A comprehensive guide to engineering management packed with tips, tricks, and techniques to drive results
Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook
Key Features
Acquire the necessary skills to manage engineers across various settings
Gain valuable insights into engineering leadership, people management, and driving organizational change
Discover pitfalls to avoid as a new engineering manager and understand their causation
Book Description
Delightful and customer-centric digital products have become an expectation in the world of business. Engineering managers are uniquely positioned to impact the success of these products and the software systems that power them. Skillful managers guide their teams and companies to develop functional and maintainable systems.
This book helps you find your footing as an engineering manager, develop your leadership style, balance your time between engineering and managing, build successful engineering teams in different settings, and work within constraints without sacrificing technical standards or team empathy. You’ll learn practical techniques for establishing trust, developing beneficial habits, and creating a cohesive and high-performing engineering team. You’ll discover effective strategies to guide and contribute to your team’s efforts, facilitating productivity and collaboration.
By the end of this book, you’ll have the tools and knowledge necessary to thrive as an engineering manager. Whether you’re just starting out in your role or seeking to enhance your leadership capabilities, this handbook will empower you to make a lasting impact and drive success in your organization.
What you will learn
Pitfalls common to new managers and how to avoid them
Ways to establish trust and authority
Methods and tools for building world-class engineering teams
Behaviors to build and maintain a great reputation as a leader
Mechanisms to avoid costly missteps that end up requiring re-work
Strategies to increase employee retention on your team
Techniques to facilitate better product outcomes
Who this book is for
This book is a valuable resource for software engineers and developers transitioning into engineering management roles, equipping you with best practices and insights to navigate the new responsibilities effectively. Whether you're a newly promoted engineering manager or an experienced one seeking immediate answers to challenges, this comprehensive and up-to-date guide provides the support you need. Familiarity with the software development lifecycle, including concepts like version control, code review, and deployment, is required.
Author(s): Morgan Evans
Publisher: Packt Publishing Limited
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 374
Engineering Manager’s Handbook
Contributors
About the author
About the reviewers
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Get in touch
Share Your Thoughts
Download a free PDF copy of this book
Part 1: The Case for Engineering Management
1
An Introduction to Engineering Management
What are engineering managers responsible for?
Maintaining a team capable of serving business needs
Producing mechanisms to be self-sustaining and scalable
Owning the reputation and impact of the team
Introducing the four activities of engineering managers
How do engineering managers spend their day?
Start by asking
Determine relative importance
Fill in the gaps
Be a translator
A checklist for building your schedule
How to prepare yourself for a career change
Taking responsibility for the work product of others
Saying goodbye to the rush of immediate results
Summary
Further reading
2
Engineering Leadership Styles
What is an engineering leadership style?
Leadership styles and their origins
Natural origins
Philosophical origins
Management theory origins
Engineering leadership style archetypes
The commander and the servant
The coach and the delegator
The communicator and the co-creator
What is the right leadership style for me?
Summary
Further reading
3
Common Failure Modes for New Engineering Managers
Scenario 1—You don’t know what is really going on
Scenario 2—You enable a narcissistic engineering culture
Scenario 3—You overshare information with your team
Scenario 4—You avoid making decisions
Scenario 5—You expect everyone to be the same
Scenario 6—You try to do everyone’s job
Summary
Further reading
Part 2: Engineering
4
Leading Architecture
Setting the stage for good architecture
The environment
The building blocks
Gathering information
Decision methodology
Understanding the concerns of architecture
The breadth of concerns in architecture
Ownership and maintenance
Depending on open source
Naming things
Managing the architecture process
Building with a clear point of view
When you are or are not the architect
Emotion and other biases
Summary
Further reading
5
Project Planning and Delivery
Why do we need project planning?
