I have just had my Q4 appraisal and as part of it my manager mentioned that for my next role up I would need to show expansion of my role, one avenue being line management. As I am solo PM there is no obvious people to manage. My manager has informed me he would like me to manage one existing and one incoming developer (junior to mid-level).
This raised a red flag as whilst I would like to view myself as technical I do not have a coding background. I also am not sure this is how the team should be structured. However, as I am aware I need the experience for my next role I am not sure what I should say about it.
Am I right in viewing this as a red flag? Should I say something? If I take it on how can I ensure that I do a good job and ultimately benefit my reports?
It’s kind of strange to me to be asked to lead developers. In my opinion you can lead the development of the product, day-to-day tasks and give them detailed explanation of the initiatives you have but leading their personal development should be responsibility to some Tech Lead which is aware how to challenge the person and improve their technical & soft skills.
If you have such tasks in your day-to-day activities you’ll may lose focus.
I’d recommend to discuss the topic in more details to align expectations and to be on the same page together with your line manager.
If that’s the case and they want you to manage the developer and their personal development and growth as dev then you should warn them that you don’t have any expertise in this and could improve only their soft skills.
Definitely feels like a red flag - sounds like your boss isn’t a product manager? Are you interested in managing people? This can be a challenges for PMs at startups just because there are rarely very many of us. Are you able to share more context?
Thanks for your responses, seems like my thoughts were right. My boss is the Head of Digital and Infrastructure, moving to Director of Operations (background in coding but moving away.)
The development team lead reports into him and is going on Maternity leave, so it would be her reports I am getting. He says he would still be the individuals go to on the technical aspects of their role. I am interested in managing people as both a development opportunity and also to help unlock the next role, however it feels like square peg into a circle hole this way.
Startups often have a lot of square pegs in round holes around their organizational structure. Everyone needs a manager, someone to talk to, someone to support them, someone to bounce ideas off of, someone to “be the mirror” sharing their perspective of how they are doing. You can probably do much of that.
@Nathan, That was really thoughtful. Thanks a lot.
Thanks to all too for your valuable inputs.
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