8 ms·
What is expected of a engineering manager?
- meagher 6y agoOne thing missing from my recent engineering managers is lack of relevant coding experience. You don't need to be an great engineer to be a good manager, but it definitely helps when your manager knows enough about the battles fought in the trenches and can offer actual feedback/support instead of nodding for 30m, then going to another 1:1.
- systemvoltage 6y agoI think that would be covered under the idea "Lead by example". When the manager is competent to understand, console and provide guidance to the team when they're struggling - even slight slivers of technical skills and knowhow, the rapport they build is unbreakable. The idea is to genuinely belong to a team, not just on an org chart. When troops are in the battle field, they form unbreakable bonds because they have trust, got each other's backs and there is absolutely nothing artificial about it - life is on the line. More often than not, I've seen managers appear genuine but are not internally so and it will surface in future if not now. Also, corporations, midsized companies and even small companies have this idea of not speaking the mind. Instead, massive amounts of bullshit corp speak and lipstick is put on the pig to do a quick dog and pony show for the upper management. Managers that suck up to upper management lose their support from the troops. Once that's done, there is no going back.
- ed312 6y agoThis is a really tricky thing to nail down as an EM. My first eng leadership role I was promoted out of the team. Everyone already knew I had what it took (I was one of the core group pushing hard to get the product out the door) so "engineering respect" came naturally. Fast forward to being hired as an EM - I realized I had to earn this all over again AND I couldn't do it just be being another peer in the trenches. Being an authentic leader is _hard work_, but it pays off when you see your team succeed.
- systemvoltage 6y agoCurious how you define a team’s success?
- loopz 6y agoEveryone pulling in same direction and getting good traction.
- ed312 6y agoSorry for the late reply, but for me: 1) ICs happy, learning, w/ good work/life balance AND 2) project work delivered at high quality in a reasonable time frame. Personally, when in doubt, I sacrifice #2 for a while.
- kemiller2002 6y agoAt my last job I had an interesting (nice) experience. My boss wasn't an engineer, he was a project manager, but that didn't hinder him. I think what made him successful was that he cared. He'd say over and over, "I'm not a developer, I need help understanding." We would sit in a meeting and walk through problems. He was very calm and patient and acted genuinely interested in what the problem was. He would ask questions about what he didn't understand, and trust us on the things that we would say. It was a great experience. When we said we had a problem, he tried to understand and relay that to the necessary people. When he couldn't we'd accompany him to explain the details.
- nicoburns 6y agoYeah, I've definitely worked with non-engineers (project managers, designers, QA, etc) who are more than capable of understanding technical issues even if they don't get the details. They're usually great people to work with, and I try to extend the same courtesy to other parts of the business that I work with.
- rurp 6y agoMy current manager is a lot like this. He has never written a line of code but is surprisingly good at scoping work and understanding how important various tasks are. I think that any manager who is smart, cares about the work, and has good discussions with their engineers can develop a solid understanding of software projects. There's no magic to it but, sadly, that combination of qualities is a lot less common than I would like.
- wolfgang000 6y agoMy current and former manager are exactly like this, except that both of them do know SQL, really great guys that try their best to help guide the project. As a little anecdote, my first boss was a technical manager with many years of experience in programming but unfortunately not very good managerial skills. The biggest problem was that he had a clear image of the big picture but when we try to explain to him that "No, we can't do X because Y" then he said, "what are you talking about? Of course, we can It's a simple queue/query/function call", and he would not listen until we show and explain him the code or he tried to do it himself. It's definitely better to have an empathic and cooperative manager even if he or she lags the technical knowledge
- annexrichmond 6y agoI've had EMs who who really well versed in the team's technical work, because they were an IC on the team, and the complete opposite: EM was external hire One downside of relevant coding experience is that the EM will get involved in more and more little technical details, which bleeds into micromanagement territory.
- sidlls 6y agoYep, that's what I'm experiencing. There isn't a requirements analysis or design review where he doesn't insert himself into the low-level details, right down to class/data specifications and even lower. Instead of bringing his knowledge of how our stuff has to integrate with other teams' work to inform the design, he acts more like an IC colleague participating in its construction. Then, when engineers come to design reviews with designs that are relatively under-specified (knowing he'll just start making decisions during the meeting) he complains. It's a bit grating to be told that "you're the expert, I expect you to decide these things" and then have every detail nitpicked over and argued with anyway.
