#26 Mistakes I've Made as an Engineering Manager
this week's favorite
Mistakes I've Made as an Engineering Manager
I’ve been a manager for many years at companies of different scale. Through these experiences, I’ve done my share of learning, and made some mistakes along that way that were important lessons for me. I want to share those with you.
Short Fat Engineers Are Undervalued
Professionals supposedly come in two shapes: either short and fat, or tall and skinny, meaning their skill set is either broad or deep. They can also be T-shaped—knowing a lot about a little and a little about a lot—but in this metaphor, that’s a compromise. After all, even a T need not have a 1:1 aspect ratio.
Creating an Engineering Vision
As a company scales to more people and more technology, it becomes important to have an engineering vision and a strategy to get there. In our experience, as you get to a size of greater than ~40 folks in an engineering organization, it becomes critical to have an engineering vision.
Operating Principles for Decision-Making
Last year during a retrospective, one of the engineering teams I lead acknowledged that making decisions felt like a slow and often inconclusive process.
Strategies for nurturing that feel-good sense of accomplishment when doing largely invisible work.
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