Engineering Management

Leads one team of engineers, keeps its work moving, and learns the craft of management.

People & coaching

Holds regular one-on-ones with every direct report and follows through on what is discussed. Gives timely, specific feedback in both directions. Writes fair performance reviews grounded in the ladder, with guidance from their manager.

Delivery & execution

Runs planning for the team and keeps work sized, prioritized, and visible. Tracks commitments and raises risks early rather than after a slip. Ensures incidents are handled and followed up so they do not recur.

Technical judgement

Understands the systems the team owns well enough to ask good questions in design reviews and to spot when a plan is under-scoped. Still contributes small code changes or reviews where it helps the team, without becoming a bottleneck.

Collaboration & communication

Communicates internally and externally in a respectful manner. Is the first point of contact for Product and other teams about the team’s work. Listens to the priorities and concerns of others, acknowledges differing perspectives, and anticipates their reactions.

Hiring & team building

Participates in interviews and gives structured, evidence-based feedback on candidates. Onboards new engineers with a plan and a clear first project. Learns what motivates each person on the team.

Strategy & business impact

Understands what each project is for and who it helps, and can explain the team’s roadmap in those terms. Notices when work does not match stated priorities and asks.

Runs a healthy, predictable team independently and grows the engineers on it.

People & coaching

Builds a growth plan with each engineer that maps to the engineering ladder and revisits it quarterly. Coaches through difficult feedback and handles underperformance directly and humanely. Recognizes good work publicly and credits it accurately.

Delivery & execution

The team’s estimates are reliable and its releases are routine. Balances feature work, maintenance, and technical debt deliberately rather than by default. Removes blockers before they stall the team and escalates when they cannot.

Technical judgement

Sets the bar for engineering practice on the team: reviews, testing, documentation, and operational hygiene. Facilitates technical decisions so the team reaches a good answer, and breaks ties when it cannot.

Collaboration & communication

Actively participates in meetings and creates cross-team collaboration where necessary to address business goals. Negotiates scope and timing with Product using data rather than opinion. Keeps stakeholders informed without being asked.

Hiring & team building

Owns hiring for the team: writes the job description, runs a consistent interview loop, and closes candidates. Shapes team rituals and norms so the team improves how it works over time. Onboards new hires to productivity in weeks, not months.

Strategy & business impact

Ties the team’s roadmap to measurable outcomes and reports against them. Identifies work that does not earn its cost and proposes stopping it. Represents the customer’s problem, not just the ticket, in planning.

Leads two or more teams, or one large team through tech leads, and develops the leaders within them.

At this point, a person is mastering how effective they can be as a leader of a single team, and beginning to lead through others.

People & coaching

Develops tech leads and first-time managers: delegates real ownership, coaches on judgement, and gives them room to make recoverable mistakes. Calibrates performance consistently across teams. Plans succession so no team depends on one person.

Delivery & execution

Coordinates delivery across teams with shared dependencies and resolves contention over people and priorities. Sets up the metrics leads use to run their own teams, and reviews them. Owns the outcome when a cross-team effort slips.

Technical judgement

Sets technical direction for a product area alongside senior engineers: which systems to invest in, retire, or consolidate. Ensures architectural decisions are documented and that teams follow through on them. Identifies unaddressed issues and finds the appropriate owner.

Collaboration & communication

Is a trusted advisor to Product and business partners for their area, and represents their needs back to engineering. Works across organizational boundaries to unblock shared problems. Adjusts well to shifting priorities and helps teams do the same.

Hiring & team building

Designs team structure for the area: how work is divided, where boundaries sit, and when to split or merge teams. Builds a hiring pipeline rather than filling one role at a time. Raises the interviewing bar by training other interviewers.

Strategy & business impact

Owns a multi-quarter roadmap for their area and connects it to company objectives. Makes trade-offs between teams based on business value and explains them clearly. Anticipates the implications of decisions for adjacent teams.

Leads a group of teams through managers and is accountable for how a large part of the product is built and run.

At this point, the majority of one's time is spent scaling their own judgement to other leaders.

People & coaching

Manages managers: sets expectations for how they lead, coaches them through their hardest people decisions, and holds them to the same standard they hold their teams. Runs calibration for the group and ensures promotions and reviews are fair across it.

Delivery & execution

Establishes how the group plans, tracks, and reports work so that leadership can see status without asking. Builds operational discipline: on-call, incident review, and reliability targets are owned and met. Coordinates efforts across the group rather than allowing silos.

Technical judgement

Sponsors the large refactors, migrations, and platform investments that individual teams cannot justify alone, and sees them through. Ensures the group’s engineering standards are written down, taught, and enforced consistently.

