The Engineering Manager Training Program (EMTP for short) is a unique program we run at VTS. It allows senior engineers who feel ready for people leadership to try out being a manager. It is a six-month apprenticeship-style program, and participants decide for themselves at the end of the program if they want to continue to pursue management as the next step in their career.

We spoke to Carl Schubert, an Engineering Manager at VTS, who completed the program in 2022, to give first-hand insight into the program.

In a sentence or two, what do you do here at VTS, and how has your role evolved?
I’m currently an Engineering Manager under our Activate product at VTS, managing four people. Before this, I was a Tech Lead and later an Engineering Manager for our Market product. VTS Market was the product line where I first gained exposure as an Engineering Manager after the EMTP [Engineering Manager Training Program].

I have been with VTS for 4.5 years, starting on the VTS Lease product, and have gone from being an IC [individual contributor] to leading a few teams during my time here.

Tell us more about the EMTP and what it’s like.
The Engineering Manager Training Program [EMTP] is a way for engineers who are interested in being managers to try being in the role without fully transitioning to the position officially. It’s a formal six-month program that provides the support and actual hands-on experience to see what being a manager is like, and at the end of the program, participants can move forward to become a full manager once the position is available.

During the six-month program, you are given a few people (between 2- 4 direct reports) to manage, receive training like “how to give 1–1’s” or “how to provide feedback”, as well as be paired with a mentor throughout the program.

I’ve found that the experience of the program is not too big of a jump from the existing role of a tech lead or senior engineer in the team, and the additional responsibilities of spending more time managing the team feel like a natural progression. After the program, you have your regular promotion discussions, and you can become a manager if there is an opening. If there is no immediate opening, you can move into the role once one becomes available.

A nice thing about the program is that the cohort of participants is not just people looking to be engineering managers. There is a mixture of new managers from other areas of the business trying out management for the first time who are taking the training with you, so you get to meet and interact with different people from the business going through the same process.

Tell us more about the goal of the program.
The program gives engineers an opportunity to try out management, see if they like it, and decide if it is the career trajectory they enjoy and want to continue down. This avoids the situation in which an individual gets promoted and after some time, comes to realize that management is not the best fit for them, meaning that they feel stuck in the role or potentially end up leaving the company. This is not ideal for the employee or a business that cares about retaining talent.

From a business perspective, it’s also a huge asset to promote from within and have a manager who knows the product very well, decreasing the ramp-up time to become an effective manager since they have already been an engineer in the product.

Who should consider being involved in this program?
You should consider management if you like planning, coordinating with people, making connections, and thinking at a product level. As a manager, you are given more context to the squad and why you are doing things, as well as the company’s overall direction. Those are all reasons why I really enjoy the position!

People who are usually interested in the program are senior engineers or tech leads who have been a part of planning and seeing projects through end-to-end. It can be a natural transition to become more interested in managing a project and team and to find ways to explore that skill set.

What parts of the program made you decide to go into leadership or stay as an individual contributor?
My particular situation was unique since my squad’s manager had left — so I naturally stepped in to manage the squad during that period of starting the program. I had already been the tech lead of the squad for about a year, and I knew management was the direction I wanted to take.

The program confirmed that I wanted to continue down the track of management by giving me an idea of the full expectations of the role. It included less coding, more people management, and more meetings overall for 1:1’s, roadmapping, and business justification. Many managers still write code since we tend to promote people from IC [Individual Contributor] roles, and I also still tend to code if there is a bit of a lull in the management work.

What has been the most valuable part of the program?
During the program, you have the support from a Management Mentor, who is a more experienced person at VTS in management to guide you through managing the squad and any challenges that might come up. In my case, it was the Director of Engineering who would come to all of my meetings so that they have a lot of context to how the team is functioning and to have them as a real-time sounding board for anything that came up. It was also useful to have a mentor to give me an understanding of the full scope of the responsibilities of being a manager full-time.

The apprenticeship-style learning approach through training, practical hands-on experience along with mentorship is a rare combination to find. The hardest part in transitioning to a management position is understanding the expectations of what you do as a manager. The program’s approach helped you understand those expectations through practical learning, applying those learnings, and having someone to turn to for guidance.

What was the most surprising thing you learned about yourself in the program?
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed getting organized and how I leaned into documentation. This is because, as an IC engineer, I wasn’t really as keen on documentation and process. As a manager, I learned how clarifying it can be.

A lot of what I do as a manager is using a JIT [Just In Time] process. To really stay consistent with it I learned what the minimum amount of documentation we need as a team and sticking to it as a requirement — and really enjoying it.

What piece of advice would you have for an engineer considering pursuing a management position as the next step in their career?
I would tell them to have an open mind about it. Many engineers think of management as very political and that it gets in the way of doing work. While it can have this aspect to the work, even if you don’t want to be a manager, it can be helpful as an engineer to understand how decisions are made and how large groups of people work toward a common goal. Gaining that perspective can enable you as an engineer to understand how to engage people in the work you are doing or want to do, as well as explain the value of your work and how it fits into the larger picture of the business.

An example of one of my happiest times as an engineer was when I was working on a project where we completed the upfront work of explaining to all of the stakeholders (including the CTO) why the work we wanted to do was valuable and received that buy-in. From there, for eight months, we got to work and wrote a beautiful piece of code. That was the first thing that had me thinking about becoming an Engineering Manager. I wanted to create that same environment where we create a plan, gain executive buy-in by explaining why what we are doing is valuable, and then commit to delivering the project without excessive pivots or changing course. A manager has this ability to drive down to the core of what is important, get everyone aligned, enable the team, and get to work on delivering something impactful.

What skills do you think are valuable or important skills in being a manager?
I think curiosity is the most important thing. Understand why something is happening the way that it is, what everyone’s motivations in the group are, and what all of the stakeholders are interested in. This is a big part of being a manager, understanding everyone’s goals and needs and connecting them in a way that makes sense.

What advice would you have for someone before starting the program?
The #1 thing that was valuable going into the program was that I had experience running projects that were pre-approved by a manager — meaning that I had experience of knowing what a well-run project looked and felt like.

My advice would be to gain experience working with teams that try different ways of working in order to get that sense of what style and process would work the best. The first step to knowing how to run a team and project well is to be in an environment that is run well, and develop the idea of what a well-managed project looks like. From there, questioning why it feels that way is key. It helps you develop a set of opinions that will help you explain what a successful team looks like and recreate the same environment in the future.

This is the biggest difference in going from an IC to a manager. As an IC, you can always put your thumb on the scale, grind out code, and just put your head down and get it done. As a manager, you don’t have a lot of control over if anything actually happens. You can ask the team to get it done, and that is a huge jump in mindset. You have to think about when you were most productive as an IC and what about the environment that was enabling you or holding you back. This is where curiosity comes back into the picture in that you have to think about how you can interpret that into enabling and motivating your team.