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Engineering Leadership

These articles offer strategies for managing difficult situations. While I can't solve your problems, I hope to help by showing different aspects and perhaps a new perspective.

How To Praise

The potential of positive feedback and the framework to construct and deliver it, reinforcing the right behaviors to help individuals reach their full potential.

Managing Impostor Syndrome as a New Engineering Manager

That persistent feeling of being a fraud hits hard when stepping into engineering management. It's not just about doubting your abilities anymore - suddenly you're responsible for other people's careers while trying to figure out your new role. Let's look at how to handle it.

How to Spot Red Flags when Interviewing for an Engineering Manager Position

Job changes for managers carry significant risks. While red flags during interviews are often subjective, some warning signs can indicate organizational, cultural, or technical problems. I listed some of these issue areas, and added questions to help probing them during an EM interview process.

Get Hired as an Engineering Manager

Between May and June 2024, I ran a mini-series covering the hiring process for Engineering Managers looking for a new job. Here I introduce all the episodes, link an interview with my co-author, and provide PDF and EPUB versions to download for your e-readers.

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.

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?

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?

How to Deal with Negative Behavior

Thoughts on the aspects a manager should take into account when the negative behavior of someone on their team is impacting others - or themselves.

Three Tools to Improve the Performance of Engineering Teams

Practical approaches for diagnosing and improving engineering team performance, with three introductory tools aimed at teams who are less data-reliant in their decision-making process: Code Review Time, Cumulative Flow Diagram, and Team Health Checks.

Unlocking the Potential of One‑on‑One Discussions

Exploring key aspects of One-on-One discussions between managers and their team members, focusing on trust, clarity, execution support and personal development. These meetings are essential tools for understanding and guiding team members towards growth, beyond their day-to-day tasks.

How to succeed as a first-time remote engineering leader - part 2

Last week I wrote about what I believe is the most important aspect of being a new engineering manager for a team: building trust by nurturing connections. Getting intentional about this is more important for a remote leader, because there are less accidental opportunities to create the social foundation of

How to succeed as a first-time remote engineering leader?

So, you’ve got your first fully remote engineering leadership job, congratulations! Now, just a few days to start, the realization hits hard: you have no idea how this is different from your previous in-office or hybrid experience, how to make it work without being there physically. At least, this