At a TED conference in India in 2009, a TED staff member used stand-up comedy to lighten the mood. This inspired the speaker to use comedy to enhance interactions with people and understanding of other people. He started going to a bar telling jokes and researching the audience to write jokes for them. He then applied this experience to his workplace, researching the attendees before meetings and using jokes to convey messages that require self-reflection. He learned that it is important to focus on the audience and their needs, and to listen to their response to jokes.

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Tomas Barreto

VP Engineering at Checkr

Successfully taking on a new team

When taking on a new team, the book "The First 90 Days" states that fifty percent of leadership changes struggle due to the inability of the leader to adapt to a new context. To ensure success, the engineer at Box took on the new team with caution and adapted to the new context by becoming an insider with the people, process, and technology. He implemented quick wins, such as addressing the sensitivity around randomly assigned tasks, and set up an advisory council to rapidly brainstorm and address issues. By using this approach, he was able to take on the new team in a sustainable way and empower the team to grow and reach the next level.

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Sophia Broomfield

Product Management Coach at Coaching PM Leaders

Advocating for Your Product

The author was working at a large company that was launching its next-generation applications, but their product was not scheduled to be included in the first release. To prevent their product from losing resources, demotivating the team, and losing traction in the marketplace, the author decided to fight for their product and team by presenting a case to the Executive VP. After doing research and building their case, the author was successful in convincing the Executive VP to include their product in the first release. The author learned that it is important to ask for what you want, make a simple and powerful case, and understand the internal strategy and goals of the executives.

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Joey Lei

Sr. Product Manager II at HashiCorp

Gaining Experience to Transition Roles

This article outlines the steps taken by an engineer to transition into a product manager role. The author found substitute experiences to reflect their ability to perform in the role, such as making themselves available to help anyone who added value to their team, product, or company. They also pursued an MBA to signal their seriousness to their company, and used their experience with the same product they had been an engineer on for seven years as a translatable piece of credibility. The article concludes with the recommendation to have one translatable piece of credibility when trying to transition internally into a PM position.

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Jonathan Eldridge

Head of Product at NexHealth

Creating a Metric to Measure Progress in an Area of Ambiguity

This case study looks at the challenge of determining how many appointments made by customers would lead to an actual sale, and how many were less serious in their intentions. The company reached out to their agents to define a quality customer, and discovered that part of their job was helping people to try to get to that point in the first place. They then pulled data on customers who scheduled a tour and compared it to property records to see if they bought a home. The lesson learned was that it was important to gain qualitative insights from agents in the field, and to combine this with customer data to identify the issues that were taking the greatest toll on the organization.

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Wadah Sayyed

Engineering Manager at Forrester

Leading With Curiosity

This article discusses the importance of curiosity in leadership and how it can be used to create resilient teams and foster innovation. It also explains how curiosity can be used to encourage self-initiative and autonomy, and how it takes time for people to get used to this leadership approach. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of discovering and enabling other leaders.

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Wissam Abirached

Senior Engineering Manager at Stripe

Introducing Engineering Design

The team was struggling to meet goals due to feedback coming too late in the development cycle. To address this, the manager introduced a new step in the process - engineering design - to provide feedback before any code was written. This was met with skepticism, but ultimately resulted in increased velocity, better code quality, improved morale, and better collaboration. The manager learned to be attentive to the team's complaints and to approach problems creatively.

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Arzumy MD

CTO at Fave

Leading as an Introvert

An introverted engineer found himself in a new role as CTO, having to talk more often to people outside his team. He focused on one-on-one conversations to build relationships and channeled his energy by taking breaks between meetings. He learned that awkward conversations will be awkward until they are not anymore and that his main strength as an introvert is his thinking. As a leader, he should acknowledge that everyone can have something to say and provide them with the encouragement and opportunity to speak up.

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Who to follow

Ashish Bhardwaj

George Abraham

Product leader, high performance teams, cross-functional projects, strategic initiatives.

