A good engineer was interested in becoming a senior engineer, so the manager discussed the criteria for promotion with him line-by-line. They had several follow-up conversations and the manager made it clear that the promotion was up to the employee's work. This showed the importance of setting clear expectations when promoting an employee.

Plato

Vladimir Baranov

CIO/COO at SCOUT Space Inc

Building and Formalizing a Career Ladder in a Startup

Small startups often lack career ladders, but formalizing them is not recommended for teams with less than 30 employees. To help engineers grow their skills, managers should identify the skill sets they lack and line up appropriate training and incentives. For those on the management track, they should be given function, task, client, and project management responsibilities to master before taking on human management. Soft skills and training courses should also be lined up to help organize and structure employee progress. Ultimately, it is important to remember that every person is an individual and requires an individual approach.

Plato

Xun Tang

Engineering Manager at Reddit

Engaging With a Candidate During the Interview

The hiring manager discusses the problem of feeling underprepared when selling a position to potential candidates and shares the actions they have taken to improve their approach. They have developed a template to focus on what is important to the company and the candidate, and come prepared with more information about the company and the team. They also emphasize the importance of stretching new managers and providing growth opportunities. The lessons learned include the value of being prepared, considering long-term success, and being authentic and transparent in the hiring process.

Plato

Roy Pereira

CEO at CalendarHero

Building a Gender-Balanced Engineering Team

In order to build a gender-balanced engineering team, a company had to reconsider their entire recruiting and hiring process. This included sourcing from different places, changing the interview process, and providing better employee support. Lessons learned from this experience include the need to analyse talent acquisition strategies, hiring process, and employment benefits with an emphasis on thinking outside of the traditional male-oriented engineering hiring mentality, as well as seeking advice from those who have successfully staffed their engineering teams with a balanced approach.

Plato

Liz Rodriguez

Senior Director of Software Engineering at TopQuadrant

Understanding What Drives People Can Help You Seduce Senior Engineers to Join Your Company

Companies need to be aware that senior engineers are more likely to choose purpose and passion over a high salary. To attract them, companies should look for experienced professionals at career fairs and networking events, have honest conversations outside the office, and tailor benefits to their specific needs. Two main motives that drive senior engineers are personal growth and mentoring possibilities, so companies should offer trainings and the chance to mentor junior colleagues.

Plato

Kevin Gu

Director Of Product Management at TextNow

Taking the Initiative to Transition from Engineering to Product

A technical program manager wanted to transition into a product management role, but faced bias from their company. To prove themselves, they built a strong relationship with a VP of product, took on a small project, and studied for interviews. In the end, they received the offer to become a product manager. The lesson learned is that it is best to transfer internally and find a sponsor on the product team who will support you through the transition.

Plato

Aravinda Gollapudi

Head of Platform

Seeing Past the “Dark Side” of Management

The speaker initially found pride in writing good code and solving problems, but was uninterested in the managerial role. After gaining experience, they learned that being a manager involves more than just watching over people and dealing with underperformers. They sought mentors and learned to be transparent about their vulnerabilities, reserve judgement, and cultivate a feeling of positivity. With more to learn, they continue on their journey.

Plato

Cody Kurz

VP of Engineering at 7shifts: Team Management for Restaurants

Why Hiring Juniors

Hiring juniors has many benefits, such as creating a community of support, loyalty, and cost-effectiveness. However, there are also drawbacks, such as slower execution and unpredictable output. Lessons learned from hiring juniors include the long-term payoffs, the enthusiasm and passion they bring to the company, and the opportunity for senior engineers to mentor and teach.

Plato

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Jose Ciccio

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Dipti Srivastava

Innovating for a cloud first world

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Latest Stories

Vishal Ramrakhyani

SVP Engineering, Head of Engineering at Zoomcar

Reasons Promoting From Within Is Better for Growing Your Business

When a principal engineer left a team without a backup plan, the Associate Director had to decide whether to groom a senior engineer to the next level or hire a Lead engineer from outside. The Associate Director chose to groom the senior engineer, giving him more ownership and products, and dividing the project lifecycle into three phases. The Associate Director invested a lot of time with the senior engineer, providing feedback and 1:1s, and after two quarters the senior engineer was ready to lead independently. The lessons learned from this experience were to invest in the internal team, be tactful in choosing and nurturing second-line leaders, and lead by example.

Plato

Scott Jones

VP of Product at Real Eyes

Pleading With Your Executive Team

This story is about a company that specialized in mobile app downloads and wanted to get into programmatic ad-buying. The author was recruited to manage the product and business development, and worked closely with the engineering team to increase the throughput of the system. Despite the author's efforts to optimize the system and acquire users for as little as a dollar, the CEO chose to ignore the data and shut the product down a few months later. The author learned that leaders can make ego-driven decisions, and it can be difficult to disagree with them.

Plato

Michael Scotto

Senior Director of QA and Data Products at Niche.com

Establishing a New Function

Niche's QA team was struggling to keep up with their increased automation needs, so the QA team leader proposed a new departmental structure with a separate function for automation. This new role, the Software Engineer in Test, would be dedicated to automation, allowing the QA Analysts to focus on manual testing. After a year of refining the role, the team was able to hire additional Software Engineers in Test and begin revitalizing their automation efforts. The lessons learned from this experience included the value of specialization, the importance of face-to-face communication while vetting candidates, and the importance of trusting in the expertise of team members.

Plato

Michael Scotto

Senior Director of QA and Data Products at Niche.com

Helping Your Reports Become Managers

At Niche, the author had the privilege of growing a department from two people to over a dozen. To enable further growth, the author needed to foster and develop a new layer of management within the team. To do this, the author set a six-month plan for the most senior member of the QA team to become a manager. Through a SWOT analysis, reading curriculum, and mentorship sessions, the author was able to equip the emerging manager with the skills and confidence to become a successful manager. The author learned that having a longer preparation time was helpful in changing the emerging manager's perception within their team and that nurturing talent internally is a sound business decision.

Plato

Alfredo Fernandez Acuna

Engineering Manager at ComplyAdvantage

Why Rearchitecting Might Not Always Be the Best Idea

This article outlines the steps taken by a team to improve the performance of a system that was only handling a low number of transactions per second. The team was unable to re-architect the system due to tight deadlines, so instead they documented the main flows of the system, ran load tests, and identified low-hanging fruit that could be improved. The team's efforts resulted in significant performance gains, and the article outlines the lessons learned from the experience.

Plato

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