Level-up Engineering

Interview with Mike Seavers, VP of Online Development at Epic Games about becoming a manager of managers. He talks about his hardships as a new director, he tells the story of overcoming them, and shares other stories about coaching other leaders to turn them into great directors.Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter!In this interview we're covering:Differences between managing ICs and managing managersStory of transitioning from manager to directorNecessary skills to managing managersCommon mistakes of new directorsWarning signs for new directorsChoosing from director candidatesSupport from executive leaders to new directorsStory of coaching a director new to managing managersBonus advice to managing managersExcerpt from the interview:"I first became a director and started managing managers about 17 years ago. My team consisted of five sub-teams, about 50 people combined, and I had six or seven managers reporting to me. We were going through an Agile transformation.I spent all my time focusing internally, working with my team. I attended stand-ups, we were teaching Scrum and we were introducing new tooling to manage the Agile process. We changed our release method and other internal processes.I was proud of what we managed to accomplish, but when it came time for performance reviews, I received the worst review of my career. My peers and everyone around me outside my team said in their feedback that they had no relationship with me. They didn’t know what I was doing, they just saw me making changes in engineering without involving the leaders of the project management team, the release management team, or the QA team."Click here to read the full interview!

Interview with Jossie Haines, VP of Engineering and Head of DEI at Tile. She talks about the place of empathy in leadership and in the workplace in general, and shares her stories about mastering empathy and coaching others to lead with empathy as well.Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter!In this interview we're covering:Defining empathy in the workplaceDefining empathetic leadershipInfusing leadership with empathyChallenges of leading with empathy remotelyStory of learning about the importance of empathetic leadershipCoaching leaders towards empathetic leadershipCommon mistakes when leading with empathyExcerpt from the interview:"As a leader, you need to be willing to put yourselves in other people’s shoes, and process what they’re going through. Leaders, especially former engineers, often get into the habit of trying to fix everything.When I switched from engineer to manager, I thought my job was to fix things, but I was wrong. I had to learn that my colleagues don’t need me to fix everything. They need me to help them fix their own problems.The first step towards leading with empathy is listening, reflecting and acknowledging how the other person is feeling."Click here to read the full interview!

Interview with Joseph Gefroh, Engineering Director at HealthSherpa. He goes into detail about preparing a team to scale up. He shares his experiences and tells stories about what processes do you need to put in place, why they're necessary and how you can sell your teams on them.Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter!In this interview we're covering:Defining a team that's ready to scaleThe first challenges of scaling a teamImproving knowledge sharing to scale your teamTop processes to standardize before scaling your teamCreating alignment in your team as you scaleStory about standardizing communication channelsBuilding management as you scale your teamIntroducing new management layers as you scale upProcess to reiterate standardized processesExcerpt from the interview:"At one point, I was in a fundraising company that had no intake process. We had different functions, like finance operations, account management, sales, product, etc.Whenever someone in a different department wanted something from engineering, they directly messaged an engineer or had a conversation with them in the office. The engineers usually agreed to help out, and the rest of the company took it as a commitment that engineering would get them what they needed.This led to weird commitments that nobody was tracking and no one was working on. When the deadlines passed, the teams that made these requests got mad and blamed engineering for committing to help in the first place. The engineering organization turned into a black box, and from the perspective of the rest of the company, we were missing deadlines that we didn’t even know about."Click here to read the full interview!

Interview with James Trunk, VP of Engineering at Griffin. He talks in-depth about coming up with his principles of decision making, the ways you can do the same, and their utility in leadership.Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter!In this interview we're covering:Utilizing your principles of decision makingRole of decision principles in leadershipUsing decision principles with your teamUsing decision principles with your peers and managerDangers of using decision principlesOrigins of the decision principlesTips to create your own decision principlesEvolving your principles of decision making over timeExcerpt from the interview:"I don’t think my principles should be applied by everyone. For example, if you keep picking safe bets, you’ll probably fail to create a competitive advantage as a startup. However, in a corporate environment, safe bets might be a better path for your career.I’ve been collecting my decision principles over time, and they’re based on my experiences. I’ve done a lot of reflection on what has and hasn’t gone well, and which principles have helped me make better decisions and which haven’t. They change over time, and I’ve been keeping track of them over the years.I recommend every leader to come up with their own principles of decision making. You don’t have to treat them as absolute truth. Use them as guidelines that remind you to stop and reflect on whether you’re headed in the right direction."Click here to read the full interview!

Interview with Dylan Hansen, Senior Director of Engineering Enablement and Engagement at Salesforce. He talks about leadership and work-life balance, telling stories and tips about improving it in your own life, and supporting your team in achieving a better work-life awareness as well.Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter!In this interview we're covering:The definition of work-life balanceThe process of improving work-life balance in leadershipStrategies for a healthy work-life balance in leadershipUsing a sabbatical to improve work-life balanceWork-life balance tips for new managersSpotting the signs of burnout in a remote environmentHelping your team improve work-life balanceAsking your team to sacrifice from work-life balanceAction plan for employees failing to hit deadlinesExcerpt from the interview:"When I came back from my sabbatical, I decided to set guardrails around my work time, and I wouldn’t check any work email before 7:00 AM or after 5:30 PM. When I was done, I shut down my laptop and picked it up the next day.This started making me anxious when at 5:00 PM, I found myself with more to do and in the flow, so I knew I could get it all done by 6:00 PM. That goes 30 minutes beyond my pre-set stopping time. These situations made me go through a lot of mental gymnastics.As I examined the situation, I realized that boundaries are great, but you have to be able to flex them to fit in an extra 30 minutes when necessary. You have to be able to make yourself available for irregular events on both sides of the work-life balance."Click here to read the full interview!

