Focusing on what matters most — I don’t know who needs to hear this, but the primary role of the Engineering Manager (EM) is to create an effective team that can deliver outstanding results. Is this controversial? Maybe. As an industry, we have accepted and incentivized the idea of focusing on individuals as the primary job…

The database schema is not what you should worry about — Solving a customer problem with software is a complex activity. It goes from understanding the problem to identifying possible solutions to improve the situation and then delivering it: plan and execute the initiative to create the software. Within planning and execution, an activity that usually falls within the Engineering Managers’…

Your best contribution might be outside of engineering — An Engineering Manager’s (EM) primary goal is to create an effective team. With that in mind, they will spend most of their time focusing on engineering work and how engineers work. However, that should not be all of it. A product engineering team works within a broader system, and an…

Building stronger software engineering teams — Collaboration is a good thing. There will be no one in the technology industry saying otherwise. As a rule of thumb, most companies and software engineering organizations are organized in cross-functional teams, allowing people in different disciplines to work together towards the same outcome. However, it is still common to…

Principles for measuring it right — There is a lot of data in software development. Teams track their tickets with software systems. We record every code commit. All the primary operations across the software lifecycle, including releases, testing, and operations, have multiple metrics attached to them. With all of that, it is somewhat surprising that metrics…

How we can make the most of it? — One thing is certain in the software engineering industry nowadays: it is changing. After intense growth for multiple years, we see retraction and layoffs in most technology companies, rapidly shifting the landscape for engineers and managers. Without the capacity to add more people to sustain growth, we also see this…

How an engineering team’s performance is defined by the work they take in — While talking about Systemic Leadership for software teams, one question that often comes up is how to apply it in practice. Yes, systems thinking makes sense, but how does an engineering manager (EM) use it in their daily work? One often overlooked aspect is how essential are the team’s inputs…

Making your software engineering team work less and deliver more — While talking about Systemic Leadership for software teams, one question that often comes up is how to apply it in practice. Yes, systems thinking makes sense, but how does an engineering manager (EM) use it in their daily work? While teams are different, some situations happen often enough they can…

How to find buy-in as an Engineering Manager? — Change is part of the day-to-day work of an Engineering Manager (EM). It could be because an EM is trying to improve their team’s delivery results or quality. Or they could be trying to make improvements that affect the broader organization. I have previously discussed implementing change at a high…