- loopz 6y agoTell him to do the work if he's interested in all the details.
- Timberwolf 6y agoCompanies really struggle with this, and in both directions. Startups and scale-ups tend to overcompensate to the point management hires get interviewed as super-ICs, where they'll be expected to answer technical stages at (or even above) the company's top IC standard, but only get a couple of basic scenario questions about management that anybody could answer. Sometimes you get lucky and they're good at both, but it's a big source of the "management by yelling at people" and "I can't have a 1:1 with you, I'm fixing a production issue" schools prevalent in such environments. It's rare to find a company balanced in the middle where they're looking for someone who clearly "gets it" and can talk about technical solutions, but also has the ability to solve the people problems. (Often good managers were also skilled ICs before they made the jump, but lack of everyday practical use leaves them with a layer of rust. In an hour interview with someone you've never met before it's hard to tell the difference between "rust" and "has heard of the concepts but doesn't really understand them" though)
- rhn_mk1 6y agoWhat's IC?
- Timberwolf 6y agoSorry, jargon: Individual Contributor, meaning someone who works on things directly and doesn't do any management.
- ownagefool 6y agoIndividual contributor. Obviously there's a spectrum of management that an IC can undertaken, but this is typically based around their good will and soft powers, but the wider point is they're not supported to have direct reports.
- stuff4ben 6y agoArticle seems to omit one of the big issues I had with being an engineering manager and that was managing budgets (people/assets) and financial forecasts. I'll probably become a manager again, but I'm enjoying my break and doing "real work" again.
- neverartful 6y agoI was thinking the same thing. Plus, all the miscellaneous administrative tasks (HR, training, marketing, etc.).
- dbliss 6y ago+1 - I had a discussion with one of my directs today as they were considering becoming an SDM. There are so many days as a manager where every moment of my time is filled with meetings and admin tasks and at the end of the day you feel like to accomplished nothing. Where as with coding you can feel like you built something and have something to show for your hours of time. I certainly miss being an IC, more and more each day..
- JMTQp8lwXL 6y agoYou might individually feel like you've done nothing, but if tending to admin tasks enables your ICs to just focus on getting work done --without distraction-- you're actually a multiplying force within your organization.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- cpeterso 6y agoI shifted from software engineering to technical program management because I was interested in the bigger picture of shipping software (after having been an engineer on a couple multi-year projects that floundered and failed due to mismanagement), but did not want to be personally responsible for hiring and firing people. I don’t have the constitution to make such big decisions impacting other people’s lives. :\
- nashashmi 6y agoWhy do articles like these make it seem like it was written by a guy targeted by an engineering manager? "Like if I were in his shoe, this is how I would treat myself."
- erikrothoff 6y agoAs an aspiring manager of engineers, do you mean that it's far from the truth of real-life counterexamples?
- nashashmi 6y agoI mean that overall they may be good takeaways, but managers don't do these things intentionally. They do it because they are trying to hold on to the other pressures of the job (meetings). This article is one-sided.
- ed312 6y ago>"Like if I were in his shoe, this is how I would treat myself." This is a very healthy way to think about things as a manager. I like knowing why I have to do a task, to have the chance to give feedback, and to get leeway to push for what I think is best. I try every day to support those things for my team.
- anonytrary 6y agoGrowth is the greatest result of pain. I would especially listen to someone who learned lessons after having been burned themselves. I would take that over an armchair who was paid to write an article. Authenticity is an extremely valuable human resource.
- spaetzleesser 6y agoOne thing I noticed is that a lot of managers create an environment they would not want to work in themselves. A good manager should not just pass on orders from above and report back but try to shape the work environment so their reports can work well. A lot of managers in my company only ask “when” but never “how” or “why”. It doesn’t help to constantly remind people of deadlines without listening to and implementing suggestions for improving the work environment.
- president 6y agoI think this is because in most cases, the "when" is what their bonuses/promotions are based on. Managers don't get promoted because the code is great or the architecture was elegant, they get promoted for raw delivery and being able to say "my team delivered X in only Y days".
- Rapzid 6y agoThe whole team needs to work together to create an environment that incentivizes the desired behaviors while being an enjoyable experience. Setting in place and maintaining a system like that is hard. Telling people what to do is easy.
