Managing Managers

Katie Wilde, Senior Director of Engineering, discusses her journey into tech, challenges of managing managers, and the importance of regular skip-level feedback. She shares insights on balancing managing managers and direct teams, reflecting on the difficulties of overseeing managers and the emotional labor required.

Nickolas Means, an engineer turned engineering leader, talks about peer mentoring, building a support group, managing up, and more. They discuss transitioning into a management role, the challenges of feedback loops when managing managers, measuring productivity in teams, building relationships, managing a manager, and negotiating with managers of managers.

Theresa Neate and I have a common passion for systems thinking, so join us in this conversation where we talk about the serendipity of leadership roles, how managers of managers look for future talent and understand what the "do no harm" principle looks like for engineering leaders. Guest Biography: Theresa Neate is an award winning senior leader with a background in service desk, software delivery, quality engineering and platform developer experience, who loves lean and agility and advocates for holistic system quality and systems thinking. She has an additional side interest in cloud, infrastructure and networking. She has also written on the subjects, including contributing 2 chapters to a published O'Reilly book. Transcript and show notes available here: https://managingmanagers.tech/episodes/episode-009-theresa-neate/

Tramale Turner has a lot of leadership and management experience to share, across a broad range of fascinating companies. In this episode we cover topics like the importance of introspective, the skill in spotting strengths in others and what it means to build not just good teams, but great ones. Guest Biography: Tramale is a highly experienced and motivated technical professional and is currently SVP of Engineering at ActionIQ. He has previously worked as CTO at Taxbit and Head of Engineering at Stripe. Prior to Stripe Tramale has held engineering leadership roles at companies such as F5 Networks and Nintendo, and technical and marketing leadership roles at Critical Mass and Volkswagen. He has a passion for developing technology leaders at all levels, and is determined to hear underrepresented voices amplified in our industry. Transcript and show notes available here: https://managingmanagers.tech/episodes/episode-008-tramale-turner/

Danielle Leong discusses the importance of role modeling, impact of restructuring, and living in the future as a manager of managers. Exploring her journey, supportive networks, team restructuring at GitHub, cultural mergers, leadership traits, and navigating complexities of managing managers.

Gabriel Michels, Director of Engineering at Choco, talks about evolving the EM role, goal setting, and finding support as a manager of managers. Topics include food waste reduction, business growth, relationship building, and managing managers.

Anita Singh, an engineering leader at Gorillas, discusses the challenges of transitioning from an engineer to a manager, managing managers in a hyper-growth company, building relationships and communication, balancing responsibility and control, and maintaining a support network.

Phil Calçado, an engineer director with experience leading software teams in hyper-growth stages, discusses his leadership journey, the challenges and opportunities in the live events industry during the pandemic, managing costs and activities for energy managers, the importance of being involved in meetings and influencing decision-making, and attention management for managers with the introduction of UltraP, a copilot for managers.

Cate Huston, an experienced engineering leader, discusses global, remote management and the impact of coaching. They delve into managing a global team, the importance of adjusting approaches, using org surveys for feedback, and hiring and reviewing directors. They also explore the influence of capitalism on career decisions.

James Stanier, Director of Engineering at Shopify and author of Become an Effective Software Manager and Effective Remote Work, discusses the challenges of transitioning to managing other managers in engineering, the importance of defining career paths in startups, the scope and challenges of customer engagement and marketing tools at Shopify, and managing a large group of engineers. They also explore tailoring one-to-one meetings with managers and the challenges of managing a growing team while avoiding redundancy.