The Pseudo-Manager Path

How to turn your manager's overload into your career growth opportunity

Getting your first people management opportunity in big tech companies is hard.

Your management chain’s internal dialogue is probably something like this — “You are asking for a job you’ve never done before. What if you are a terrible manager and fail at it? Isn’t it better to hire an experienced manager if we need another manager in this team?”.

Your skip is also probably debating whether your manager is ready to become a manager-of-managers which plays into the decision to make you a manager. Because otherwise your manager is going to lose scope as you become a manager and move up to be their peer. Perhaps that annoys your former manager enough to leave the team. Then your skip is stuck with a brand new, untested manager (you) AND they are one experienced manager short (your former manager).

In the "pancake" era of flatter organizations, where the traditional management hierarchy has been compressed into something resembling breakfast food more than a corporate structure, getting your first people management opportunity is even harder.

Today’s article tackles 2 questions a lot of senior ICs have been asking me:

1. How can I get my first people management opportunity?

2. In this age of “AI powered super ICs” and “flat organizations” should I even consider becoming a people manager?

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The opportunity hidden in plain sight

My advice to senior ICs considering management today: you can have your cake and eat it too!

If you want to become a people manager to advance your career and gain new leadership skills, you don’t have to wait for a formal people manager role. The opportunity is right in front of you: become a “pseudo manager” manager”!

Here is how the story line goes. Your manager is overloaded with reports. Your junior peers are unhappy that they don’t get much of their manager’s time and attention. You are excited about helping them grow and you are already involved in a lot of their day-to-day work for sprints, code reviews and more. Matching supply to demand, can you become their “pseudo manager” and gain some people management skills without the official title?

The pseudo-manager path offers something genuinely rare in tech careers: the chance to build real leadership experience while maintaining your IC contributions. Unlike formal management transitions, where you immediately lose your technical hands-on work, this hybrid role lets you develop both skill sets simultaneously.

But—and this is crucial—only if you structure it correctly from the beginning.

The hidden dangers nobody warns you about

Before we dive into how to succeed at pseudo-management, let's address the risks that can derail your career if you're not careful.

The Scope Creep Trap: What starts as "helping with a few team processes" gradually expands until you're doing 60% management work for 0% management recognition or compensation. I've seen talented engineers become glorified administrative assistants for their overwhelmed managers.

The Two-Manager Problem: Without clear communication to your team, you create confusion about authority and decision-making. Team members get conflicting instructions from you and your official manager, leading to frustration and reduced effectiveness.

The Promotion Penalty: Counterintuitively, taking on management responsibilities can sometimes hurt your IC promotion case. If you're spending time on people management instead of technical contributions, you might miss the technical achievements needed for senior IC advancement.

The Legal Liability Gap: There are certain management responsibilities—like performance reviews, compensation decisions, and disciplinary actions—that legally cannot be delegated to non-managers. If you don't understand these boundaries, you could find yourself in complicated situations.

The Burnout Accelerator: Managing people is emotionally demanding work. Adding it to your existing technical responsibilities without reducing anything else is a recipe for exhaustion and decreased performance in both areas.

Mitigating Risks

These aren't theoretical risks. I've worked with engineers who experienced each of these problems. Here is why I believe these risks can be mitigated.

Google has a curiosity called the “Tech Lead Manager” role in its engineering organization. These are folks on the IC ladder with direct (or indirect) reports. They are people managers but also ICs themselves. In short they are required to meet all expectations of an IC at their level while also handling their people management responsibilities. The concession they get is their team/org sizes are smaller than eng managers at the same level. So an L6 TLM may have just 5 directs while an L6 EM could have 12-15 directs.

I was a TLM at Google before becoming a full-time eng manager. I have helped many Googlers within and around my organization transition into and out of the TLM role. That taught me a lot about how to handle the “pseudo-manager” conundrum and mitigate the risks associated with it while getting your contributions recognized.

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The Four Essential Conversations

I've identified four critical discussions you must have before accepting any pseudo-management responsibilities. Think of these as your due diligence checklist.

Conversation 1: The Performance Discussion

The Question: "How will taking on these management responsibilities help or hurt my own performance? What adjustments do we need to make to my technical work expectations?"

