Past performance is not an indicator of future results.
This phrase might be incredibly tired, but it is also useful in explaining why many of a company’s best engineers are often not destined to move into leadership roles. After all, being an engineer and leading an engineering team require different skill sets. The technical skills are complementary, but the people management side of the equation necessitates soft skills that many developers aren’t required to cultivate, like active listening, giving impactful and actionable feedback, and career mapping.
While these skills can be picked up and honed, many companies look for intangible traits in leaders. One of these traits is, unsurprisingly, a willingness to lead, as noted by Dispatch’s Scott Rudberg. The CTO told Built In that one of the best ways to become an engineering manager is to work like one.
“Leadership isn’t something that is bestowed by your title: It’s earned by your actions regardless of your role,” Rudberg said. “If you do that, title and responsibility will naturally follow.”
Everyone’s journey to leadership will be different, but there is some universal advice that engineers can follow to both prepare themselves to lead and show they’re ready to do so. Rudberg and fellow Boston-area engineering leaders Jesse Belanger of ezCater and Nataliya Kryvych of SOPHiA GENETICS recently shared their experience with us.
Many aspiring engineering managers work hard to develop their technical skills, which makes sense as many companies, like ezCater, require engineering managers to be more than capable on the command line. However, as Belanger learned when he was promoted to engineering manager at ezCater, soft skills pertaining to people management are important no matter how technically proficient leaders are expected to be.
Give us a brief idea of your career trajectory at ezCater. Where did you start, when did you get promoted into a leadership role and what did you do to get there?
I joined ezCater right out of college, and my first manager jokes that I came in on my first day and said I wanted to be an engineering manager eventually. I don’t think I chose the leadership track that instantaneously, but I certainly felt a calling very early. I had a lot to learn about software engineering, though. At ezCater, we expect engineering managers to be fairly technical, so I spent the next four years leveling up from an associate to a senior software engineer. I also focused on developing my project leadership skills and abilities to interact successfully with my peers in product.
Our organization was growing rapidly during those years, so I occasionally stepped into the role of tech lead/de facto project manager for projects where an official manager was stretched too thin. In August of 2020, I finally got the opportunity to take on some people management responsibilities and was officially promoted to engineering manager a few months later.
I’d encourage anyone looking to move into a leadership role to practice two skills: relinquishing control and giving feedback.”
What surprised you most about your new leadership role?
When I was aspiring to be in a leadership role, the elements of the job that I focused most on preparing for were technical leadership and project management. I knew that people management was an important part of the job, but I underestimated how much of my time and energy it would take. My appreciation for the true weight of people management crystallized when I noticed that the work challenges I carried with me into my off-hours were all about people rather than code.
Instead of the occasional sleepless night unable to get an inscrutable bug out of my mind, I’d find myself rehearsing a feedback conversation or trying to work out a career plan. I had always cared about my coworkers. That feeling transformed and intensified once I was responsible for their wellbeing at work.
What advice do you have for engineers looking to move into a leadership role?
I’d encourage anyone looking to move into a leadership role to practice two skills: relinquishing control and giving feedback. These can be hard to do — or easy to avoid — as an individual contributor but will become key parts of your job as a leader. You’ll no longer be able to directly work on everything that your team ships or precisely control everything that you’re ultimately accountable for. You’ll be working through your team, and your success will depend on the trust you’re able to build with them.
To build that trust, you have to avoid micromanaging how your team does their work and empower them to deliver results. Letting people figure things out for themselves is also key to helping them grow their careers. Giving feedback is a great tool for influence and building trust, yet it may never feel totally comfortable for a lot of us engineers. Luckily, there are a lot of strategies for how to deliver feedback effectively, and you don’t have to be in a leadership position to use them. I spent a lot of my first year figuring out how to give timely, useful feedback, but I wish I had started practicing those skills earlier.
An important aspect of leadership is modeling good behavior. For engineering team leads this goes far beyond coding best practices. Kryvych, principal software developer engineer at SOPHiA GENETICS, advises those looking to do move into a leadership role to connect to the “bigger picture” to help others find meaning in their work and create better solutions.