- Aeolun 6y agoI recently told my manager ‘we have literally never delivered a project on time because of process deficiencies, you expect me to believe the next project will be any different?’, only to be told that we had to deliver this one on time, because it was for a client (all our previous projects were too). I just don’t follow how that logic works..
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- lacker 6y agoYour company expects that you follow along the deliveries, setting quality standards, making sure the team has the support they need and upper management the feedback they need. This part seemed a little weakly worded to me. An engineering manager should make sure their team gets things done. It isn't enough to "follow along the deliveries". Sometimes that is things like setting standards and communicating. But it's also things like firing underperformers and hiring for open headcount. It's making sure you have enough budget and support from other teams to get the job done. Whatever it takes. It isn't enough to say "Well, communication was great, I gave the team a lot of support, but we didn't make very much progress."
- triztian 6y agoI agree with your points. I think it's the wording like you mention, in Lat-Am countries it is common to say "darle seguimiento a las entregas" or "rastrear entrega" as a way to signal that the person is responsible of making sure that things workout well including handling or helping out with any technical or communication roadblocks for the team.
- Timberwolf 6y agoI think the article misses what I think is a vitally important part of the job: being a crap shield. A lot of the work of an EM is wading into the slurry pit with a shovel so your team are free to get the job done: bashing your head against InfoSec teams stuck in the '80s so the CI/CD toolchain can deploy to production, negotiating freedom with a CTO who wants to specify everything to the level of individual data structures, convincing HR that no, we really do need to pay for a good senior and not hire someone with 2 years experience in a configuration galley because they're cheap. On top of that there's the process battles; in older firms, all those interminable "but can't they just use Waterfall?" meetings that go on for hours and are spawned every time there's a minor project manager reshuffle. In newer ones, the ongoing fight of, "you can't address debt or build foundations for the future, we need features, if it can't be done in less than a week it's not MVP enough" There's a fine balance in that I think a good EM lets their team know this is going on and get involved where they want without dumping all the crap downward. Not least because they should be coaching their team leads in that responsibility, so they can take the career step when they want. Going back to the article, as others mentioned it does read a little bit more like a "why I'm frustrated with my manager" than a "how to be a good EM", but it's easy to misconstrue the meaning of text.
- bitbckt 6y agoAll of the managers I’ve worked with on the “great” end of the quality spectrum have excelled at being sh*t umbrellas. Perhaps that speaks also to the quality of the orgs I’ve been in, as well... This is a (the?) differentiating quality between effective management and not.
- x87678r 6y agoI used to think that then I burnt out. When the manager does nothing but the crap, the manager is going to leave. The proper way is to distribute the crap evenly.
- pkaye 6y agoThis is why I decided to stopped doing engineering manager roles. Working on the crap stuff all the times is no fun. And the longer you do it the more your technical skills fall behind. I'm fine with the technical roles along with mentoring the new engineers.
- ethamontif 6y ago`A good way to think about hiring and growing your team members is to think that they can replace you.` This is really wrong. Manager is a path, but an IC shouldn't need to become a manager to keep growing in their career.
- volkk 6y ago> Manager is a path, but an IC shouldn't need to become a manager to keep growing in their career. I 100% agree with this, but have never really REALISTICALLY seen any of this methodology in the companies that I've worked at. Here's what I usually see instead: if someone is a staff engineer, then they worked their ass off to get there and are generally really good coders, and have wrapped their heads around the business/domain really well. The managers I've seen are generally skewed towards incompetence, which to me, shows that interviewing to become an EM is MUCH easier than it is to become a staff engineer, yet the pay is identical. So you mostly have staff/principal engs that are VERY smart, and more often than not, have EMs/directors who have stumbled their way upwards by being lucky. The question is -- do you want to be a principal engineer when you're 45, know the business, the code, the domain inside out, be paid well, but STILL have to answer to directors/managers who are 15 years your prior, who are entirely incompetent and have essentially lucked/bullshitted their way into their roles, and deal with all of that crap on and endless basis or do you become that person and attempt to fix it from the top? A different angle: most companies have no idea what a staff engineer is, and how to promote from within. However, I've seen midlevel engineers do some decent work, maybe complete a major project, and be promoted to EMs. What's the point of trying to become a staff engineer (assuming part of your goal is to grow your wealth) when you can just easily become an EM at most places and make the same exact amount of money, and just do what you love (i.e coding), on the side. Of course, to each their own and all of that. But at the end of the day, it is much much easier to go into management and incompetence your way around to the top where goals are nebulous and not super calculable compared to being senior IC. I should finally note that I have had a couple of EMs that were really good. However, those are far and few between IMO.
