Managers Club, Interviews and Resources for Engineering Managers

In this interview, I speak with Morgan Craft, a fractional CTO in NYC and founder of gitBabel. We discuss what a fractional CTO is, how someone can become one, the challenges, the business of being a fractional CTO, including how much money engineering leaders can make doing it. Morgan also shares some great advice on running a consultancy business and a startup, working with startups, time management, and book recommendations.

In this episode, I speak with Happy Wang, SVP of Engineering at Everbridge. We talk about how to be a people and product-focused engineering leader. Happy discusses her approach to hiring at startups and career development. In addition, she shares some key points for new managers and some good book recommendations for managers. #womenintech #engineering #leadership #svp

In this podcast, I talk with Anjuan Simmons, Engineering Coach at Help Scout. We discuss how an engineering manager is like a coach. Anjuan has some great advice for aspiring engineering managers. We discuss a key insight between dissatisfaction and satisfaction. He talks about his player-centric approach, unique approach to time management, as well as some great reading recommendations and critical insights. It's a long episode, but I think you will find it worthwhile. #engineering #leadership #coaching #BlackInTech

In this episode, I speak with James Stanier, Author and Director of Engineering at Shopify. We talk about working remotely, various best practices, team building, valuable resources for working remotely, how hiring has changed, and his new book Effective Remote Work. In addition, James offers advice for managers who are just starting out. You will also learn how James manages his time and a book recommendation for engineering leaders. #enginering #leadership #management #wfh

In this episode, I speak with Kevin Dorion, my former co-worker at Uber and now an executive recruiter at Okta, on how to get and pass the Engineering Leadership Interview. We go over how to get an interview, what to put on LinkedIn profile, crucial questions you should ask, and negotiating an offer. #leadership #management #interviewtips #engineering

In this episode, I speak with Kyle Cooper, Leadership Recruiter at Meta, on how to get and pass the Engineering Leadership Interview. We go over how to get an interview, preparation, common reasons people don’t get hired, and negotiating an offer. #leadership #management #interviewtips #engineering

In this episode, I speak with Flo Monier, an Airbnb Leadership Recruiter, on how to get and pass the Engineer Leadership Interview. We go over how to get an interview, preparation, common reasons people don't get hired, and negotiating an offer among other things.

Shruti Venkatesh is a Senior Engineering Manager at VTS. We discuss the ideal team member, how reading fiction can help you become a better leader, four coaching questions she asks her directs twice a year, what it takes to be a great engineering leader, and more in this interview.

In this interview with Jean Hsu, VP of Engineering at Range and former leadership coach, we discuss the transition to a hybrid workforce, topgrading interviews, the importance of sleep, what it takes to be a great engineering leader, and more!

Vidal: [00:00] Good afternoon. Welcome to the latest edition of ManagersClub. I’d like to welcome Aviv Ben-Yosef to the show. How are you? Aviv: [00:09] Hi. I’m great. Thank you for having me. What’s your background and how did you get into management? Vidal: [00:12] Thanks for coming on. I was looking at your background, but maybe you could tell a little bit about yourself to our listeners. I know you’ve been a consultant, but also an executive leader.  Aviv: [00:21] Sure. I come from a very down-to-earth coding background. I started coding when I was nine, I served in the Israeli Defense Forces as an engineer. And since then I moved up the ranks did a bunch of roles. I worked at IBM, worked as a first employee of a startup for the good first years. And for the past nine years or so I’ve been independent. Part of it was just coding freelancing for companies. And then I slowly moved up to being the sort of a fractional leader, having managed teams and then teams and managers of teams. And then even teams as big as 40 50 engineers under me. And in the past few years, I’ve been transitioning to consulting and coaching tech executives to move them from needing someone like me as a band-aid to providing them the ability to just lead their teams as they need to. What are the biggest challenges you face as an engineering leader? Vidal: [01:21] Great.  I was reading your book. We’ll talk about it in a bit, but what do you see as some of the biggest challenges that you face or your clients face as engineering leaders? Aviv: [01:29] I think that there are very common things that I see globally. For example, there’s the issue of, as the team becomes bigger and you’re growing and hiring more people, how do you maintain the same level of productivity and how do you maintain the same level of engagement by our people so that they don’t feel like they’re joining this big machine and they’re just a cog and this big thing. That’s one problem I’m seeing all the time. Another challenge I think is for us personally, as leaders as the constantly to upgrade our own processes, our own tools, because managing a team of five people is not the same as managing a team of 15. And it’s not the same as managing managers and so on. So we constantly need to redefine what we’re doing. Let go of things that might’ve worked for us for years, but no longer make sense and that sort of thing. And that’s hard, like molting every six months in a scale-up startup is going to be hard. But if you don’t do that, you’re going to be left behind. Vidal: [00:02:40] I think one of the hardest things you mentioned is a lot of leaders, have the tech part down, but it’s the soft skills that they have difficulty with. Is there any particular soft skill that you see as a big challenge? Aviv: [00:02:51] Say when you talk to tech executives, yeah, they have the tech part nailed down and executive is really hard. And exec’ing is vague. We like the specified JIRA ticket,