Engineering Team Management Skills

Struggling teams don't need another framework. They need a leader. I've taken over bad teams filled with good people. I learned to embrace three themes for a successful reset: ✅ Change requires honoring the past and building the future ✅ Trust is rebuilt through actions, not just words ✅ Culture lives in daily micro-decisions Here are the 8 lessons that make it work: 1/ Honor the Past ↳ Don't play the blame game ↳ Value those who stayed through hard times 2/ Name What Stops Here ↳ Be specific about what changes ↳ Get them to help rewrite the new rules 3/ Own Your Role ↳ Acknowledge where you fell short ↳ Build trust through self-accountability 4/ Reset the Target ↳ Paint a clear 6-month vision ↳ Define what excellence looks like 5/ Define Winning Behaviors ↳ Skip empty corporate speak ↳ Make expectations crystal clear 6/ Create New Rituals ↳ Build sacred team habits ↳ Engineer connection, especially remote 7/ Embrace Iterations ↳ Progress isn't linear ↳ Celebrate small wins, learn from setbacks 8/ Rebuild Trust Daily ↳ Start from trust at zero ↳ Do what you say you'll do 9/ Catch Them Winning ↳ Be specific about what you see ↳ What gets recognized gets repeated Want more detail?  Flip through the full playbook below. Remember:  Your team likely knows the path forward. They're just waiting for you to walk it first. If this was helpful: 📌 Please follow Dave Kline for more ♻️ Share to help other leaders turn things around.

Delegation isn't just about freeing up your time. It's about helping your team grow. The best leaders understand this. They know that: 🎯 Every task is a teaching moment 🎯 Every project builds confidence 🎯 Every handoff grows capability But here's the key: it must be done right. Let me share some frameworks to delegate effectively: 1. The Control Spectrum There's a spectrum from "complete control"  to "full autonomy." → Tell: You decide and inform → Sell: You decide but explain why → Consult: You get input but decide → Agree: Decide together → Advise: They decide with your guidance → Inquire: They own it, you stay informed → Delegate: Full ownership transfer 2. The RACI Blueprint Smart delegation isn't just about "who does what."  It's about clarity in four key areas: → Responsible: Who does the work → Accountable: Who owns the outcome → Consulted: Who provides input → Informed: Who needs updates 3. The Leadership Truth Real delegation is about moving from: → Doing the work → To managing the work → To developing other leaders This is how you scale yourself and your impact. 4. The Game-Changing Habits → Be clear about expectations → Match people to tasks based on potential → Provide context, not just instructions → Set checkpoints without micromanaging → Stay available without hovering → Recognize effort and coach for growth The real power of delegation? It's not about having less on your plate. It's about putting more on others' resumes. Start with opportunities, not just tasks. Because true leadership isn't measured by what you accomplish alone. It's measured by who you help grow. ♻️Find this helpful? Repost for your network. Follow Amy Gibson for practical leadership tips.

Context Engineering (CE) is an organic evolution of Prompt Engineering (PE). As we explore different agentic architectures, it’s becoming increasingly important to define how business context, taxonomies, and even user preferences are shared across agents. A common approach today is to pass this information through one context window, and with ever-expanding context sizes, this feels plausible. Yet for complex business workflows, bundling everything into a single context soon becomes infeasible. Managing context itself becomes a core challenge. We also know that context window size matters only up to a point, as knowledge retention decays even within range. This degradation varies by persona, but data scientists often feel it most acutely. They juggle massive data dictionaries, mappings, and business taxonomies. All of these form the context needed for LLMs to generate accurate insights. Emerging techniques like RAG (with chunking and vector databases), memory management (short-term vs. long-term), compression, and time- or state-based sliding contexts are all part of this new discipline. There will surely be more approaches coming in. As agentic systems mature, mastering these methods will be essential. Context “engineering” is the next prompt “engineering”. #ExperienceFromTheField #WrittenByHuman

