Not all companies are actually receptive to the idea of engineering leaders who come from non technical background. So I think still the key here is that don't be afraid of asking questions, even though with your direct reports right the hesitation will be there for sure. The key is not be afraid to ask to anyone so that they can help you actually to fill in the details and context. In the end it will help in making decisions right because some of our people do rely on the leaders to make good decisions for them as well.
“Understand the stage of your company and the kind of risks you face at that stage, make decisions that are appropriate, and remind other people about that all the time."
Sarah Milstein is the VP of Engineering at Daily and has run remote teams for 25 years. In this episode, Sarah started by sharing some remote work insights we may not have heard before, such as why remote distributed teams often have higher propensity of trust, how remote work could help make difficult conversations easier, and how leaders can establish swift trust by having more intentional communications. In the second half of our conversation, Sarah shared about her experience of leading engineers as someone from a non-tech background. She explained why a lack of technical expertise can sometimes be useful and pointed out some leadership qualities an engineering leader should have to balance out the need for technical acumen. Sarah also shared her few tips on how to upskill herself in technical stuffs and her perspective on whether a company should consider having non-tech engineering leaders.
Listen out for:
- Career Journey - [00:03:49]
- Remote Work Insights - [00:08:04]
- Propensity of Trust - [00:12:26]
- Working Back in Office - [00:15:39]
- Other Remote Work Insights - [00:17:36]
- Ingroup Bias - [00:20:47]
- Swift Trust & Intentional Communication - [00:23:21]
- Accountability - [00:28:28]
- Being an Engineering Leader from a Non-Tech Background - [00:30:50]
- Leadership Qualities - [00:33:31]
- Benefits of Non-Tech Background - [00:35:15]
- Self-Learning Technical Stuffs - [00:39:23]
- Company Accepting Non-Tech Engineering Leaders - [00:41:51]
- 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:45:14]
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Sarah Milstein’s Bio
Sarah Milstein is VP of Engineering at Daily, which lets developers add real-time video and audio to any app or website. Before Daily, Sarah held executive roles at ConvertKit, Mailchimp,18F.gov, and indie.vc. She was also CEO and co-founder of Lean Startup Productions and co-author of The Twitter Book. Earlier, she was a freelance journalist writing regularly for The New York Times. She holds an MBA from UC Berkeley and has run remote teams for 25 years.
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