The Essential Guide for Engineering Managers: Mastering Technical Excellence, Team Growth, and Strategic Leadership

Being an engineering manager is about balancing technical expertise with human leadership, fostering a high-performing team, and driving strategic success. It’s no easy task. Between ensuring technical delivery, developing your team, and aligning with business goals, the role demands a diverse skill set and constant adaptability. This guide breaks down the five key areas that every engineering manager must master: technical excellence, team growth, culture, cross-functional collaboration, and strategic leadership. With actionable practices and examples, you’ll gain practical insights to overcome common challenges and elevate your impact as a leader.

For those looking to deepen their skills further, I’ve also included a reading list with must-read books that every engineering manager should explore.

TL;DR

This guide covers the five key focus areas for engineering managers to excel in their role:

1. Technical Excellence & Delivery: Ensure technical quality, timely project execution, and team accountability.

2. People Development & Team Growth: Mentor individuals, foster growth opportunities, and support team motivation.

3. Team Health & Culture: Build psychological safety, balance workloads, and promote a healthy team environment.

4. Cross-Functional Collaboration: Align team strategies with company goals and manage effective stakeholder communication.

5. Strategic Leadership & Innovation: Drive long-term planning, foster innovation, and create a clear strategic roadmap.

The guide also includes actionable practices, real-world examples, and a recommended reading list to develop the skills every engineering manager needs to succeed.

Recommended reading to further deepen your knowledge on these topics:

• Oren Ellenbogen, The Effective Engineering Manager (2017)

• Camille Fournier, The Manager’s Path (2017)

• Julie Zhuo, The Making of a Manager (2019)

• Michael Lopp, Managing Humans (2007)

• Kim Scott, Radical Candor (2017)

• Daniel Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (2009)

• Ed Catmull, Creativity, Inc. (2014)

• Patrick Lencioni, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (2002)

• Michael Watkins, The First 90 Days (2013)

1. Technical Excellence and Delivery

a. Ensure technical quality and innovation

• Practice: Host architecture planning and reviews (i.e. ADRs) to analyse designs and plan for architecture changes collaboratively before implementation. Make sure all the technical angles are covered. Example: Make sure ADRs are discussed in a dedicated and open forum, and its outcomes are respected.

• Practice: Make sure the team creates documentation that helps share and understand the architecture cross-team and cross-function. Example: ADRs, schemas, and other documentation are created and reviewed.

• Practice: Champion best practices, in a motivating way to the team so they are aligned to organization-wide practices. Incorporate big picture view into the discussions, where team may lack context.

• Practice: Conduct regular code reviews focusing on clarity, maintainability, and performance. Example: enforce team comments and ADR decisions are integrated into the code before PRs are approved.

• Practice: Introduce tech-debt tracking to focus on making sure refactoring and improvements are planned in the roadmap

b. Plan and execute project tasks and timelines

• Practice: refine and estimate tasks on dedicated ceremonies that precede the sprint plans, and can help plan even several sprints in advance

• Practice: prepare sprint plan proposals in advance to help the team review the plan and suggest corrections effectively

• Practice: Own and protect the team flow, creating an environment for deep work, reducing unnecessary distractions and context-switching

• Practice: Keep a buffer in timelines for unexpected issues, especially for new projects and unpredictable periods

• Practice: use tools to estimate the team velocity within a range (using 5+ sprints)

c. Remove blockers to ensure consistent delivery

• Practice: Maintain a blockers log and follow up directly with the person/department causing delays.

• Practice: Use escalation matrices to handle persistent blockers quickly by involving higher management.

• Practice: Build relationships with other teams (e.g., DevOps, QA) to preemptively solve cross-functional delays.

d. Ensuring accountability and ownership

• Practice: Set clear ownership of tasks or epics. Example: During sprint or interval planning, explicitly assign task/epic owners and ensure everyone knows who is accountable for delivery.

• Practice: Promote a “you own it, you run it” mindset. Encourage engineers to own their code through the entire lifecycle, including deployment, monitoring, and incident response.

• Practice: Give feedback tied to accountability. Recognize team members for owning successful outcomes and constructively discuss accountability gaps when things go wrong. Example: “I appreciate how you took ownership of Feature X from start to finish. Let’s address what we can improve for smoother collaboration next time.”

• Practice: Foster team-based accountability. Encourage peer collaboration and shared responsibility for collective goals. Example: encourage team-mates to collaborate in public channels and respond to threads, with proactive ownership.

