Navigating 2024: Engineering management principles to tackle the unknowns & challenges ahead w/ Andrew Lau #161
The Engineering Leadership Podcast
Importance of Post-Incident Process and Building Skills for Engineering Leaders
This chapter discusses the significance of having a post-incident process in place and introduces incident.io, a platform that aids teams in running better incidents and learning from them. The speaker also mentions ELC's peer groups and explores the areas of focus and skills that engineering leaders should develop for the future.
Andrew Lau, CEO & Co-founder @ Jellyfish, shares the engineering management principles that eng leaders will most want to develop and invest in as we transition from 2023 into 2024. We cover year-end reflection techniques, how eng leaders can become more resilient / adaptable, why honing financial acumen is key, and how eng leaders can better plan ahead to face upcoming technology & industry challenges. We also preview Andrew’s new podcast called 5 to 9, aimed to identify meaningful ways eng leaders spend their time outside of the office. Check out Andrew’s new podcast 5 to 9 here: https://jellyfish.co/5-to-9-podcast
ABOUT ANDREW LAU
Andrew Lau is a Co-Founder and CEO of Jellyfish, where he helps leaders use data to align their engineering teams with business strategy. He was trained as an engineer and grew to VP of Engineering at Oracle acquired company, Endeca. He is also a multi-time entrepreneur and co-founder. At every company, Andrew saw the challenges of leading engineering teams at scale. He co-founded Jellyfish to give engineering executives the tools they need to be great leaders.
Andrew holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Originally from Oakland, CA, he's a devoted fan of the Oakland A's, despite residing in Red Sox territory for more than two decades. Andrew currently calls Cambridge, MA his home, where he lives with his wife Elsie and their two adorable young children, Callie and Mira.
“As a leader, your job is to know the context and translate the context. You have the benefit of seeing more things, but less deeply and your job is to kind of gather these informations and help other people understand it. People forget, you think you're an engineering leader. You think it's actually about making things. It is, but it's also about translating, especially at scale. You're not making anything anymore. You're enabling other people to make, and in order to do that, you've actually got to be translating and providing context.”
- Andrew Lau
This episode is brought to you by incident.io
incident.io is trusted by hundreds of tech-led companies across the globe, including Etsy, monday.com, Skyscanner and more to seamlessly orchestrate incident response from start to finish. Intuitively designed, and with powerful and flexible built-in workflow automation, companies use incident.io to supercharge incident response and up-level the entire organization.
Learn more about how you can better identify, learn from, and respond to incidents at incident.io
Interested in joining an ELC Peer Group?
ELCs Peer Groups provide a virtual, curated, and ongoing peer learning opportunity to help you navigate the unknown, uncover solutions and accelerate your learning with a small group of trusted peers.
Apply to join a peer group HERE: sfelc.com/peerGroups
SHOW NOTES:
- Andrew’s observations on how the tech industry is evolving from 2023 to 2024 (3:40)
- Questions to help you reflect at year-end about family, team & business (5:03)
- How eng leaders can build adaptability & resiliency (7:16)
- Skills / focus areas eng leaders should hone heading into 2024 (10:51)
- Developing better financial acumen (13:15)
- Bridging the gap between engineering strategy & business alignment (16:40)
- Why it’s important for businesses to build a plan for a year or two out (19:50)
- How this relates back to eng leadership development & financial acumen (23:00)
- Tips for identifying skill gaps in financial expertise (24:07)
- Knowing what metrics to measure your company against (26:07)
- About Andrew’s new podcast, 5 to 9 (28:42)
- How eng leaders make it work in business & outside of work (31:35)
- Where to follow & listen to 5 to 9 (34:40)
LINKS AND RESOURCES
- 5 to 9 Podcast - By day, engineering leaders craft innovative solutions with elegant strings of code. But when the work day ends, who do these keyboard warriors and people managers become? Tune in to 5 to 9 to explore this question and others with Jellyfish CEO, Andrew Lau.
This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:
Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host
Jerry Li - Co-Host
Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/
Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/
Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
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