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My company recently did a re-org, and shuffled people around. The project I've been working on (as EM) was paused, and I was put into the core company product. Half of my team stayed the same people, but the other half are the existing engineers who worked on the core product for a long time, and they're also very senior engineers.
I'm always tried to be a hands-on manager. One that could usually jump in, and do code reviews when necessary, or deal with incidents, the same way a senior engineer would. But also establishing trust, and letting people to take ownership over various parts they were interested in. This is sadly not possible in my current situation, though. I lack a lot of the context, and there are a lot of skeletons in the code & infra to worry about (making it more difficult to jump in, and propose changes).
The bottom line is that the engineers around me have way more context than I do. Not just about the engineering side, but also the product in general, and ways of working (there are multiple teams working on the core product). Which is fine with me for the onboarding period. I'm learning new things every day, and slowly progressing. But I'm left wondering how can I have a positive impact on the team, especially in this transition period.
Would anyone here have any advice? Something that worked (or didn't work) for you either as an engineering manager, or even as a senior engineer with a manager who lacked the technical understanding of what you were building, but still was a great manager to you.
TLDR: Company did a re-org, and I ended up in a team of senior engineers while having very little context of the infra & product. What's the best way to have a positive impact on the team in the short & the long term?