Director of Engineering

Building an International Organization

This article discusses the challenges of starting a business in Belarus, a small country with limited access to sales and marketing talent. It outlines the steps taken to overcome these challenges, such as focusing on the international market, establishing a sales function, growing in the local market, creating a communication channel between two offices, and hiring people early on. It also emphasizes the importance of team building and hiring the right people in order to scale and move forward.

Contractors: Know When to Hold ‘Em, Know When to Fold ‘Em

The author was promoted to Director and inherited a team of 10 contractors and one junior FTE. After assessing the situation, the author created a hiring plan to reduce contractor headcount and hire more senior full-time engineers. Through creative problem solving, the author was able to bring up a new group of engineers in New York City and increase customer satisfaction by 50%. The author learned that contractors can be a quick fix but their incentives are not always aligned with the business, and that it is important to think outside the box to use resources that might not be obvious.

Leading a Team: A Short Introduction to Chaos

When joining a small Big Data Engineering team in chaos, the leader had to figure out how to set a vision and roadmap for the team. Through meaningful exercises, the team was able to build a shared vision and mission statement, and set objectives to achieve their goals. The team was able to turn around and hire new talent, and the team still exists today. The key lessons learned were to build a shared vision, put the team through meaningful exercises, and communicate the vision to the rest of the organization.

Establishing the Goals for an Acquired Organization

A year ago, the author joined the office of a startup bought by their current company with the intent to expand their product across the US and globally. Through conversations with stakeholders and user research, the author proposed a flywheel structure and identified critical narratives and key metrics to measure performance. They also identified four future value streams and personas, and set goals for each vertical with key metrics. The team grew from two to ten members, and the business increased 8x in the next year according to the current plan. The author learned to build trust, think about users when building the team, not rush to hire people, and go deep to add value.

Simultaneously Transitioning Two Offices from Waterfall to Agile

A consultant was brought in to roll out Agile to a 50 person engineering team across two offices. The consultant worked with the VP of Engineering and Product to develop pods aligned to business objectives, and then brought in a consultant to each office for 2 days of Scrum Master training. The consultant then provided coaching and guidance for each team for two months, and worked with the executive leadership team to set expectations around adoption and velocity. The lessons learned were that it is important to start with one team/pod that has practiced Agile before, and to roll out Agile to teams one at a time, allowing each team to adopt to Agile at their own pace. It is also important for all team members to have training and it's best if the team can do the training together.

Motivating the Team Spirit

When transitioning from an engineering role to a leadership role, it is important to have a significant change in attitude. Instead of providing solutions, ask questions and let the team come up with their own solutions. This will help them grow and build trust in the leader. Allow the team to discuss any issues they have without fear of judgement and create an environment where they can try new ideas. Focus on solutions rather than pointing fingers and make sure the team feels safe to tell the leader about any issues.