Tactical playbooks, scripts and frameworks. No theory, no fluff, just what works on Monday morning.
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You got promoted because you were the best engineer. That is the worst reason there is to make someone a manager, and the most common. Here are the four that follow.
I asked engineering leaders on LinkedIn for the management books worth reading. Here is the full list, grouped by the problem each one solves, with an honest take on which to read first.
You get promoted for doing the work. Then the work stops being the job. Most of what goes wrong in a new engineering manager's first 90 days comes back to that one shift, and sitting with it is harder than it sounds.
Turn a number into a target and people will hit the number without doing the thing the number was supposed to measure. James Charlesworth has watched it happen at company after company. Here is how to measure engineering teams without breaking them.
Your biggest strength as a manager and your worst blind spot are usually the same instinct seen from two angles. Here are the five types of engineering manager, and the shadow each one cannot see in itself.
John Weatherford spent years at Yelp building teams the right way. The manager README, treating people like adults, and the peer group that quietly produced more VPs than any other meeting at the company.
