Engineering Leadership (focusing on management) is not a natural progression from being a great IC (individual contributor)/developer.
It’s almost entirely a new career – but one where your previous experience as an engineer gives you the necessary credentials and experience.
Are these the kind of questions you have thought about?
- Should I stick to being a coder and move up the IC ladder or should I switch to management?
- How long can I be an effective coder/architect – will I be able to keep up with all the new advancement – will I continue to get hired as I age?
- Now that I am a manager, how do I know if I’m contributing effectively and what my impact is?
- How should I navigate office/corporate politics?
- Can I still be very close to technology as I grow in (people) management?
- What are the key differences between a first line manager, a mid level manager, directors, VPs and above? How can I grow in this career?
- I feel stuck in middle management. How can I learn what’s limiting me?
- What are the right roles for me and what kind of company/culture will best suit me?
- What do I need to know about scaling teams/organizations?
- Why do I keep getting bypassed for promotion?
- What does it mean to manage up?
- What are some effective Performance Calibration frameworks and strategies?
- When it comes to mentoring and coaching, how much time should be spent on low achievers versus our rockstars?
I have had all these thoughts consume me at some point in my career and I still have a lot to learn as I navigate the engineering leadership ladder.
In this section, I want to share what I learned while mentoring engineering managers at PlatoHQ (now part of Coda) over the past 7+ years, along with my experiences building and growing teams at Netflix, Uber, and DoorDash.
Engineering Leadership in the Data + AI Domain 