What do you do when you are trying to get a professional to do a home improvement project for you? Would you just speak to one trades person and then ask when they can start and hope that you can afford the job? Or would you get a few quotes from different tradespeople and then compare them to see which one is the best fit for your budget and timeline? ...
I was recently asked as part of a recruitment conversation with someone in the talent team of a tech company, “Your CV says you foster a culture of you build it, you run it. What is your approach to building that culture?” I thought it was a great question and wanted to share my thoughts on this topic. You build it, you run it culture is all about giving engineering teams the autonomy and responsibility to own the systems they build and the agency to make decisions about how to evolve it. This level of ownership doesn’t come automatically by just telling engineering teams what to do. It requires a deliberate approach. This is what I call a High-agency team/culture. ...
I used to regularly run the engineering manager community of Practice at my current workplace. I loved and still love it. But now I barely get time to do anything extra. My hours are so squeezed into a specific slot of time - the time when my toddler is not at home. :D I got asked in the community slack channel a very important question. One that a lot of engineering managers debate in their heads. Especially if they used to be tech leads and then switched to managing others. They get their joy from helping others develop and also building something that others can use. ...
I was recently re-reading, actually, listening to Camille Fournier’s The Manager’s path. In one of the chapters, Camille talks about some questions to ask when hiring managers. One of those questions was — What is your management philosophy? This took me by surprise. I hadn’t thought of it myself. How would I have answered that? What is my management philosophy anyway? Philosophy By definition, Philosophy has several meanings The study of nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning system of thought based on or involving such study an underlying theory or set of ideas relating to a particular field of activity or to life as a whole In this question’s context, it is the third definition that we are looking for from the prospective managerial candidate. ...
Conflicts are healthy Did the title of this section, set off alarm bells in your head? Maybe it depends on your experience with conflicts. In the early days of my career, I thought conflicts were unhealthy, and I used to get into conflicts a lot because as an engineer, I had my opinion on solving a problem a certain way. And obviously, my way was the best way because I had done my reading and compared other solutions and made my decision based on that research. However, there were many other alternative solutions that I hadn’t considered, simply because I wasn’t aware of them. But as an inexperienced, young engineer who was concerned about proving his point, I was blind to the better alternatives! ...
Starting as an engineering manager As an engineering manager, you already have numerous responsibilities. At an early stage in your engineering manager career, you could even feel overwhelmed by the number of things you have to know. Some of them include Mentoring and coaching your direct reports who are individual contributors Setting strategic objectives for the team and the individuals Performance management - performance improvement programs Recruiting the right engineers for your team, squad, and organization Preparing promotion packs for your engineers Liaising with the people team to ensure benefits and compensation are attractive enough for bringing in new talent Working with Product and Peers to ensure delivery is smooth and dependencies are communicated and coordinated It doesn’t end there. ...
Featured image: Photo of Group of Men Wearing Assorted Scarves Holding Sticks What is culture? You are probably tired of seeing this word mentioned in countless job descriptions and conversations in and outside your organisation. “That’s not the culture here.” Or “that’s our culture”. Or “we have a transparent culture”. Quite often this is just an abuse of the term culture. But because it is popular, it makes those making the claims feel like they work at a great organisation. ...
Featured image: Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels Preamble “Psychological safety is the belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns or mistakes and that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking” - Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams by Amy Edmondson, 1999. That is an impressive definition and one that is easy to understand by anyone who reads it. ...
Are you a people leader, someone whose role involves a lot of influencing others to work towards objectives? Are you a mentor to someone who is at your level or junior whom you are helping navigate their career? Anyone in either of these roles will have conversations that help their coachee/mentee identify goals that matter to them, realise what needs to be done to get there, reflect on what and how they have been doing so far and to encourage them to get to their goals consistently. That is the role of a coach. This sounds like something that is relatively easy to do. But in my experience, it is not. ...