Book Image

Engineering Manager's Handbook

By : Morgan Evans
Book Image

Engineering Manager's Handbook

By: Morgan Evans

Overview of this book

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.
Table of Contents (24 chapters)
1
Part 1: The Case for Engineering Management
5
Part 2: Engineering
9
Part 3: Managing
15
Part 4: Transitioning
19
Part 5: Long-Term Strategies

Communicating with your engineering team

Building upon the communication principles from earlier in this chapter, engineering teams have interests and priorities. Just like other audiences, we want to have empathy for these needs and tailor our communications to them, as well as determine what we believe they need to know to do their work and grow as engineers. To do this, let’s go through the key communication touchpoints with our teams: one-on-one meetings, group meetings, and personal commitments.

One-on-one meetings

One-on-one meetings are standard practice for convening individually with a member of your engineering team or with others. These meetings are most often held at regular intervals as a means of catching up and privately exchanging information and feedback. They are typically scheduled for around 30 to 60 minutes and may or may not include project updates, along with general discussion.

When schedules are busy and teams are large, it can sometimes be...