Leadership Roles

Navigating the Challenges of Transitioning to an Engineering Manager Role

Transitioning to an engineering manager role comes with its own set of challenges, but by being strategic, building relationships, and advocating for oneself, success can be achieved. It is important to proactively plan one's career and advocate for personal growth and development. Building relationships with key stakeholders and finding allies within the organization can greatly help in advocating for oneself and influencing change. Understanding the motivations of others and aligning interests can also aid in gaining support for ideas. If promotion opportunities are limited, focusing on expanding responsibilities and taking on more challenging tasks can showcase potential for future growth. Seeking out mentors within the organization can provide guidance and support throughout the career transition process. Overall, being proactive, building relationships, and advocating for oneself are key to navigating the challenges of transitioning to an engineering manager role.

Managers or Messengers?

The text discusses the frustration of seeing managers act as messengers between their team and upper management, and encourages engineering managers to seek more accountability and decision-making authority. It suggests asking four questions to determine if one is merely a communication channel, and advises managers to take on additional areas of true management to improve the situation. The text also advises directors and VPs of Engineering to delegate more responsibility in order to focus on higher-level tasks.

Preventing Engineering Turnover

This article discusses how to retain software engineers, especially in smaller companies, in the face of competition from larger companies. The author's approach was to focus on creating a company culture of psychological safety, lightheartedness, empathy, autonomy, and transparency. This approach was successful in retaining talent, and the author believes that engineers often look beyond financial compensation when deciding on a company.

How to Empower Teams to Be More Autonomous

A manager inherited a team accustomed to a command-and-control style and took action to increase autonomy and self-sufficiency. This included outlining roles and responsibilities, observing how the team was operating, increasing transparency, creating collective accountability, and connecting the right people. The manager also decreased workstreams and increased availability, and coached two people to become feature leads. Lessons learned included not presuming anything, delivering problems not solutions, establishing the feature lead role, making engineers accountable, and tailoring coaching.

Aligning a Product Tech Stack

This article discusses the process of bringing a healthcare product onto the same tech stack as other products in a multi-product strategy. The author had to find the right customer and demonstrate the minimal risk of the project in order to convince the business that it would be worth the cost and risk. With the help of two allies, one on the business side and one on the technical side, the project was successfully moved to the new tech stack. The author learned lessons about timing, sharing the big picture, and dual allyship.

How to Be a Great Leader in Times of Crises

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, a leader took several actions to make the transition to remote work easier for their team. These included frequent check-ins, one-on-ones focused on career development, mental health support, and health check-ins. The leader also shared their passion to inspire the team and emphasized the importance of listening with empathy.