This conversation forces clarity on something that's often left ambiguous. Your manager might see this as pure upside—they get help with their workload while you get leadership experience. But without explicit discussion, you might be inadvertently sabotaging your career.

Here's what to explore:

• If you're on a senior IC track, how will this management experience be evaluated? Will it count as a leadership demonstration, or will it be seen as a distraction from technical excellence?

• If you're considering a transition to an eng manager role at some point, what specific experiences and outcomes will this role provide to strengthen your case?

• What technical responsibilities will be reduced or reassigned to make room for management tasks?

• How will success be measured in both areas?

Red flag responses: If your manager can't articulate how this helps your specific career goals, or if they expect you to maintain 100% of your technical output while adding management responsibilities, you're walking into the scope creep trap.

Conversation 2: The Responsibility Boundary Discussion

The Question: "What specific management tasks will I handle, which ones will you retain, and what are the legal or policy constraints we need to be aware of?"

Without clear boundaries, you and your manager could get caught in complex situations including running into trouble with your company’s policies.

Here are a few suggestions for tasks to discuss and assign explicit ownership to.

People Management:

• One-on-ones and career discussions

• Expectation setting and progress tracking

• Performance feedback (informal vs. formal)

• Conflict resolution between team members

• Hiring and interview processes

Project Management:

• Sprint planning and prioritization

• Cross-team coordination

• Stakeholder communication

• Resource allocation decisions

• Technical architecture decisions

Administrative Tasks:

• Performance reviews and calibration

• Compensation recommendations

• Disciplinary actions

• HR-related documentation

• Budget and headcount planning

Conversation 3: The Priority Conflict Resolution Discussion

The Question: "When I have competing priorities between my management responsibilities and technical work, how do we decide what takes precedence, and what support can I expect?"

A critical bug needs fixing at the same time a team member needs urgent career guidance. A technical design needs finishing when two team members are in conflict. Should you finish writing code for that migration or should you finish writing that next team update?

Conflict between your individual contributor responsibilities and your management work will happen daily. On the one hand, you are not an official people manager so if you end up doing 100% management work, your performance and career could suffer. On the other hand, your manager will think poorly of this arrangement if you always drop your people management responsibilities the minute a priority conflict appears. Having this conversation early with your manager will set the framework for what you should choose when.

Here are some guiding questions to discuss:

• What are the non-negotiable management or technical responsibilities that always take priority?

• What technical work can be delayed or reassigned during management-heavy periods?

• When should you escalate to your manager for help with management tasks?

Conversation 4: The Team Communication Discussion

The Question: "How will we communicate this role change to the team?"

This conversation prevents the two-manager problem that can destroy team effectiveness. Your team members need crystal clear understanding of:

• What types of decisions you can make independently.

• What decisions require your manager's approval.

• How conflicts between your direction and your manager's direction will be resolved.

• Whether you have authority to assign work and set priorities.

• How performance feedback will flow (through you, directly to the manager, or both).

The communication should happen proactively, ideally in a team meeting where questions can be addressed openly. Waiting for confusion to arise organically creates unnecessary friction and undermines your effectiveness.

Division of Responsibilities

When I found myself managing 20 direct reports at one point, I leveraged the opportunity to grow some people managers from within my team. We captured the summary of our conversations described above in a document called “Division of Responsibilities between EM and TLs” and shared this with the team. It helped the team know who was responsible for what and it helped assign due credit when performance reviews rolled around.

Since then I’ve used this “pseudo manager” setup many times to help ICs learn people management skills. Some moved to TLM status and found their comfort zone there, choosing to always balance IC and management work. Others decided to switch to being full-time engineering managers. Some more decided to step back from people management altogether.

But they first started as “pseudo-managers”.

To answer the questions at the beginning: “pseudo-management” is a great way to help your manager while also learning new skills and trying out a potential career path. It allows others (your future reports, your leadership chain) to see you in the role before officially making you a people manager. It also allows you to try out the role before officially deciding if that’s the career path you’d like.

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What questions do you have about becoming a “pseudo-manager”? If you’ve tried this before or seen it play out, what's worked (or not worked) in your experience with such an arrangement?