Technical Leadership
General Resources¶
Link | Notes |
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StaffEng Tutorials | Guides for reaching and succeeding at Staff-plus roles |
Gergely Orosz Resources for Engineering Managers and Software Engineers |
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Tech Lead Expectations for Engineering Projects | Gergely Orosz's framework:
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Pat Kua The Definition of a Tech Lead | Titles like Architect, Tech Lead, Team Lead and Engineering Manager provide endless confusion. This article explores the definition of the Tech Lead role |
Pat Kua The Well Rounded Architect | Acting as a Leader, Being a developer, Having a systems focus, Thinking like an entrepreneur, Balancing strategic with tactical thinking, Communicating well |
Thriving on the Technical Leadership Path | So what does the more strategic work of a very senior engineer look like? |
Engineering IC Leadership | Gitlab's view on Technical Leadership |
Finding the steps on the individual contributor ladder | Some experiences, learnings and questions to help people decide if the individual contributor (IC) route is for them |
Becoming an Organizational Leader | Progressing from a team leader to an organizational leader as an individual contributor |
Your CTO Should Actually Be Technical | Why engineering leaders also need to be great engineers |
Gergely Orosz Internal Politics for Software Engineers and Managers | "Politics" has a bad reputation in tech companies. What is it, why is it important, and how can you get good at the "right" type of politics? |
Gergely Orosz What is a Staff+ Engineer? | What the Staff+ role is, expectations and the rewarding and frustrating parts of the job |
Gergely Orosz Ways Staff and Principal Engineers get Stuck (and how to get Unstuck) | Common reasons why experienced engineers get stuck, how to prevent this from happening and how to get unstuck. |
How do Individual Contributors Get Stuck? | A Primer by Camille Fournier |
Architects, Anti-Patterns, And Organizational Fuckery | The architect role tends to be the locus of a whole mess of antipatterns and organizational fuckery |
How Tos¶
Link | Notes |
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Marco Lancini Weekly Digests to Increase Visibility and Transparency | My own methodology to create and share weekly digests, both for individuals and teams |
Gergely Orosz How to Lead a Project - as a Software Engineer | Companion blog post for the "Tech Lead Expectations for Engineering Projects (Gergely Orosz @Uber)" document |
An incomplete list of skills senior engineers need, beyond coding | For varying levels of seniority, from senior, to staff, and beyond |
10 Admirable Attributes of a Great Technical Lead | There is no single formula to be a great tech lead. It's a demanding position. It requires both sides of one's capability: the heart, and the mind |
Will Larson Sending weekly 5-15 updates | A 5-15 report, spending fifteen minutes a week writing a report that can be read in five minutes |
How to Influence Without Authority | Understand first, influence later |
Time management for makers |
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Will Larson How to find engineering leadership roles |
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Gergely Orosz Becoming a Better Writer |
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Plan on a Page Checklist |
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Consider including the following sections:
- Metadata
- Report title
- Author
- Date of report
- Any additional metadata (e.g. tags, categories, reference number, etc.)
- State (e.g. draft, in review, final)
- An executive summary highlighting the main points
- A table of contents
- Introduction
- Body
- Progress - What happened since the last status report?
- Plans - What are the next planned activities/outcomes?
- Problems - What are the issues you encountered?
- Problems split as issues (those you currently face/faced) and risks (those you might potentially face), their impact and any mitigating actions or decisions to be made.
- Other
- References to other useful documents, websites, or further detail
- Contact point for questions or further information
- Conclusion
- Appendix
As you write a technical report, follow the ORID framework:
- Objective - Start with data
- Reflective - Describe how people feel or react to the data
- Interpretive - Focus on the meaning or implications of the data
- Decisive - Any specific recommendations, actions or decisions to be made.
Draw on the Pyramid Principle by:
- Starting with the decision/outcome
- Present supporting arguments (up to 3)
- Prepare to have at least 3 supporting detail for each argument, but only when it is necessary.
Be especially clear about your "ask", which is typically one of:
- Input
- Decision
- Support
- Organize the initiatives based purely on urgency (Less Urgent <-> More Urgent)
- Enforce a "curve" and stick them to a distribution (Whenever, Soon, and ASAP)
- Proceed to value: shift everything down to the BOTTOM of a 2x2
- Distribute the initiatives based on value (Game Changer, Optimizer, and Tweak).
- The only move available is the VERTICAL movement
- Urgency can't be shifted
- Define duration
- Turn into a 9-box and divide each cell into three columns: 1-3mo, 1-3q, and 1-3y.
- Place the initiatives in one of the three columns FOR THE CURRENT CELL
Managing Projects¶
Link | Notes |
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Gergely Orosz Software Engineers Leading Projects | |
How to Make the Case for Slowing Down to Speed Up |
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Overlap with Management¶
Link | Notes |
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Lyft High Output Management for (Non-managing) Tech Leads | How to increase the sphere of influence |
The Engineer/Manager Pendulum | Management is not a promotion, management is a change of profession |
Leading without managing | What does it mean to lead when you don’t have coercive power to get your way? |
Filtering your language as an engineering leader |
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Pat Kua How Many People Can Someone Lead? | Many factors affect the final number, including their leadership scope, other leadership roles, the experience level of the leader, the experience level of the team, and the level of organisational bureaucracy |
Staff Software Engineer Responsibilities – Align With Authority |
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The Biggest Mistake I See Engineers Make |
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Gergely Orosz Developers mentoring other developers: practices I've seen work well |
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Drivers vs. Fixers | The dual way to approach a problem |