- silicon2401 6y agoAnecdotally, as a SWE who doesn't have personal interest in coding, I would be more likely to code if I were a manager and didn't have to do it in day to day life (to get the satisfaction of actually doing everything exactly how I want it). After staring at a screen and typing all day, the last thing I want to do is put more strain on my eyes and fingers after work.
- pedro-guimaraes 6y agoLeadership skills, whatever this means...
- throw1234651234 6y agoDunno, but as a dev lead, onboarding new devs is huge - easing them into the project, make sure they get to do challenging work but aren't stressed too heavily or beyond their capacity, etc. Huge time commitment just to write clean, understandable stories for them to work while they are new.
- solidist 6y agoI appreciated the write and liked how some references back to high output management - excellent book. I wrote a similar contemplating piece, being in the role for some years now. Here: https://dev.to/solidi/what-is-an-engineering-manager-anyway-4and https://dev.to/solidi/what-is-an-engineering-manager-anyway-... The management role is challenging and has affected me to the part where I go on continuous daily walks, thinking about what to do next. I mess up and have broken down on numerous occasions about tackling challenging topics that play out for both the business and the individual in contra. I still care. Some things I missed doing well: Being a shield. Do this more. But more importantly to me: to leave engineers better than I find them. Ratcheting is the metaphor. I understand that I'm always asking for more. It's a lot of meta and reflection while the delivering is or isn't happening.
- pkaler 6y agoI recommend all of the books referenced in the original post. They are all very good. But the expectation of an engineering manager is fairly simple: Do whatever it takes. Way back in February or March, when we were still working from the office, I walked to the drug store on the corner and got Lysol wipes and hand sanitizer for everyone. Because, do whatever it takes.
- angrais 6y agoWhat other books would you recommend regarding management of SWEs?
- pkaler 6y agoI would recommend that you read a book a week, every week, for the rest of your life. :) Just start with the ones in the article and Amazon/Kindle will get good at recommending books. Here's some books recently read on my Kindle: - No Rules Rules - Never Split The Difference - The Manager's Path - The Almanack of Naval Ravikant - Ultralearning - The Hard Thing About Hard Things - What You Do is Who You Are - User Story Mapping - Inspired - The Lean Product Playbook - Competing Against Luck - Domain Driven Design - Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture - Data-Driven Marketing - Designing Data-Intensive Applications - Monetizing Innovation - Super Thinking - The Great Mental Models - Nonviolent Communication - High Growth Handbook - Powerful - Trillion Dollar Coach
- markwaldron 6y agoAn Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management by Wil Laron is one of my favorites
- laudable-logic 6y agoI once had a report who demanded, snarkily, all the things be listed on the whiteboard (as opposed to just getting them in Jira) and the meeting was set for the next day... Knowing the team was one of those that is constantly using nearly-depleted markers and hating life, I thought to check. Sure enough... all empty, nothing to replace them with. I thought to just let said report arrive at next day's meeting, ready to whiteboard it up only to look woefully unprepared, but I waited. I waited until about an hour before the meeting to see if they might have clued-in and sorted the problem for themselves... An hour later I returned from a slushy 2km walk, soaked, with a box of markers that I just placed in the drawer, unbeknownst to all.
- ed312 6y agoLots of great comments so far, but I'd like to toss mine in: showing up. As an EM for a few years now, showing up consistently, being available, always making time to talk or hear someone out. The best managers I've had also always told the unvarnished truth and empathized with what all the folks "in the trenches" had to do day to day.
- the_arun 6y agoFew things I learnt so far: 1. Managers need to be human & kind. 2. Shielding their team from crap (as someone mentioned already) 3. Don't pitch one team member vs another - this is toxic. Instead nurture their strength. Our competitors are outside the team, not inside 4. Cheer lead/Sponsor for the team outside. Genuinely back your team. 5. Always expect your team members are smarter than you - give them that trust. Thank them for things they teach you. 6. Managing is more like parenting college kids (not toddlers/middle schoolers). You want them to survive worst and replace you if needed. So you too can grow. But avoid micro managing. 7. Learn to have tough conversations - This could be for their/team's improvement.