No company can give you the most exciting, challenging, and impactful project around the year, so the ups and downs in the kind of work you'd get are expected. On average, you would get 4 months of high-impact work, 4 months of moderate work, and 4 months of mundane work in a year. Instead of feeling bad about it, leverage the time and energy to advance your career and secure more impactful projects in the future. Remember, the most important and impactful project is not given to the smartest engineer, but it is given to the one holding the track record of getting things done well and on time. The trust you instill by doing grunt work or maintenance would and should put you in a position to get the most impactful project. Given that the maintenance work does not eat up a lot of your mental bandwidth, use this breathing room to identify more significant problems within your organization. Spend time digging deeper into systemic issues, find a solution, create a project plan, and present it to the leadership. This showcases your initiative and capacity for impactful contributions. When I was given some mundane work, I used the additional time to figure out the root cause of recurring outages and proposed an architecture change to solve it once and for all. Because I was thorough with my homework, it became a no-brainer for leadership to approve. You can also use this time to enhance your visibility and influence within your organization. The easiest of all is to use this time to hold tech talks and mentor early engineers. These interactions will make it more likely that you'll be top of mind when exciting projects are conceived. To be honest, this is what I did at all of my stints across all the companies I have worked at. I gave talks on some of the lessons learned from past projects, new industry trends, or introductions to new technologies. This helped me establish a good reputation within the org. Remember, every phase cannot be exciting, but it is important to know how to leverage it well. Impactful projects will not be served to you on a silver platter, you need to earn it. ⚡ I keep writing and sharing my practical experience and learnings every day, so if you resonate then follow along. I keep it no fluff. youtube.com/c/ArpitBhayani #AsliEngineering #CareerGrowth

Your Engineering Team is Failing – And It’s Your Fault. 🚨  When an engineering team struggles, leaders often blame hiring, tools, deadlines, or even the engineers themselves. But the harsh truth?  💡 A failing engineering team is a leadership failure first.  If your team is slow, disengaged, or constantly firefighting, ask yourself:  ❌ Do they lack a clear technical vision? (Because you haven’t set one.)   ❌ Are they constantly stuck in bottlenecks? (Because you haven’t removed them.)   ❌ Is there technical debt piling up? (Because you prioritized speed over sustainability.)   ❌ Are top engineers leaving? (Because the best talent won’t stick around for bad leadership.)  Great teams don’t happen by accident—they are built, mentored, and empowered. The best engineering leaders:  ✅ Set clear technical direction. (No more shifting priorities every week.)   ✅ Hire for long-term fit, not quick fixes. (One wrong hire can derail a team.)   ✅ Create a culture of ownership. (Engineers should feel they are solving problems, not just writing code.)   ✅ Balance innovation with stability. (Cutting-edge is great, but maintainability wins in the long run.)  If your engineering team is underperforming, don’t look at them first—look in the mirror.  What’s the biggest leadership mistake you’ve seen in engineering teams? Let’s discuss. 👇  #EngineeringLeadership #TechHiring #SoftwareDevelopment #Scalability #BuildTheRightTeam 🚀

I've met thousands of high-ranked leaders throughout my consulting career, and there is 1 distinguishing factor that sets apart those who have achieved both: built a high-performing team but also fostered an inclusive culture within it. That factor is 👉 Intellectual Humility. Leaders who possess this invaluable trait say to me: 💬 "Oh, I didn't know about it. Tell me more." They approach every learning opportunity with curiosity, recognizing the infinite nature of knowledge. Embracing the unknown, they seek to expand their understanding and grow as individuals. Their intellectual humility drives them to actively bridge gaps in their knowledge. 💬 "Even if it's hard for me to understand, I know it's important for other people." Acknowledging diverse perspectives, these leaders cultivate empathy and understanding. They value the enrichment that comes from diversity, fueling innovation within their teams. By prioritizing the experiences and viewpoints of others, they create a culture where everyone feels valued and heard. 💬 "I see now I made mistakes in the past, and now I know how to learn from them." These leaders embrace self-reflection and vulnerability. They view mistakes as growth opportunities, inspiring their teams to embrace a culture of psychological safety. Learning from failures becomes a celebrated part of their journey, fostering a resilient environment. 💬 "We're all so different, and I will leverage this uniqueness as our superpower." These leaders not only embrace diversity but also celebrate it. They cultivate an inclusive environment that empowers each team member to contribute their talents, experiences, and perspectives. By unlocking the full potential of their teams, they foster a sense of belonging and drive collective success. 📚 Research also supports the need for such leaders: ✏ Intellectual humility predicts mastery behaviors (Porter et al., 2020) ✏ Intellectual humility is related to a growth mindset of intelligence (Schumann, 2017) ✏ Intellectual humility is associated with high levels of engagement (Meagher et al., 2020) and employee satisfaction (Krumrei-Mancuso et al., 2021) By embodying curiosity, empathy, learning from mistakes, and celebrating diversity, leaders unleash the potential of their teams. Together, they achieve new heights of collaboration, innovation, and success. ________________________________________ Are you looking for more leadership tips and DEI content like this?  📨 Join my free DEI Newsletter: https://lnkd.in/duxDH3Q7

