How would you go about figuring out if there was someone in the team that could grow into a really exceptional engineering manager? This is a great question because it comes down in part to evaluating talent, but also helping to evaluate motivations. Asking a series of questions can really help both the person you're asking as well as the person doing the evaluation.
Our guest today is Marcel Weekes, VP of Product Engineering at Figma and former VP of Engineering at Slack.
In today’s conversation, he unpacks why most startups get it wrong when they uplevel someone from IC engineer to eng manager and unfurls what stellar engineering management looks like at high-growth companies, including:
- Setting appropriate expectations and goals
- Turbocharging the team’s effectiveness
- Delivering high-impact feedback
- Going from a peer to a manager
- What leaders risk when they drag their heels on managing out low-performers
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