A results-oriented and efficient team is one with two main components: skillful developers and a manager to show them the way.

First of all, management, no matter the type is a title that focuses on people, the team members who make things happen. No manager can do a great job if he or she focuses on tasks and data only.

In order to make a team work and be successful, you need to make sure that each and every member works at the best of their abilities in a healthy environment and optimized workspace. Here is where the manager comes in to listen to them, coach them and optimize the dynamics.

An Engineer Manager is, of course, a developer or technical person at core. But aside from the tech skills needed to understand the process of the team, that individual needs to have great people skills. Not a combination you find lying around. Here’s how to approach the recruitment process for a position like such:

Hit their hubs & gathering points

More often than not, those who aspire to be managers or to become better managers, won’t gather for public coding sessions, but rather for self-development, people-oriented trainings, and other similar events.

Find out about the places where qualified people might hang around. Meetup events or Stack Overflow get-togethers can be linked together in the bigger cities. Get to know the insides of such people!

Listen to their concerns or issues

In a technical manager role, the main task in your hand is to tackle people. To do so successfully you need to understand what they experience daily and yearly. Once you’ve done this, you can address these concerns when targeting a candidate. Help them find the optimal way of working with the team and build an evolving path for the near future. They need all the support they can get.

Empathy – the key to driving businesses

Because a technical manager will tend to preoccupy him/herself with the technical workability of their responsibilities, they will miss on the business side of things. You should not dump numbers and pressure on them in terms they don’t understand, but rather try to see their point of view and stir the boat gently in your desired manner.

Code reading – a key skill

A manager in a technical team will most likely have less code to write, but a lot to read. Because their main task is not to develop code, but to ensure the team does so successfully, they might get frustrated or try to contribute with some code themselves to break the routine. However, coach them on code reading so that they can easily supervise where the team is headed and adjust in consequence while keeping the focus on team management.