How Engineering Managers Stay Technical Without Writing Code? When I first became an engineering manager, I had a big fear: Would I lose my technical skills? I still wanted to be “hands-on,” so I did what most managers do—I reviewed pull requests, debugged issues, and even committed small fixes. It felt good. But then I realized something: I wasn’t adding value—I was slowing my team down. Engineering managers don’t need to write code every day. But they do need to understand, guide, and remove roadblocks so their teams can move faster. Here’s how I stay technical without getting in the way: 1. Walk the Developer’s Path in their shoes Imagine walking a hiking trail with no signs, fallen trees blocking the way, and a narrow, rocky path. That’s how software development feels when workflows are broken. So, I go through the developer journey myself—setting up a new environment, deploying code, or debugging an issue. I take notes on every pain point and work with the team to fix them. 2. Find the Hidden Time Sinks Every team has work that keeps the lights on —bug fixes, incident response, and maintenance. It’s like having a slow leak in a boat. You can keep bailing out water, or you can find the hole and patch it. Instead of just assigning busy work, I look at patterns: What’s slowing us down? What keeps breaking? Fixing those core issues saves hours of future work. 3. Feel the Pain of the System A doctor can’t diagnose a problem without talking to the patient. Likewise, an engineering manager can’t truly understand system issues without feeling them firsthand. Taking occasional on-call shifts helps me see where documentation is lacking, where alerts are too noisy, and where engineers need better tools. Fixing those things makes life easier for the whole team. 4. Be the Librarian of Knowledge (a new Role) A team without good documentation is like a library with no index—valuable information exists, but no one can find it. I make sure our team has a living history—design docs, postmortems, and best practices. Engineers don’t waste time solving problems we’ve already figured out. 5. Go Back to School I set aside time to become an engineer again—writing and shipping code like a new hire. It was like stepping onto the factory floor after years in management. 6. Invest in Future-Proofing – Instead of getting lost in the latest frameworks, they ask: Is this decision setting us up for success five years from now? Bad managers fight to stay technical by micromanaging engineers. Great managers stay technical by making their teams more effective. You don’t need to write code every day. You just need to clear the path so your team can build better, faster, and with fewer obstacles. Detailed article published before my post by Chaitali Narla ( https://lnkd.in/g8bBnm9U) . I highly recommend reading to get the much more depth understanding. #TechManagement #DeveloperExperience #EngineeringManagers