Give us a brief idea of your career trajectory at SOPHiA GENETICS. Where did you start, when did you get promoted into a leadership role and what did you do to get there?
I joined in September 2020 as a principal software development engineer. My main role was to help establish good software development practices, improve and facilitate communication between teams, as well as to contribute to the design and development of services for our company platform. In the beginning of 2021, I was acting as a technical coordinator of the first “enabling” team, whose main goal was to develop a service for our platform following medical device regulations.
During this year, I have facilitated a few technical and product development sessions during global company events. I enjoyed taking ownership of these projects and had a conversation with my manager about growing at SOPHiA GENETICS. My manager created a path for me and I was promoted to a technical leader position. Now I am leading a cross-functional team working on the delivery of a business-critical product. It feels great to develop as a leader and take on new responsibilities.
Open communication and fostering a collaborative environment are very important.”
What surprised you most about your new leadership role?
It is still early days for me as a technical leader of a fairly large cross-functional team. I find it really inspiring to see how quickly a newly-formed team grows to work efficiently together and how enthusiastic my colleagues are about the product. I have also found a lot of support and encouragement across our leadership team and the architecture team.
SOPHiA GENETICS’s culture is incredible, and as a new leader, I have full support to be successful. Also, our leaders are visible and always take an open-door approach. Our CEO is highly present at our company — he welcomes each employee during orientation and truly cares about learning about our new hires — and runs frequent town hall meetings, which has created a culture of learning and growth.
What advice do you have for engineers looking to move into a leadership role?
Open communication and fostering a collaborative environment are very important, especially if you would like to move to a leadership role. Proactively share your team and personal achievements, especially if you think they could be helpful to other teams, and discuss and seek help at any time. At SOPHiA GENETICS, we have a great technical community, dedicated online collaborative channels, workshops and tech talks that all encourage knowledge sharing and build community spirit.
For me, another important aspect is trying to connect with the bigger picture, looking beyond your tasks and concentrating not only on “how” you are going to solve a problem but also seeking to understand how your work fits in the broader context of the product you are building. Not only will this make your work more meaningful, but it also gives you a better chance to create the right solution.
Honing technical skills, reading up on how to deliver better feedback, mastering active listening — there’s a lot engineers can do to prepare themselves for leadership roles and show management that they’re ready to lead. Dispatch CTO Rudberg has some additional advice that is both highly practical and actionable: Don’t wait until you’re promoted to start being a leader.
Give us a brief idea of your career trajectory at Dispatch. Where did you start, when did you get promoted into a leadership role and what did you do to get there?
Bouncing between engineering and product management earlier in my career exposed me to both the discipline of engineering along with the customer-facing side of product management. I always focused on the problems customers were facing and how we could solve them, and that resulted in career opportunities that were often lateral and forced me to get out of my comfort zone. The willingness to pivot and try something new — and even fail — didn’t derail my career path. It opened it up.
The willingness to pivot and try something new — and even fail — didn’t derail my career path. It opened it up.”
What surprised you most about your new leadership role? Please share a story that illustrates this realization, if possible.
At a previous company, shortly after becoming head of engineering, I learned I didn’t need to be right all the time. It’s more important to recognize your own biases and be open to others’ ideas. One time, our EVP of marketing was pushing for a better UX, and I pushed back saying, “We updated our UX recently, and customers aren’t asking for a new UX; they want features!” We ended up creating an awesome new UX that customers loved and that fueled future growth. I realized that I had a bias toward function over UX and that both are important.
What advice do you have for engineers looking to move into a leadership role?
There are lots of ways to be a leader, even if you aren’t in leadership. Leading by example, taking initiative, being willing to do something outside your job description and solving problems demonstrates leadership that colleagues inherently recognize. Leadership isn’t something that is bestowed by your title: It’s earned by your actions regardless of your role. If you do that, title and responsibility will naturally follow.
