A popular way of structuring engineering manager roles, particularly in the US to have two tracks. I think it's important to have more senior positions supported from a technical perspective. The IC track or individual contributor track is not about individual contribution at all. Most companies don't need that level of specialization. But you do need technical leadership - someone who can align other strong technical leaders and make sure there are some good decisions made.
“An engineering manager should make sure that the team has a good balance of delivering things that the business needs with enough capacity to do it sustainably over time."
Today's clip is from episode 94 with Patrick Kua. In this clip, we discussed Pat’s latest course, Engineering Manager Essentials. We discussed what an engineering manager role is, how it differs from a Tech Lead role, and the common manager versus IC career track. Pat also shared his view on why being an engineering manager is not a promotion.
Listen out for:
- Engineering Manager Essentials - [00:00:50]
- The Role of Engineering Manager - [00:02:46]
- Difference With Tech Lead - [00:05:43]
- Manager and IC Paths - [00:07:53]
- EM Is Not a Promotion - [00:12:27]
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Patrick Kua’s Bio
Patrick Kua is a seasoned technology leader with almost 20 years of experience. His personal passion is accelerating the growth and success of tech organisations and technical leaders. He has had many years of hands-on experience, leading, managing and improving complex organisations and software systems as the CTO and Chief Scientist of N26 (Berlin, Germany) and as a Technical Principal Consultant at ThoughtWorks. He is a frequent keynote and conference speaker, author of three books including “The Retrospective Handbook“, “Talking with Tech Leads“ and “Building Evolutionary Architectures“ and runs the free popular newsletter for leaders in tech, “Level Up” and the “Tech Lead Academy“, offering online training for technical leaders, or running his very popular “Shortcut to Tech Leadership“ workshop.
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For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/94.
