From front-end SWE to EM

This post was suggested by an ex-colleague at VTEX, Emerson L. (opens in a new tab) who thought it would be interesting for front-end developers to know what led me to the EM position. Looking just at my previous company, there were indeed fewer EMs coming from a front-end scope in comparison with back-end or SRE. This post aims to relate my experience of the transition from front-end Software Engineer (SWE), to EM.

General experience

I think that all I did before working as an EM helped me in this position and continues to do so. When switching to a management role you have to deal with people, projects, processes and generally speaking several things at the same time. Your scope expands, you have to search for and interview potential new hires, create career plans, organize stakeholders, etc. Hours of writing code with your headphones on are no longer the norm.

In my case, I did quite a few different things in the last 20 years. I worked in construction, a book editing company, and as a freelancer. I traveled to several countries, learned some Japanese for fun as well as to count from 1 to 10 in 10 languages (forgot a few nowadays). I graduated in Computer science, Graphic Design, and Webdesign. On the personal side I wakeboard and snowboard on occasions, practice mountain biking, take care of a few bonsais, and read a lot. Closer to my day-to-day job, I got two side projects, one being this very blog, just about writing, and the other a full-stack small app where I do everything from design on Figma to full-stack Javascript development to database management.

Recommendation. If you are interested in an EM position, look at your background. Is it narrow, can you expand it? The points above are examples, no need to do the same. Instead, be curious. Try a new course, maybe a new physical activity or a hobby. Closer to your work, try to expand your scope beyond your team. Ask for informal 1:1s with external team members or get involved in side activities like a hackathon, a small side project with another team, or a guild. If you can, ask your manager or just a more senior figure. Follow professionals on LinkedIn or subscribe to a newsletter or two.

First contact with mentorship

While still working at Huge as a front-end SWE I had my first experience with an official mentorship. Caio V. (opens in a new tab), my direct report, was using 1:1s to understand how we were doing and what could be improved from our side, his, and the company. His 1:1s were great because he had graduated in psychology and knew how to get us to open and talk freely. We also had very frequent live courses about web-related things like Javascript, browsers, Docker or TDD. All of those were organized mostly by him. This left a great impression on me and taught me a valuable experience.

Recommendation [2]. List people you admire or that have (or had) an impact on you and think about what they were doing that led to this. It can be a good inspiration for your future self.

Acting as a “pre-manager”

During my first three years at VTEX, I participated in almost all of the front-end chapter events. I quickly saw that I was one of the oldest there with a good prior experience. Naturally, I helped organize the ritual and some of its guilds as well as exchange with engineers on technical aspects. I co-introduced the 1:1 concept to the group with several other “older” SWEs and we let ourselves available to anyone wishing to have frequent talks. This provided support for several engineers and made us learn the trades of 1:1s.

I worked on several side projects as well. One being the construction of the Styleguide, a set of design rules and React components for front-end apps, and also on other admin apps as there were few front-end developers then and a lot of opportunities to help other teams. I also mentored interns on specific short-term projects.

In early 2020 I got promoted to Senior SWE and started to take care of the more junior engineers in my team. This was not something I had to officially do but it felt natural. In parallel, I was redacting the SWE tracks with a group of people to be used to create a path for each engineer in their career development. Finally, I was actively looking for information about the EM role with several co-workers.

Of course, once you do the change from SWE to EM a lot of things are still to be learned and improved. But that is for other posts in this blog.

Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn if you wish to talk about this. Pode ser em português também.