Profitable Engineering 🛠️ — with Aviv Ben Josef
Dec 6, 2024
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Aviv Ben Josef, an executive coach with over 20 years in tech, shares insights on profitable engineering and building high-impact teams. He discusses the challenges of measuring engineering impact and why it's often seen as a cost. Aviv emphasizes the need for a cultural shift to view engineering as a strategic asset that drives profitability. The conversation also touches on intentional learning, bridging generational tech understanding, and connecting engineering work to real business value, especially in today's AI-influenced landscape.
Engineering professionals must shift from task execution to actively understanding business needs and engaging with organizational goals to create value.
Recognizing engineering departments as profit centers rather than cost centers is crucial for demonstrating their impact on business outcomes and ROI.
Effective communication between engineers and non-technical stakeholders is essential for illustrating the value of engineering work and fostering collaboration.
Deep dives
Transitioning Engineering Roles
Engineering professionals are encouraged to evolve from merely executing tasks to actively engaging with the business as integral parts of the organization. Emphasis is placed on adopting a mindset that prioritizes understanding business needs alongside technical challenges. This shift is essential as the tech landscape changes, requiring engineers to interact more proactively with product and business management. The concept of profitable engineering underscores the importance of creating value and aligning engineering efforts with the company’s broader objectives.
The Importance of Profitable Engineering
The discussion highlights the necessity of recognizing engineering departments as profit centers rather than cost centers. Companies often spend substantial resources on engineering without adequately measuring the return on investment. To combat this, engineering teams are encouraged to adopt a mindset focused on results and profitability, aligning their work with business goals to ensure their projects contribute positively to the bottom line. This cultural shift aims to mitigate instances where extensive engineering efforts yield little to no measurable outcomes.
Overcoming Jargon and Communication Barriers
A key insight is the communication gap that exists between engineering teams and their non-technical counterparts. Engineers often use jargon that alienates others and obscures the value of their work. To foster better collaboration, engineers are urged to communicate in business terms and understand the product context, thus bridging the gap with stakeholders. By doing so, engineers can demonstrate how their contributions directly correlate with business success, fostering an atmosphere of shared goals and mutual respect.
Aligning Engineering Goals with Business Objectives
The concept of shared objectives between engineering and product teams is emphasized as vital to organizational success. Engineering metrics should not exist in isolation but should be aligned with overall business outcomes to provide a clearer picture of performance and impact. Regular retrospective practices are suggested, wherein teams assess whether their completed projects met intended goals and contributed to broader business success. By cultivating an understanding of the end product's impact, engineers can develop a more integrated approach to their work.
Leveraging AI for Enhanced Team Efficiency
The potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to augment engineering workflows is increasingly recognized as teams explore various tools and applications. While initial skepticism remains regarding productivity gains, the effective use of AI has been shown to streamline processes, enhance collaboration, and improve problem-solving efficiency. Engineers are encouraged to adopt AI tools as facilitators in daily tasks, aiding them in overcoming challenges and expediting various workflows. Consequently, a proactive attitude towards AI integration is essential to harnessing its full potential in engineering environments.
Today's guest is Aviv Ben Josef!
Aviv has more than 20 years of experience in tech. He is an executive coach working with hundreds of engineering teams and leaders.
With Aviv, we talked about profitable engineering, what makes engineering valuable, why impact is hard to measure,and what are the cultural and organizational traits that make engineering teams successful.
(01:43) Introduction
(02:20) Aviv’s journey into tech
(05:57) From tech to consulting
(08:12) Less coding, more coaching
(11:42) Profitable engineering
(15:11) What unprofitable engineering looks like
(17:33) Other engineering dysfunctions
(20:49) Why is engineering still perceived as a cost
(27:23) Switch your approach
(32:48) Intentional learning
(38:29) Meta retros: connecting engineers and product
(45:31) Set your goals
(48:27) Product engineering in today’s framework
(53:28) The AI influence on teamwork
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