Interview with Allison McMillan, Director of Engineering at GitHub. She shares her best virtual offsite ideas, hands out some tips you can try yourself and warns you of the pitfalls to avoid. Real life stories from behind the scenes at GitHub.Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter!In this interview we're covering:Definition of virtual offsitesGround rules for virtual offsitesRealistic expectations for virtual offsitesChallenges of virtual offsitesPreparations for virtual offsitesVirtual offsite ideasExcerpt from the interview:"I consider an offsite a state of mind rather than a physical location.Going to a different location can help you achieve this state of mind. Depending on your preference, it may be a different location at your house, a coffee shop, a coworking location, or a different continent.The idea is to get yourself away from daily tasks and to put your brain into a different gear."Click here to read the full interview!

Interview with Jose Roca, VP of Product and Engineering at Prezi. He tells his story about going from shy kid to great engineering leader, building and scaling Prezi's platform team, overcoming internal resistance on different levels, and much more.Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter!In this interview we're covering:Getting into leadership at PreziScaling yourself with your companyFinding mentors and mentoring othersOvercoming internal resistanceKey leadership skillsBalancing the dual role of VP of Product and EngineringScaling in and out of the officeExcerpt from the interview:"My most controversial move was adding the first full-time product manager to an infrastructure team. The resistance mostly came from the engineers. They didn’t understand what the product manager was going to do, or they didn't think they needed that type of help.I explained everything step by step. We went through everyone’s roles and responsibilities, but the infrastructure engineers have been working without product help for so long, I couldn’t convince them it was going to be helpful. On the other side, I worked closely with the first product manager to make sure he fit into the team, and in time, the engineers started seeing the value of his work.Today, our platform teams always work with product managers and they like it, because they understand what tasks they take off the table, so the engineers can focus more on writing code. Some of the platform engineers enjoy doing interviews with product engineers, but most of them are relieved that the product managers take care of it."Click here to read the full interview!

Interview with Camille Fournier, Managing Director and Head of Platform Engineering at Two Sigma. She talks about the role of platform teams, the most important skills for platform engineers, creating smooth communication with product teams and more!Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter!In this interview we're covering:Definition of a platform engineering teamDifferences between product and platform engineeringPriority differences for product and platform teamsCommunication channels between product and platform teamsCommunication challenges in platform teamsNecessary skills for platform engineersThe time to create a platform engineering teamExcerpt from the interview:"Communication works best when a product team reaches out directly to a team in the platform organization. They can communicate quickly about what they need and find a solution. The more you involve senior leadership in early stages, the slower and more complex the process can be.Sometimes you don’t have a choice but to escalate the situation because the platform team you’re in contact with lacks the bandwidth to address your problem. I aim to provide flexibility for my platform teams to work with their product counterparts, but it has to be balanced.If the platform team is constantly working on fulfilling one-off requests, it hurts productivity. If you see that happening, you need to figure out what the product teams are trying to do, and plan ahead to provide the necessary tooling."Click here to read the full interview!

Interview with Erica Greene, Senior Engineering Manager at Etsy about the importance of writing in software engineering. She goes into details about why you need to write well, how to get good at it, how to coach your team in writing and much more.Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter!In this interview we're covering:The importance of writing in engineering managementWhy is writing important in software engineeringWhy is writing important in meetingsImproving your writing skills as a managerWriting tools for engineering managersCommon mistakes of managersTeaching your team about the importance of writing Excerpt from the interview:"Recently, I had a disagreement with a project manager regarding a project. We had a meeting about it and it was productive, but we didn’t manage to completely resolve the conflict. He suggested that we continue the discussion in a document.We wrote down the points that we agreed on, and the points we disagreed about, and we started a back and forth. He wrote his response and sent it to me, and I could answer when I found some time, and then send it back. We resolved the conflict in about four to five rounds.It was a misunderstanding, and we came to a compromise. It was an efficient way of working out a conflict in written format, which we probably wouldn’t even have tried pre-pandemic, working fully on-site."Click here to read the full interview!

Interview with Pat Kua, former engineering leader, current leadership coach about applying systems thinking to management. We start from the defintion systems thinking and discuss applying it to leadership with clear steps and concrete examples.Sign up to the Level-up Engineering newsletter!In this interview we're covering:The definition of systems thinkingApplying systems thinking to leadershipKey concepts and potential traps of systems thinkingThe steps of applying systems thinkingThe importance of exploration in systems thinkingTools for systems thinkingBonus advice to apply systems thinking in leadershipExcerpt from the interview:"Systems thinking focuses on emergent behavior. It’s about qualities that the individual parts alone don’t possess.Human life is a good example for this. We’re made up of parts, such as skin, brain, etc., but none of these parts can be alive on their own. Life only happens when you combine them.The reductionist view is still important and valuable. Systems thinking is a complement to the classic scientific view. It can help you take a holistic approach to understand complex systems."Click here to read the full interview!