Director of Engineering

Establishing Annual OKRs For Your Team

This article outlines the process of setting annual OKRs for a team that lacked a clear direction. The author held a group session to identify key work streams and then established specific objectives and key results. The team felt invested in the goals and the OKRs acted as a self-alignment tool. The author also learned that three is a good number to stick to when establishing annual OKRs and that it gives the team clarity on priorities.

Hiring for a Director of Engineering

Hiring a Director of Engineering is a difficult task for any tech leader. Before beginning the process, they should have a thorough understanding of how the candidate would fit into the larger picture. During the interview, technical and soft skills should be assessed. Technical skills should include expertise in the development process, technical competency, and the ability to conform to industry best practices. Soft skills should include a bias for action, drive and ambition, and the ability to collaborate with product management. A 90-day plan should be written for each director hire to ensure success.

Building an International Organization

This article discusses the challenges of starting a business in Belarus, a small country with limited access to sales and marketing talent. It outlines the steps taken to overcome these challenges, such as focusing on the international market, establishing a sales function, growing in the local market, creating a communication channel between two offices, and hiring people early on. It also emphasizes the importance of team building and hiring the right people in order to scale and move forward.

Leading a Team: A Short Introduction to Chaos

When joining a small Big Data Engineering team in chaos, the leader had to figure out how to set a vision and roadmap for the team. Through meaningful exercises, the team was able to build a shared vision and mission statement, and set objectives to achieve their goals. The team was able to turn around and hire new talent, and the team still exists today. The key lessons learned were to build a shared vision, put the team through meaningful exercises, and communicate the vision to the rest of the organization.

Establishing the Goals for an Acquired Organization

A year ago, the author joined the office of a startup bought by their current company with the intent to expand their product across the US and globally. Through conversations with stakeholders and user research, the author proposed a flywheel structure and identified critical narratives and key metrics to measure performance. They also identified four future value streams and personas, and set goals for each vertical with key metrics. The team grew from two to ten members, and the business increased 8x in the next year according to the current plan. The author learned to build trust, think about users when building the team, not rush to hire people, and go deep to add value.

Being a leader does not mean you will always be popular, and that’s okay

After being promoted to a managerial role, the author had to make tough decisions to ensure the team was delivering on their goals. They revised the performance metrics of all six team members and one of the two under-performers stepped up. However, the other one didn't follow along and the author had to terminate their employment. The author learned that as a manager, they had to be willing to make decisions that make friends and peers uncomfortable if it was in the team's and company's best interest, and to ask for advice from HR, the Director, or other managers.