's not appropriate. I try not to, like, if, if somebody's getting all the cool opportunities and I'm jealous of it. Right. I try to take my, like, frustrations and turn them into like, okay, well, what am I going to do about it? Like, okay, I go to my manager and say, like, I would like to be considered for a tech PoC role next cycle aligns with my goal. You know, instead of just saying like, well, this person get the cool stuff, it's like, cool. Instead of that, I'm going to turn it into like a, like something that I can achieve. Turn it into a goal of like, hey, this is my goal. My goal is to also be doing stuff like this. Please consider me for stuff like this in the future because it aligns with my growth aspirations. Like, instead of just complaining about problems, perhaps try to phrase them as opportunities with solutions.

I like that it's not sexy, but no, that's. It's also something that I'm sure HR would tell you to do as well. So. Yeah, it's a good, it's a good outcome. My therapist is also very helpful. She has like a, you know, like the family trees that you draw. Then she's got one for the company. So she knows if I'm talking about something in particular, she knows exactly who I'm talking about and where they sit in the org chart.

Mm.

My best friend's an attorney. So like, we can we, we vent to each other about, you know, work related things that we like, understand 60% because we're in very different fields.

Yeah, yeah. It's tricky, like just venting. You have to be so careful. Like, trust me, I love a good gossip, right? But like, I've had to adjust pretty significantly. And also, I'll be honest, I'm too freaking tired to gossip or like drain myself with drama anymore. I just don't, I don't expend energy on it anymore. I think the more seasoned you become, the more tenure you rack up in this career, like, the better you are able to get at managing your emotional energy.

Exactly. Yeah. And eventually you just realize that it's just not worth the energy you're putting. You're expending at all. So you let it go. Right.

Right.

We just, like, flow right through you. Anything. Anything else you want to cover before we wrap up for resources?

I don't think so. I think that ultimately this career is not going to be for everybody in the sense of, like, a lot of people are not. They're going to try it out and realize it's not for them. They want to go back to coding or to do something else. It's a lot of responsibility. But I'll tell you right now, this is the best career change I've ever made. I knew I would enjoy it, but I'm enjoying it so much more than I thought. So if you're intimidated by it. Yeah. I mean, that's not a bad thing. It means you take it seriously, and you should if you're affecting people's lives. But, you know, I. I suggest everybody. No, this is not true. I don't suggest everybody try this out. I don't think it's for everybody, but I do think if you're interested and think it would suit you, like, go for it. And the worst thing that happens is you recognize pretty quickly it's not for you, and you can hopefully find something else.

Exactly. And that's. That's the. That's the real core of this. Like, is every part of engineering management amazing? No. Is this the right feel for me? 100%. And I know this about myself. I know that this is. This is where I. I get a lot of energy from, and this is where I really enjoy existing in, you know, my professional space. But, you know, if it doesn't work out for you, if you just are like, I actually kind of hate this. Let go. Like, be an ic. Like, there's absolutely nothing wrong. Like, there's no one. One is better than the other. Like, it is whatever is going to fulfill you professionally. And that can change over time. You know, just be open to actually being honest with yourself as to whether or not you're enjoying something. Yeah.

And also don't get into it for the money.

I'll tell you right now, yes.

It doesn't make as much money as everybody is maybe thinking it does in comparison with engineering roles. In any case, that's probably it for this season.

Good way to end. What is your resource this week? Final resource at the season?

Yes. It is from a podcast that I've talked about in One of our other resource of the weeks, the Mel Robbins podcast, I love her. She had an episode about how to stop caring what people think. And I think that that was very important for me because as a manager, you've got to be able to tune out what people think of you and not measure your performance based on if people like you as a person or not. Because being in people management, not everybody's going to like you.

That's true. My resource of the week is actually this podcast, which is a little meta. But you know, we have recorded several seasons of the labor podcast and so if you're. If this is the first season that you're listening to with us, welcome. I think it would be a great idea for you to go back through and poke through the other episodes that we have from the past. I think you'll find a lot of really enjoyable episodes and I think also would be kind of fun. And I, I kind of want to go back and listen as well as just like the growth that we have had over the course of recording this podcast. Like, it's kind of terrifying. Go back. It is.

It is terrifying. It was a season seven and we started this like way back in. Was it like 2017?

2017, 2018?

Oh my gosh, yes.

19. I don't know.

Preface that. Go back and listen with. We were totally different people back then. And that's not a bad thing. I think we've both experienced a lot of growth. I've become a almost two times over parent. I've switched countries twice. Like, I know I'm a different person.

Yeah, I was running my own company when we did the other one. Yeah, it was a very, very different job.

I, I wish we should do that as a new season or like a reaction to our old episodes and like created criticizing.

This is a bonus episode of us criticizing ourselves.

We should. I mean, I don't think that's a bad thing to do because we have learned a lot.

We have, we have. Awesome. Thank you so much for tuning in and I hope you enjoyed this entire season of Ladybug podcast talking about engineering management. If this was an interesting kind of focus and you think we should do something similar to this, we were considering for next season continuing on the path of engineering management, but actually bringing on others to speak of their experience. Because we are only two people, we do now represent the entire landscape of engineering managers everywhere. Let us know what you want to hear. As we're planning out season eight, we would love to get your thoughts and as always, subscribe if you haven't subscribed already, tell your friends, find us on YouTube as well and leave us a review. Hopefully five stars. Because we like reading nice things about ourselves, you know, because while we are, we are trying to stop caring what people think, we do care what people think. We care about these reviews. So with that, thank you so much for tuning in. We'll see you next season. Sa.