Engineering Management for the Rest of Us

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There are plenty of books you can go and read about growing a leadership mindser, or understand what outcomes you want, or your motivations.

Drasner advises that managers should have strategies in place to resolve conflicts effectively, while maintaining a positive and respectful team environment.Learn to Balance People Management and Technical Leadership: As an engineering manager, you’re required to manage both people and technical aspects of a project. Encourage Collaboration and Teamwork: Fostering a collaborative environment is key in engineering management. I later had the best manager I ever had and that was life changing for me, I started looking at this person as my friend, imagine the level of trust. This is not only an engineering book, trust, people caring and guiding is an human thing, if your are not a tech person and want to read it you may get confused in the code review chapter but totally worth it. I think it is the nature of this type of role, to be tricky to learn from others, ahead of time and out of context, because it largely depends on the environment you work in and the team you work with, the mission you work on, your personality and many other things in between.

I always wondered why regular leaders treat so hard their people, forgetting about human values and just asking for output and results without knowing context of every team member.

I had already read (and I reread on a yearly basis) How to Win Friends and Influence People, so most of the ideas shared in the book are things I already practise.

Sarah has done a good job of expanding the narratives by providing relevant references to other books and authors in between topics and chapters.However, there are a few topics that seem to be less connected to the enginineering manager's job and more to the individual contributors. I’m sharing what I’ve learned- not so that you follow my concepts exactly, but rather so that you can be thoughtful about your own leadership and needs. This book provided me with a clear framework for understanding and improving my role as a leader within my organization.

Foster a Culture of Continuous Learning: Engineering is a field that’s continually evolving, so it’s important to promote a culture of learning within your team.

It’s not just important, it’s crucial that we iterate on our own skills as managers so that we can properly support everyone around us: individuals, peers, leadership, and the business. My last book of the year was recommended by my managers manager when I asked for a book recommendation on the Engineering Management topic. Sarah has such deep knowledge on this subject and generously lays out plans and thoughtful approaches that you can apply immediately to your teams (and learn from if you're considering management in the first place)! I would strongly recommend this book not just for engineering managemers but for Individual contributors as well.