Too many engineers walk onto a construction site and simply look. But supervision isn’t about looking — it’s about seeing. They think that showing up in a reflective vest, nodding along, and following instructions is enough. It’s not. On site, your greatest asset isn’t your title — it’s your awareness. Can you see what others miss? Can you understand the technical reality unfolding before you? Supervision isn’t passive. Supervision is an advanced skill. A muscle. A responsibility. If you're supervising engineering works, you’re not there to decorate the site in a reflector jacket. You’re the eyes. The judgment. The first line of quality control. That means: ✅ Knowing what’s right — and why it’s right. ✅ Understanding procedures, not just memorizing them. ✅ Reading specs until they live at your fingertips. ✅ Noticing errors before they become disasters. Supervision is leadership. And leadership demands knowledge. Do you know how rebars should be placed? Can you spot incorrect stirrup angles? Can you tell how many PTR roller passes are needed for compaction? If not, it’s time to learn. f you want to grow fast as a site or project engineer, sharpen your supervision instincts. 1. Know the standard specs — don’t guess, read. 2. Seek to understand the “why” behind site instructions. Ask questions smartly. 3. Observe how experienced engineers give direction, and the reason behind it. 4. Train your eye to notice what others miss. Do not assume. 5. Practice connecting theory with what's happening on-site. And above all — read the damn specs. You won’t master this in one day. But in one year, with intent and discipline, you’ll know more than any classroom could teach you. So start today. Don't just flaunt the reflectors on site. Do not be a passive, invisible GE! Be sharp. Be curious. Be the engineer who sees. That’s the one who leads.

I've trained 10,000s of engineers - from developers in Brazil to Fortune100 teams in US to government employees in UK. These 8 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝘀𝗲𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗲𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀: Here's the thing - AI is reshaping how we build and deploy software. But it's not replacing the engineers who have these skills. If you're a manager, you need to know what truly matters. And if you're an engineer, these are your career insurance. 1) 𝗔𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗕𝗶𝗮𝘀 ↳ Most engineers wait for perfect requirements. ↳ Top performers release fast and iterate based on actual user feedback. 2) 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 ↳ They don't just manage their calendar - they protect their focus. ↳ They say no to unnecessary meetings and protect deep work time. 3) 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 ↳ They translate technical complexity into clear language. ↳ No jargon. No waffle. Just clarity that aligns everyone on a team. 4) 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗖𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘆 ↳ They never stop asking "why is it built this way?" ↳ They question existing architectures and dig below the surface. 5) 𝗗𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 ↳ Motivation disappears. Systems stay. ↳ They build habits that keep them shipping even on rough days. 6) 𝗔𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 ↳ They break complex systems into understandable parts. ↳ They spot patterns others miss and make decisions with logic, not gut feel. 7) 𝗕𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗔𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 ↳ Not everyone needs an MBA, but understanding the business impact of technical decisions is crucial. ↳ These engineers connect their work to actual valuable outcomes. 8) 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 ↳ Building trust across teams - dev, ops, security, product. ↳ They persuade without manipulation and get buy-in that moves projects forward. AI can generate code and automate deployments. But it can't replicate these human skills. 👀 If you're hiring engineers, look for these traits. 🧪 If you're building your career, start developing them now. They're what make you irreplaceable. Want more real talk about DevOps careers? Subscribe to our newsletter: https://bit.ly/4ndJVEy ♻️ Repost this to help engineers in your network thrive.

If your one-on-ones are primarily status updates, you're missing a massive opportunity to build trust, develop talent, and drive real results. After working with countless leadership teams across industries, I've found that the most effective managers approach 1:1s with a fundamentally different mindset... They see these meetings as investments in people, not project tracking sessions. Great 1:1s focus on these three elements: 1. Support: Create space for authentic conversations about challenges, both professional and personal. When people feel safe discussing real obstacles, you can actually help remove them. Questions to try: "What's currently making your job harder than it needs to be?" "Where could you use more support from me?" 2. Growth: Use 1:1s to understand aspirations and build development paths. People who see a future with your team invest more deeply in the present. Questions to explore: "What skills would you like to develop in the next six months?" "What parts of your role energize you most?" 3. Alignment: Help team members connect their daily work to larger purpose and meaning. People work harder when they understand the "why" behind tasks. Questions that create alignment: "How clear is the connection between your work and our team's priorities?" "What part of our mission resonates most with you personally?" By focusing less on immediate work outputs and more on the human doing the work, you'll actually see better performance, retention, and results. Check out my newsletter for more insights here: https://lnkd.in/ei_uQjju #executiverecruiter #eliterecruiter #jobmarket2025 #profoliosai #resume #jobstrategy #leadershipdevelopment #teammanagement