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

Summary

In this chapter, you learned how to support production systems by creating a commitment to reliability on your engineering team, raising awareness of the performance of your systems, and utilizing specific conventions and tools.

First, we learned how instilling our engineering teams with a personal commitment to strive for reliability is a powerful technique to reduce the stress and burden of difficult support work:

  • Give engineers an ownership mindset by getting them invested in the work, sharing decisions, and growing their understanding and confidence
  • Help engineers develop a sense of pride in their work by growing their reputation and providing recognition of achievements
  • Help engineers see how the work they do is making a difference in a community that they care about

Next, we learned how to activate that personal commitment by raising awareness of the performance of our production systems:

  • Use active communication periodically to raise...