Engineering Managers' Guide to Effective Annual Feedback

Breaking down the feedback cycle process from preparation to follow-up. Approaches I found useful, antipatterns to avoid, and a document structure that can help bring it all to one place. I hope to turn this often-dreaded task into a powerful tool for individual growth and organizational success.

Follow-Up on My Management Under Pressure Article

My last post got popular on various platforms, most notably making the front page of Hacker News, which resulted in 200+ comments. I put those aside for a bit, but went through them earlier today and identified a few points I missed in the article, things I could learn from.

How to Lead Your Team when the House Is on Fire

Wartime can be extremely demanding for Engineering Managers. But by ruthlessly focusing on delivery, building a resilient team, investing in individuals, and maintaining their own strength, an EM can lead their people to not just survive but thrive under pressure.

Get hired as an Engineering Manager - part 5: Closing the Offer

We’re covering the entire process of getting hired as an EM together with Péter Batiz, an experienced consultant who’s been helping startups and scale-ups find tech talent for more than a decade. If you prefer reading offline, you can also download all the articles about finding a job

Get hired as an Engineering Manager - part 4: Interviewing

We’re covering the entire process of getting hired as an EM together with Péter Batiz, an experienced consultant who’s been helping startups and scale-ups find tech talent for more than a decade. If you prefer reading offline, you can also download all the articles about finding a job

10 takeaways from the 10th Craft Conference

As I mentioned in my latest Friday updates newsletter, I had the chance to participate in this 2-day tech conference last week. I took a lot of notes and this morning I finally had time to distill them and select ten takeaways that stayed with me. We were living through

Get hired as an Engineering Manager - part 3: Searching and Applying

We’re covering the entire process of getting hired as an EM together with Péter Batiz, an experienced consultant who’s been helping startups and scale-ups find tech talent for more than a decade. If you prefer reading offline, you can also download all the articles about finding a job

The Retrospective #3: 4-day workweek

We launched the latest episode of our podcast, this time with a guest, Benoit Terpereau, the CPTO of Lunii. We discussed the motivations and challenges with the 4-day workweek they introduced recently. I wrote about a similar experiment at a Hungarian company earlier, so it was especially interesting to compare

Get hired as an Engineering Manager - part 2: Perfecting your CV and LinkedIn profile

We’re covering the entire process of getting hired as an EM together with Péter Batiz, an experienced consultant who’s been helping startups and scale-ups find tech talent for more than a decade. If you prefer reading offline, you can also download all the articles about finding a job

Get hired as an Engineering Manager – part 1: Capturing your Preferences

I’m covering the entire process of getting hired as an Engineering Manager in this mini-series. With the tech industry changing gears, more and more EMs find themselves out on the job market or considering a switch soon. (See the stats in my last newsletter about close to half of

Why can’t I focus?

Being able to focus, to do deep, meaningful work is a key skill for engineering leaders. Yet, oftentimes it seems hard to maintain a sustained high concentration level. I thought about my experiences when I struggled with this, and listed a few reasons I might have had trouble maintaining focus.

Becoming Staff Engineer

I prepared my thoughts about the Staff Engineer title in preparation for a podcast recording. These are my notes on the subject. A lot depends on the company. Hiring a Staff Engineer or promoting someone to that level is answering a company's need for technical leadership. It often

Celebrating Failure

A small mindset change from "tolerating" to "celebrating" mistakes can benefit the person and the organization through learning and system improvements, increasing innovation, transparency, and resilience – if it's done well, being mindful of all aspects and risks.

How to Drive Change Beyond Your Role

What can you do when you're not in a leadership role but want to push for a change in your team? What aspects are helpful in this situation, and what can managers do to encourage taking initiatives?

Homelabbing for Engineering Leaders

Homelabbing is not just incredibly rewarding but can build skills very relevant for Engineering Leaders in a professional context. I'm listing a few of those.

How to Prepare for an Engineering Manager Role?

A list of 50 concrete actions to help approach this career change, things Software Engineers can try today in their current role to grow the skills necessary for becoming a successful Engineering Manager.

How To Represent Decisions You Disagree With

How to stand in front of your team representing a decision you didn't agree with? How to keep your integrity and support the team going through the change? What approaches are useful and what's better avoided in turbulent times?

22 Signs That Point to an Engineering Leadership Career

A list of opinions, values, behaviors, and personal preferences that can hint at great Engineering Manager potential.

16 Reasons Not To Go Into Engineering Management

On the topic of the Individual Contributor to Engineering Manager transition, I collected signs that indicate if this might not be the right choice for someone. The list is a playful thought experiment, looking at the beliefs and traits that might show why being an EM could pose challenges for some.