- quercusa 6y ago> 4. Cheer lead/Sponsor for the team outside. Genuinely back your team. You don't have to (and shouldn't) tell them you are doing this - word will get back to them.
- madrox 6y agoAs someone who's spent a lot of time coaching new EMs, I agree with these bullet points. The thing that makes me sad is that this is only correct if the EM's director agrees with it. The true bullet point of what is expected of an EM: whatever the EM's boss expects. I'm currently writing down a lot of the management lessons and coaching I usually give new directors as they learn their craft. It's mostly for my own sanity during startup building, since I miss coaching, but thinking of publishing it. There's a lot of EM guidance out there, but it's lacking for directors.
- mwcremer 6y agoShielding your folks is important, but so is nurturing them. I really like Rands in Repose (https://randsinrepose.com https://randsinrepose.com) because he talks about both.
- mancerayder 6y agoHow do you stay current on tech when you're doing mostly crap work and umbrella-ing and project managing, and your people are doing all the juicy innovative stuff? That's my current struggle. I'm leaning on doing work for myself on the weekend and evenings, which will be brutal.
- sateesh 6y agoI am not an manager, and this is something that puzzles me too. For an engineer to respect his manager, you expect the manager to be technically competent and in tune with recent technological developments. But as a manger you are most likely to be bit removed from technological changes given that most of the time is spent in meetings, talking, keeping people engaged etc. A few things I can think of but I don't know how effective they could be: * keep reading technical books, well-known/reputed engineering blogs with the intent of not understanding everything but atlas to get a gist of the technology changes * be engaged and attend some of the technical discussion meetings (not as an enforcer of some decision) but mostly as a keen observer.
- ilaksh 6y agoPersonally I would prefer that the manager is someone who is an active engineer on the project. And I know that is challenging and won't work in a lot of organizations. But before you dismiss the idea, look at open source projects like Linux, the D programming language, or Nim.
- mafro 6y agoI bookmarked this comment on being a tech manager a while back: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18826015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18826015 It's quite critical of the position, and perhaps a bit negative, but captures the core strengths an EM needs to be successful
- yalogin 6y agoIs the engineering manager expect to proactively find work for their team? Are they responsible to keep the work pipeline full for the next upcoming cycles?
- bpicolo 6y agoThis is a product/project management responsibility, and in some organizations or teams some or all of this can fall on the engineering manager side. Doing a lot of both at the same time is typically a crummy gig, as you don't have time to do both successfully for a right-sized team (you'll be either a bad manager, a bad product manager, or mediocre at both), Uou'll either be overworked or feel bad at your gig all the time. Helping the team proactively scope and prioritize technical debt work, as opposed to product work, is almost always a critical function of managers.
- sateesh 6y agoI would say yes on two counts, one for his/her own growth/benefit and other for the team's benefit. If there is more work in the pipeline it keeps the team less worried about what are the future tasks they can focus on, and this becomes especially important if the company is going through a rough phase. In addition additional work also gives opportunity for the team members to work across different projects and rotate people who are driven and want to work on different projects/technologies a chance, and to retain them. Naturaally, when the team benefits and succeeds it helps the manager and improves his standing in the organiaztion. However the ugly side of this is office politics, where some managers continuously try to expand their turf undercutting other teams so that they manage bigger teams and reap rewards. (say a bigger title).
- musicale 6y agoBased on ostensibly well-known and successful companies I know, I would say: not much, and very little of positive value. Technical leads and senior engineers, however, seem to add a lot of positive value.
- ggm 6y agoManaging expectations up and down is hard. Confining your knowledge of how you would do it, in a what/how functional separation is hard. Time estimation is hard. Under promise and over deliver is well known and you, the manager will get squeezed on it both sides.
- rexpop 6y agoTo squeeze blood from stones.