Setting the stage for planning and delivery
The environment
Goal orientation
Project planning
Estimation
Prioritization
Assessing risks
Roadmapping
Forming the plan
Project delivery
Project kick-off
Good user stories
Removing friction
Project problems and solutions
You need to do more with less
You have scope creep
Summary
Further reading
6
Supporting Production Systems
Creating a commitment to reliability
Ownership mindset
Taking pride in the work
Making a difference
Raising awareness of reliability
Metrics
Communicating metrics actively
Communicating metrics passively
Reliability solutions
Service objectives
Support documentation
Monitoring
Alerting
Service interruptions
Summary
Further reading
Part 3: Managing
7
Working Cross-Functionally
Demonstrating cross-functional leadership
Understanding your partners
Aligning with partners
Adopting a same-team attitude
Uniting team visions
Providing clarity on roles
Providing an aligned structure
Building strong relationships
Making yourself available
Further understanding partners
Helping partners understand you
Seeking and providing feedback
Difficult partnerships
Make your manager aware
Lean into the relationship
Work more defensively
If all else fails, escalate
Summary
Further reading
8
Communicating with Authority
Principles of communication
Setting expectations
Assuming the best
Saying no with care
Having an audience perspective
Maintaining authenticity
Giving feedback with radical candor
How to structure your communication
Format
Duration
Depth
Urgency
Communicating with your engineering team
One-on-one meetings
Group communications
Personal commitments
Communicating with your leadership team
Telling a story
Conveying broader value
Reducing uncertainty
Summary
Further reading
9
Assessing and Improving Team Performance
The classic stages of a team
Assessing engineering teams
Common pitfalls of assessing teams
Quantitative and qualitative measures
What is your success definition?
Assessing your team
Introducing team emergent states
Prioritizing desired team emergent states
Fostering team emergent states
Improving team performance
Motivating your team
Mentoring and coaching individuals on your team
Improving remote teams
Summary
Further reading
10
Fostering Accountability
Accountability and performance
Building an accountable team culture
Providing guidance
Promoting ideal behaviors
Accountability in practice
Summary
Further reading
11
Managing Risk
Why should you manage risks?
How do you manage risks?
Identifying risks
Prioritizing risks
Communicating and responding to risks
When and where should you manage risk?
Summary
Further reading
Part 4: Transitioning
12
Resilient Leadership
Introducing resilient teams
Why do resilient teams matter?
The engineering manager’s role in creating resilient teams
Preparing your team for change
Managing yourself
Building a resilient culture
Building resilient habits
Preparing change for your team
Change communication
Change leadership
Summary
Further reading
13
Scaling Your Team
Recruiting and hiring
Recruiting mindset
Writing the job profile
Building your hiring team
Interviewing practices
Assessing candidates
Marketing your team
Onboarding new hires
Leveraging automation
Providing new-hire training
Giving structured performance objectives
How to handle a bad hire
Managing a large team
Short-term and long-term planning
Delegating
Focusing on people over projects
Preparing to switch contexts
Making yourself available
Summary
Further reading
14
Changing Priorities, Company Pivots, and Reorgs
Prioritization
Methods of prioritization
Choosing a prioritization method
Managing changes in priorities
Prioritization context
Prioritization dynamics
Prioritization solutions
User testing
Managing changes in objectives or structures
Understand the changes
Understand your team
Be a guide and an advocate
Understand the directive
Align the team and stakeholders
Build alliances
Build momentum
Summary
Further reading
Part 5: Long-Term Strategies
15
Retaining Talent
Why should you retain talent?
What does it take to retain talent?
Satisfaction with the work environment
Satisfaction with growth and opportunities
Satisfaction with their manager
Satisfaction with the company leadership and direction
Pitfalls of retaining talent
Can turnover be too low?
Can engineers be too satisfied?
Summary
Further reading
16
Team Design and More
Introducing engineering team design
Common team structures
Team characteristics
Conway’s law—part 2
Lingering questions
What are squads, chapters, guilds, and tribes?
How many engineers can one person effectively manage?
What long-term goals should I have for my team?
What exactly is engineering culture?
What should I do if I disagree with my manager?
Summary
Further reading
Index
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