How to Hire Technical Managers

By Johanna Rothman

January 3, 2005 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld -
Hiring technical managers is different -- and more difficult -- than hiring technical people. When I hire a technical person, such as a developer, I look for design, implementation and debugging abilities as part of the candidate's technical skill set. But when I hire managers, the rules are different. Technical managers don't need to be the technical gurus in their functional area; rather, they need to understand how their area is supposed to work and how to hire people who are the technical gurus in that area. So I look for management skills, such as coaching, negotiation, feedback, planning and organizing, and the like.
Even seasoned managers can be confused by the differences in hiring for a management position, and all too often they will promote or hire the best technical person into the management position. The problem is, the job of manager is completely different from the job of a senior technical person.
The common missteps I see in hiring technical managers are:

Hiring for the future, not the present.

Assuming that the technical manager will be able to perform work at a variety of levels.

Not assessing a candidate's familiarity with the issues and dynamics of a particular area.

Hire for the Present
I recently worked with a CTO, Ralph, whose organization was planning huge growth. He wanted to hire an experienced program manager (someone who manages several concurrent projects that are all part of one release), because as soon as the current release was complete, he was going to hire more technical staffers. He knew the product development staff was going to have two simultaneous projects in two months and would have up to six simultaneous projects in a couple of years.
But when he interviewed candidates, most of the experienced program managers were doubtful about taking the position. One of them told Ralph, "You don't have enough work to keep me busy for at least a year. What else am I going to do?"
Ralph explained his concerns: "If I hire a junior project manager, or even just a technical lead now, I'll have to bring someone else in over that person. I'll still be involved in hiring all these people. I wanted to hand that off to someone else." Ralph's concerns were valid, and he finally decided that he needed a manager -- someone who would determine which people were needed when and would interview them.

Select the Management Level
Especially in a growing organization, it's very tempting to assume that a first-level manager can take on technical

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