- khazhoux 6y agoI guess I'm just cynical, but every time I see a post on "How To Be A Great Manager", I only see "Look At Me, I'm A Great Manager!". Why the cynicism? Because in my career across many companies and many teams, I can count the good managers on one hand, but have seen people "playing manager" everywhere -- and these are the ones who like to espouse theory. * Frequent one-on-ones! (yeah but everyone on your team is demoralized and trying to switch out) * Shield the engineers from crap! (but you still let your team struggle to take care of everything while you're busy "aligning" with the other managers) * Help the engineers grow! (are you actually giving them more responsibilities in a way they can deliver and actually get promoted this year, or just dispensing cheap advice every week?) * Resolve conflicts! (do you personally take it upon yourself to settle issues with your peer managers, or do you co-miserate with your directs about how political everything is) Really, there's dozens and dozens of things a good manager will need to do, and it's far from a solved problem. Drawing up a list of desiderata is not the hard part. The difficulty is how to actually enact them, how to actually impact the team, how to actually drive the project forward. You tell me your secret and I'm all ears.
- austincheney 6y agoSetting hard boundaries is completely absent from software management and so essential to productivity and job satisfaction. In the military we call this staying in your lane or knowing your left and right limits. This concept is often easily achievable through automation by removing the flexibility to allow knowingly bad practices. Such techniques are code validation rules, interfaces, method removal/redefinition and so forth. It provides a clear sense of direction by removing distractions and bad conveniences as passable options. The concept also sets hard business limits on what work a team performs without intermingling in the responsibilities of other teams. I am amazed at how absent this concept is to software given that it is so foundational to project management.
- rkayg 6y agoanyone use anything besides the usual suite of software (google docs, slack, JIRA, etc.) to assist with management? When I was a line manager, I felt like there was a lack of tools for engineering managers...
- fogetti 6y agoSomething which bothers me deeply is the disconnection between the fetishism of management which is the most apparent on this website and the endless misery caused by the outcomes of 20th and 21st century corporate culture. In most western developed countries (and most recently developing countries too) depression and anxiety is shooting off the roof in every possible survey and study (yes, that can be attributed to social media and others too). According to OECD data the 25% of the working age population of those countries struggle with mental health problems. That's about 166 million people. If everyone believes that good management is possible and just the matter of willpower, while the numbers all point towards the opposite direction then we're doomed. Too many people are indoctrinated.
- qznc 6y agoE. Kalliamvakou, C. Bird, T. Zimmermann, A. Begel, R. DeLine and D. M. German, "What Makes a Great Manager of Software Engineers?," in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 87-106, 1 Jan. 2019, doi: 10.1109/TSE.2017.2768368. > We conducted a mixed methods empirical study of software engineering management at Microsoft to investigate what manager attributes developers and engineering managers perceive important and why. Turns out that engineers want their managers more technical and less inspirational. This is different for sales or marketing managers, for example, so if these transfer it might turn out well.
- justforyou 6y ago>> Dealing with underperformance/letting people go is a tough subject (which I don't have much experience): I highly recommend asking your HR Business Partner and your manager to help with that. Yet another article written by someone without the requisite experience to be opining on the topic at hand.
- vanusa 6y agoExactly. HR tends to know nothing about solving "performance issues" -- especially since by and large, they tend to have next-to-zilch understanding of what the day-to-day work is actually about - let alone what constitutes good or bad "performance". So from there - their role pretty much boils down to: "OK, so you've decided to start pushing this person out of the company's bowels. Let's make sure we do with with proper legal CYA and minimal side effects, otherwise. In fact we have system in place already - it's called PIP:" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_improvement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_improvement "Ya see, you just gotta make up some quote-unquote 'goals' for the problem employee to 'agree to'. And then of course, don't actually support them (and just for fun, sometimes outright block them - subtly, of course) from reaching them. Whether they quit and/or have a nervous breakdown -- or inevitably fail at achieving the 'goals' we set out for them -- either way, in a month or two they'll be toast -- guaranteed." The very essence of being a good manager, then -- is helping to resolve (or at least clarify) performance issues before they get "escalated" to that level (which is an ironic term, given that again, it pretty much always boils down to -- "how do we get rid of this person?")
- vanusa 6y agoSurprisingly undermentioned and underrated: An ability for (which primarily derives from an actual interest in) actually solving -- as opposed to masking / deflecting / re-routing / siloizing -- so-called "communication issues" within and across teams. Essentially a subset of "being a crap shield" as another commenter mentioned.