As an engineering manager, it can be easy to feel a sense of distance from the team and concerns about technical decay over time. But there are solutions to this problem! In this article, I explore ways to improve low-level engineering skills, in order to reduce the gap between you and your team members and maintain effectiveness in leading a technical team. Reading a lot (mostly on how things work and why they were created), re-doing (for yourself) technical design reviews, and having side projects can help....