Collaboration & communication

Partners with directors in Product, Design, and Operations as a peer to set shared priorities. Proactively communicates trade-offs and addresses conflict between teams before it escalates. Makes sure people across the group feel included and that their voices are heard.

Hiring & team building

Owns headcount planning and org design for the group. Hires and develops managers, not only engineers. Builds a culture where engineers can move between teams and where documentation and process outlive individuals.

Strategy & business impact

Owns outcomes for a significant product or platform area and is measured on business results, not activity. Drives measurable growth by affecting roadmaps, managing key metrics, and stopping work that does not deliver. Aligns the group’s technical strategy with business goals and surfaces where the two diverge.

Owns a technology discipline or major product line and develops the leaders who run it.

At this point, one is helping others be the best that they can be, removing roadblocks and meeting others where they are.

People & coaching

Mentors and actively drives the growth of managers and senior engineers across the organization, with consideration of each person’s career stage and trajectory. Develops proven approaches to leadership and replicates them across the organization so others may learn from and improve on them.

Delivery & execution

Sets clear and challenging goals for a portfolio of work and pursues them with enthusiasm. Critically reviews multiple plans and adjusts as needed. Ensures the organization can ship safely and predictably at its current scale and at the next one.

Technical judgement

Not only leads, but ideates new engineering efforts and provides guidance and vision. Owns the health of the technology portfolio: build versus buy, platform investments, and retirement of systems that no longer earn their keep. Maintains deep industry knowledge and awareness of the competitive landscape, and incorporates that analysis into strategy.

Collaboration & communication

Removes barriers by working with others around a shared need or customer benefit. Creates strategies that cross organizational boundaries to achieve broad business goals. Participates thoughtfully in customer and partner meetings. Anticipates the needs of those around them and is respectful in async hygiene: teammates can reach them or know their status during working hours.

Hiring & team building

Designs the organization: which teams exist, what they own, and who leads them. Owns the hiring bar for the discipline and builds the employer reputation that attracts candidates. Drives measurable growth by scaling and mentoring teams.

Strategy & business impact

Understands business objectives and incorporates them into the body of work. Proactively communicates and addresses necessary trade-offs with executive leadership. Partners with other leaders in the company to drive awareness, adoption, and effectiveness of what the organization builds.

Leads the technology organization, sets its multi-year strategy, and represents it to the company’s leadership.

People & coaching

Develops directors and the next generation of executives. Actively advocates for others internally and externally, making sure that their work is seen, and extends their social capital to aid other people. Sets the standard for how leaders in the organization treat people.

Delivery & execution

Owns the organization’s operating model: how it plans annually, budgets, staffs, and measures itself. Is accountable for reliability, security, and delivery across the whole technology portfolio, and for the systems that make those results repeatable.

Technical judgement

Sets the multi-year technical strategy in partnership with architects and directors, and decides where the organization places its biggest bets. Owns technology risk for the company, including security posture and business continuity.

Collaboration & communication

Carefully considers communication modality when collaborating, especially in tricky circumstances. Selects the appropriate forum for each message and builds relationships with peers across the executive team and the industry. Listens well when others express trade-offs against other priorities.

Hiring & team building

Owns the shape and size of the technology organization and its leadership bench. Builds a culture that scales beyond their direct influence and survives leadership changes. Ensures hiring, promotion, and compensation practices are consistent and fair.

Strategy & business impact

Owns technology’s contribution to company OKRs and is accountable to the executive team for it. Translates business strategy into technology investment and back again. Identifies industry-wide shifts that could unlock or threaten the business and positions the organization for them.

Owns technology as a function of the business and shapes company strategy as a member of executive leadership.

People & coaching

Builds and leads the executive team for technology, and is accountable for its health and succession. Sponsors leadership development across the company, not only within technology. Models the culture the company says it wants.

Delivery & execution

Is accountable for every technology outcome the company depends on, and for the governance that keeps them visible to the board and executive team. Keeps the organization unblocked at the highest level and raises concerns to company leadership when it is stuck.

Technical judgement

Owns the company’s long-term technology position: platforms, partnerships, acquisitions, and the architecture decisions that will constrain the business for a decade. Commits to a technical vision once set and holds the organization to it.

Collaboration & communication

Organizes and facilitates productive feedback between technology and the rest of the company, including the board. Brings up conflict at the executive level in a productive manner and creates alignment between company goals and how execution is carried out.

Hiring & team building

Owns the technology organization’s budget, headcount, and structure as part of company planning. Decides where the company builds capability, partners, or buys. Ensures the organization can attract and retain leaders at every level.

Strategy & business impact

Shapes company strategy, not only technology strategy, and is accountable for results at the company level. Represents technology to customers, partners, investors, and the market. Commits to the company vision once set and aligns the organization behind it.