Leadership and Professional Growth for Engineers
More complex projects get derailed by personal conflict than by technical complexity. Partnering with your manager is better than disappointing them when you need to meet your expectations.
The most exact sequence is always to give the summarizing idea before you give the individual ideas being summarized. Nothing destroys trust faster than surprising your manager. Feed your manager’s context. Managing up is about increasing bandwidth and reducing friction between you and your manager. If you’re deliberate, you can influence your organization’s leaders over time. Still, you’ll only get that time if you learn to remain in tight alignment at each step.
Miscommunication creates latency rather than errors. Writing forces you to think about your beliefs and data. Write everything down. Developers are translators. One scarce thing is developers who know the business side of things. Our job is to translate user requirements into functionalities.
Getting information from a key stakeholder can be tricky since we all understand the system. Hiding behind complex architectures and technical jargon is easy. It gives developers a sense of control and knowledge. A person who knows how to code is influential. A person who knows how to code and how business works is unstoppable. There are many ways to engage in business conversations and learn about your company’s domain. Learn the field of business through endless meetings with stakeholders.
Elaborate on a list of the most common terms used in your industry. Start a conversation with your colleagues to understand their areas. “What are the characteristics of the sales funnel? What is marketing niches being targeted? What are the most common customer support inquiries? How is your product different from those of competitors?” This requires understanding what they want from this change and how they’ll feel when they get there. Rather than relying on any individual, a more significant impact can be made on a company’s long-term success. Investing in its engineers’ development through Mentorship and guidance. The increased administrative authority provides new tools for solving problems. Retaining an executive officer in a well-managed organization requires much nuance and restraint.
The duties of a Staff-plus engineer vary according to the team’s needs and the Engineer’s strengths. I am most effective when I can provide direction and guidance in setting a technical vision for an area. When you reach a higher position in an organization, you must focus on the needs of the business over your own needs. Technology cannot promote itself and needs dedicated advocates advocating on its behalf. Companies either learn to explore or fade away. You don’t have to spend so much energy putting your credentials on the table when you have a title. Although you won’t be writing a lot of code, you’ll still need to read a great deal of your colleagues’ code and complete many code reviews.
Determining what work is in any role depends on the level of communication and commitment of the individual. Yet, Staff Engineers often follow a similar work pattern across organizations. If you need to track your projects as a Staff Engineer, it’s easy to catch yourself doing little to no high-impact work. In senior roles, you’re more likely to self-determine what you pay attention to with minimal or no management guidance.
Understanding how things ought to work is robust. Yet, you need to blend your vision with the visions of leadership and peers. Focus on what matters to make the most of your working hours, particularly as you get further along in your career and life’s commitments expand. Stay aligned with authority to remain an effective leader over time.
As a senior leader, you must maintain a hold on your ego to avoid investing in meaningless work on a grand scale. Create space for others so that your team grows stronger than your contribution. Build a network of peers to vet difficult decisions and give honest feedback when your role’s authority starts to temper feedback. If something dire happens at your company, that’s where to engage.
Leadership is action. An act of leadership is the most inclusive context. An act of leadership is not exclusive to a role. An act of leadership does not demand a particular experience. Often though, an act of leadership requires courage. It was pointing to the elephant in the room. Or it was highlighting the team’s blind spot. Speaking out is an act of leadership that any courageous person can take.
Leadership skills are complex. They take a long time to make, and you never finish improving them. Thus start now improving them. You can build leadership skills before a leadership role. Start building your skills before you need them. These skills will also make you a more effective person. Skill and experience are something you don’t need permission to develop.
Leadership comes in all forms and shapes. While formal roles expect leadership, people have countless opportunities to build leadership skills. Anyone can be a leader. Action is the first step.
