Managing a team of individual contributors (ICs) is already a demanding role, but once your team grows beyond 12 direct reports, everything changes. The complexity increases, the range of challenges expands, and the strategies that worked for a smaller team may no longer be effective.

Many people start thinking about promotions only when the cycle is approaching—polishing their self-review, gathering achievements, and putting together a compelling case. But by that point, it’s often too late.

After publishing Vanishing Depth of Work, I had several conversations with people across the industry who resonated with the ideas but also challenged and expanded on them in interesting ways. These discussions led me to reflect even deeper on the relationship between deep work, fast shipping, and the dopamine-driven cycles that shape modern work culture. This post is a follow-up to explore those insights further.

There’s a particular feeling you get when you step outside in a big, crowded city. The moment the door swings open, a wave of motion hits you — buses rushing by, people navigating sidewalks without eye contact, a thousand tiny urgencies moving in every direction. You don’t stop to think about it. You just step in and let yourself be carried by the current.

At some point in their career, almost every engineer asks, “What does my manager actually do?” As an engineering manager, much of my work is what I call “invisible-important”. This invisibility can lead to mistrust, misalignment, and a lack of understanding about how a manager contributes to team success.