---
title: Are You Setting Up Your Best Engineer to Fail?
description: Promoting a top engineer can lead to failure if they lack leadership training. Align skills with roles to ensure success and avoid common pitfalls.
image: https://www.thehrsuperheroes.com/hubfs/Best%20Engineer.jpeg
---

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# Are You Setting Up Your Best Engineer to Fail?

![Sommer Le Blanc](https://app.hubspot.com/settings/avatar/d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e)

 by [Sommer Le Blanc](https://www.thehrsuperheroes.com/superheroes-blog/author/sommer-le-blanc)

Sep 7, 2026, 9:00:10 PM

You have a brilliant engineer who writes clean code and ships features faster than anyone else. To reward them, you promote them to engineering manager. Soon after, projects start to stall and your stellar engineer is stressed, leaving you wondering what happened. Sound familiar?

It’s an incredibly common scenario. These transitions usually fail because we expect people to intuitively know how to lead teams without any actual training.

That isn't setting anyone up for success.

Writing code requires deep, uninterrupted focus. Managing people requires constant context-switching, coaching, and clearing roadblocks. They are entirely different jobs.

Before making your next promotion, ask yourself: are you aligning the right   
skillset to the job, or are you providing the training necessary to set them up for success?

**Tags:** 

[People,](https://www.thehrsuperheroes.com/superheroes-blog/tag/people) [Culture,](https://www.thehrsuperheroes.com/superheroes-blog/tag/culture) [Performance Management](https://www.thehrsuperheroes.com/superheroes-blog/tag/performance-management)

![Sommer Le Blanc](https://app.hubspot.com/settings/avatar/d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e)

Post by [Sommer Le Blanc](https://www.thehrsuperheroes.com/superheroes-blog/author/sommer-le-blanc)  
 Sep 7, 2026, 9:00:10 PM

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