Introduction⌗

I recently picked up the book Engineering Management For The Rest Of Us. I’ll not call myself an avid reader so take everything from this post with a grain of salt. This was also first book that I picked on the topic of leadership. The only book that is related to the topic that I’ve read in the past is Staff Engineer.

Book⌗

Chapter 1 - Caring For Your Team⌗

  • Engineering mangement is completely different from what you have been doing in the past.
  • “You became really good at building bridges so you are promoted to be a baker”.
  • Your job is to enable everyone around you to do their Job.
  • You do intruption driven work, so that others in the team can work in flow state.
  • Lot of communication and collaboration.
  • Experience as an engineer will help you think and advice from the shoes of an engineer.
  • Larger problems to worry about: power imbalances, people structures etc
  • Caring about your job makes you become better at it

Chapter 2 - Value of Values⌗

  • People are not pure functions, have all sorts of side effects.
  • Values work is a tool. It gives us a rubric to understand where people might be coming from.
  • Unpacking a persons values together with them helps working together easier, since we understand their drives and motivations better.
  • Values are the fundamental beliefs that guide us, motivate us, and drive our actions. A persons values dicates their behaviour & Ethics.
  • Values does not offer an action but it gives the context to be more understanding of what is happening and why
  • Unpacking individual values together with the team will help in working together better.
  • Leadership is all about driving calarity
  • If work is bleeing into boundaries of values set by you, it can inevitabily lead to burnout.
  • Good managers are people who show care and appreciation for people’s values and also respect their boundaries.