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

Scenario 1—You don’t know what is really going on

An engineering manager takes on the leadership of an engineering team. The new leader is quickly overwhelmed with the amount of work to be done, and they carefully go about their day reviewing project requirements, grooming a backlog, participating in planning ceremonies, reviewing code, running builds, and handling unexpected events and cross-functional needs. There are never enough hours in the day. The manager works to treat everyone with respect and fairness. The manager doesn’t have as much time to connect with the team on a one-on-one basis as they would like but believes anyone would come to them with any serious concerns. Then, one day out of the blue, there’s a resignation letter waiting in their inbox, and the manager is blindsided. This is a valued member of the team with years of institutional knowledge. It turns out the engineer was fed up with something happening on the team that the manager...