Harijs Deksnis

Director of Engineering @ Giraffe360

Alex Khadiwala

Founding Engineer at Stealth Startup - Seed Stage | Angel Investor | Whisk(e)y, music, and bread enthusiast

Yessen Amirzhanov

Director TPM at Coinbase | Ex-Lyft, AMZN, MSFT, Plaid, Bridgewater

Michael Scotto

Quality Engineering | Automation | Data | Strategy

Connect and Learn with the Best Eng Leaders

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Ringo Tsang

Engineering Manager at

The Challenges of Delegating in Engineering Leadership

Delegating tasks and responsibilities as an engineering leader can be challenging, especially when there is no clear second in command. However, by following best practices such as effective communication, maintaining stability, and promoting knowledge sharing, leaders can successfully navigate these challenges. It is important to inform stakeholders, keep the team informed, ensure QA stability, establish a decision-making process, maintain a focus on quality, encourage knowledge sharing, and promote creativity. Delegating effectively is about empowering the team and fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation.

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Ringo Tsang

Engineering Manager at

Managing a Team While on Leave

Managing a team while on leave can be challenging, but with the right strategies, it is possible to maintain productivity. One key tip is to find a suitable deputy who can handle responsibilities in your absence, while also considering the impact of promoting someone from within the team. It is important to ensure stability by keeping the team focused on current projects and communicating with stakeholders about the absence of an escalation path. Measuring success can be done through metrics such as the number of bugs found and fixed, customer satisfaction, and feedback from stakeholders. Stand-ups and team meetings can be conducted either by embedding team members with specific development teams or by having regular meetings to discuss progress and challenges. Fostering creativity within the team can be achieved by creating opportunities for knowledge sharing and challenging each other. Overall, effective communication and careful planning are essential for managing a team while on leave.

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Ringo Tsang

Engineering Manager at

Creating a Family-Friendly Workplace: Insights for Engineering Leaders

This article emphasizes the importance of creating a family-friendly workplace culture for engineering teams. It discusses the challenges faced by engineering leaders when going on leave and provides strategies for effectively managing a team during that time. The text highlights the need for clear communication, setting expectations, and empowering team members. It also addresses concerns about career growth and personal development while on leave. Additionally, it touches on managing team size and geographic challenges. Overall, the article emphasizes the significance of supporting work-life balance and parental leave to ensure the well-being and growth of engineering teams.

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Rahul Lath

SVP, Data science and Engineering at WWE

Building a Culture of Innovation: Tips for Engineering Leaders

This article discusses the importance of building a culture of innovation within engineering teams and provides tips for engineering leaders to cultivate such an environment. One of the challenges faced by engineering teams is accurately estimating effort and capacity for projects, which is often due to the lack of detailed specifications. To address this, it is suggested to find a balance between setting clear priorities and allowing flexibility in the planning process. Reevaluating effort and capacity as more information becomes available and establishing a quarterly cadence for meetings and reviews are also recommended. By implementing these strategies, engineering leaders can foster a culture of innovation and drive success within their teams.

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Jose Ciccio

Senior Engineering Manager at Ladder Health

Navigating the Challenges of Technical Debt in Engineering Projects

Technical debt is a common challenge in engineering projects that needs to be effectively addressed for long-term success. It refers to the accumulated cost of shortcuts, compromises, and suboptimal solutions made during development. Time pressures, complex technical design, poor alignment to standards, lack of skill, suboptimal code, delayed refactoring, and insufficient testing are common causes of tech debt. Strategies for identifying, prioritizing, and addressing tech debt include continuous communication and prioritization, embracing simplicity, establishing and enforcing standards, continuous learning and professional development, regular code reviews and static analysis, prioritizing refactoring, and implementing a robust testing strategy. It is important to prioritize tech debt based on impact and urgency and address it with a systematic approach that balances short-term fixes with long-term solutions. Planning, documentation, collaboration, and communication are key in managing tech debt effectively. With the right strategies, tech debt can be effectively managed to ensure the long-term success of projects.

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