Software Engineering Manager: Responsibilities and Salary

Last updated by Naina Batra on Aug 30, 2024 at 08:07 PM | Reading time: 6 minutes

What does a Software Engineering Manager do?

Engineering managers mostly oversee the projects on which their team is working. They may not write code essentially, however, it doesn’t mean they shouldn’t.

Professionals who have worked as engineering managers for years suggest that managers should write code to keep their skills sharp. But mostly, their day goes around answering technical questions, bringing solutions, and guiding the team to achieve the end goal.

The responsibility of a Software engineering manager varies based on the organization structure and size of the team.

Based on the same, their entire day is divided into handling technical aspects, managerial tasks, administrative work, and sometimes recruiting as well to hire the best talent for their software development team.

Software Engineering Manager: Responsibilities

In order to understand the responsibilities of a Software Engineering Manager, let’s take up a real-life example.

At the time of writing, Meta is seeking a software engineering manager. This gives us a peek into the job responsibilities and what a top-tier expects from a software engineering manager.

Going by the responsibilities enlisted, the professional is expected to be both highly technical and an effective people manager. They must be a subject matter expert in the particular domain. If we add more here, by technical work, an engineering manager must know how to write codes, do code reviews, find bugs, and report this to their team.

It goes without saying that they must know how to lead teams, especially when the team is working on multiple projects. They need to drive roadmap and execution, collaborate with various functions, drive engineering initiatives, and have an impact at an organizational level.

Apart from these, a software engineering manager’s responsibility is to participate in technical design as well. They need to measure the impact of the team and set clear expectations and goals.

The role and responsibilities of a software engineering manager can vary depending on the industry and company they work for.

However, the following listed are the tasks and duties that mainly all software engineering management entails:

Analyzing, preparing, and managing proposals, budgets, designs, and resources for specific software development projects.
Planning strategies to develop and execute designs and products on pre-determined time and budget.
Supervising the trading programs of the software engineering department.
Delegating tasks and duties to and supervising software engineering team members.
Communicating and collaborating with team members, other managers, contractors, and stakeholders.
Managing, monitoring, and evaluating the performance of each member of the software engineering team.
Recruiting new talent for job vacancies and offering onboarding and development opportunities.
Providing suggestions and solutions and making strategic technical decisions whenever required.
Devising the roadmaps for the entire software development and documentation project.

‍How to Become a Software Engineering Manager?

It’s a tech management role, which means the professional is required to have years of experience in their domain. For instance, one must have 5+ years of software engineering work experience in order to target this role.

Pursuing a career as a software engineering manager requires a lot of knowledge, skills, and hard work. So, let’s start from scratch what it takes to become a software engineer manager.

Step 1: Earn a degree and master software engineering skills

Recruiters expect potential software engineering managers to at least have a bachelor’s degree in the relevant field, such as software engineering, technology, etc.

Earning a degree in the relevant field can help you master subjective knowledge and software engineering skills.

In addition to your degree program, consider completing extra coursework on different coding and programming languages like C, C++, Java, Python, PHP.

Engineering managers should also posses skills like software development, algorithms, data structures, and more.

‍Step 2: Gain experience

As stated earlier, software engineering manager role requires experience. It’s because experienced candidates already understand the software engineering challenges and remedies to resolve them.

So, if you’re a tech professional who has been working as software engineer but want to level for management roles can apply for this roles. Professionals tend to get team handling and coordination experience while they work.

Another way is to gain experience is by taking freelance work or seeking internship opportunities. During freelancing or internship, you can learn more about the desired position, industry, and job scope and develop professionally.

‍Step 3: Develop leadership skills

For a software engineering manager, it’s not enough to have coding or software development skills. Since managers need to manage and direct their teams, they should also focus on mastering leadership skills.

A skilled leader can delegate responsibilities fairly, motivate his team members, and assist them in the right direction.

‍Step 4: Get interview ready with Interview Kickstart

If you think you have what it takes to become a software engineering manager, it’s time to get ready for interviews at top companies. You can join our Engineering Manager Masterclass a solution-oriented course to help you crack software engineering manager interview.

Our course is strategically designed and curated by top engineering managers from FAANG. The course includes everything from scalable systems to leadership.

What is the Average Salary of a Software Engineering Manager?

In the US, software engineering managers can receive a median salary of $162,709 annually. In addition to a fixed software engineering manager salary, many prominent companies even provide extra non-cash perks.

These incentives can include health insurance, retirement plans, profit sharing, opportunities for career advancement, and more.

Software Engineering Manager Salary by Experience

It’s a well-known fact that remuneration can vary depending on experience in the corporate world. When it comes to the software engineering manager salary, the trajectories are the following:

Table 1
Years of Experience	Average salary of Software Engineering Managers
Entry level	$1,17,130 per annum
Senior level	$158,960 per annum
Lead level	$233,734 per annum

‍Software Engineering Manager Salary by Location

Table 1
Location	Average salary of Software Engineering Managers
Seattle, Washington	$203,093 per annum
Austin, Texas	$164,846 per annum
Washington, District of Columbia	$154,784 per annum
San Antonio, Texas	$161,731 per annum
Albuquerque, New Mexico	$168,036 per annum
Irving, Texas	$157,676 per annum

Software Engineering Manager Salary by FAANG Companies

Table 1
FAANG	Average salary of Software Engineering Managers
Facebook	$236,989 per annum
Apple	$230,137 per annum
Amazon	$210,427 per annum
Netflix	$207,709 per annum
Google	$224,895 per annum

Landing a job in the FAANG (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google) company is a dream for tech professionals. These companies value the skills and expertise of software engineering managers and, thus, are ready to pay them lucrative compensation.

Software Engineering Manager FAQs

‍Which industries have the highest demand for software engineering managers?

These are the hot industries for software engineering managers:

IT services
Research and development
Silicon Valley high-tech
Government and defense
Healthcare
Banking/financial services

What essential skills do I need to become a software engineering manager?

To build a sustainable career as a software engineering manager, you should master the following skills:

Coding
Communication
Planning
Problem-solving
Software development
Algorithms

What are the different career options for software engineering managers?

You can pursue the following different roles when studying for software engineering management career profile:

Head of Software Engineering
Senior Software Engineering Manager
Chief Technical Officer (CTO)

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AUTHOR

Naina Batra

Manager, Content Marketing

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Naina Batra

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What is OpenAI? Everything You Need to Know

Mock Interviews for Generative AI: Essential Practice to Land Top AI Roles

Top Python Scripting Interview Questions and Answers You Should Practice

Complex SQL Interview Questions for Interview Preparation

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