2. People Development and Team Growth

a. Focus on mentoring and growth plans

• Practice: Understand individuals, their profiles and their motivators, so the most suitable career paths can be discussed and executed. Intentionally develop people to meet the team needs, in a balanced and performant way.

• Practice: Create individual development plans (IDPs) with timelines and check-in milestones.

• Practice: Conduct 1-on-1s biweekly to discuss personal goals and career aspirations, and use this time to check in on their progress on IDPs.

• Practice: Make sure feedback is given in a constructive way on an ongoing basis, and encourage reports to ask for feedback not only on the yearly review, but during the year as well.

b. Support professional development

• Practice: Use tools like LinkedIn Learning and other platforms to find and propose resources for their growth areas.

• Practice: Organize knowledge-sharing sessions where team members teach a skill or share a project they’ve worked on.

• Practice: Identify and promote utilizing the professional development budget for acquiring certifications in key technical areas. Example: AWS, Kubernetes, or Agile certifications.

• Practice: Offer stretch assignments—opportunities slightly outside their comfort zone to develop new skills.

c. Create opportunities for team-building events

• Practice: Host monthly team lunches or casual virtual events for remote teams.

• Practice: Organize game nights or collaborative challenges like escape rooms to foster bonding.

• Practice: Incorporate volunteering opportunities (e.g., hackathons for a cause) as a team-building exercise.

• Practice: Use team offsites to align on goals while promoting informal interactions.

d. Address individual motivation and contentment

• Practice: Use surveys to assess morale and identify pain points, or other methods that will help gauge motivation and contentment.

• Practice: Actively recognize achievements during stand-ups or all-hands meetings.

• Practice: Offer flexibility in schedules for personal needs. Example: Adjust timelines for a parent juggling work-life balance.

• Practice: Regularly ask for feedback on your management style and act on suggestions.

3. Team Health, Culture, and Practices

a. Lead by example in enforcing company practices

• Practice: Follow coding standards of the company/department and pair program occasionally to stay in touch with technical challenges.

• Practice: Demonstrate transparency in decision-making by explaining the “why” behind organizational changes.

• Practice: Monitor adherence to processes and address noncompliance immediately in a constructive way.

• Practice: Use checklists for onboarding new practices, new workflows, tools, or methodologies.

b. Promote psychological safety

• Practice: Create a “no blame” culture by focusing on the issue, not the person, during post-mortems.

• Practice: Always thank people for speaking up, even when their concerns are challenging.

• Practice: Provide structured feedback focusing on specific behaviors rather than personality traits.

• Practice: Encourage and supervise meaningful feedback on peer reviews of work and behaviours.

c. Balance workloads to prevent burnout

• Practice: Regularly review workloads during 1-on-1s and team meetings to identify overload.

• Practice: Limit overtime by setting clear boundaries and adaptive sprint planning.

• Practice: Encourage and enforce the use of vacation days.

• Practice: Rotate on-call responsibilities and ensure proper documentation for smoother handoffs (once this will be relevant)

d. Keep the team aligned with company values

• Practice: Encourage shoutouts and team appreciation

• Practice: Share examples of how team efforts contribute to company success during retrospectives. Example: Ask the PM to share data on usage and success of released features.

• Practice: Use real scenarios during team onboarding to emphasize company values.

e. Organize and lead creative agile ceremonies

• Practice: Add themes or creative elements to meetings, such as retrospectives. Example: Use metaphors like “weather reports” to assess team morale or challenges. There are several templates in Figjam.

• Practice: Introduce guest participants, like product or sales leaders, to give new perspectives.

• Practice: Use interactive tools like Figjam for remote teams to make planning sessions or other workshops more engaging, visual, clear and memorable.

4. Cross-Functional Collaboration and Strategy

a. Translate company goals into actionable strategies

• Practice: Hold kickoff meetings with stakeholders to align on objectives before starting a new project.

• Practice: Translate vague goals into SMART objectives for the team.

• Practice: Regularly revisit strategies in light of feedback or shifting priorities. Example: go to a priorities Figjam and rearrange the previous priorities to the current ones in a visual way.

b. Manage communication flows

• Practice: Use a team news channel to keep stakeholders updated on progress.

• Practice: Document key decisions in confluence documents and share with all relevant parties.

• Practice: Create a communication cadence with stakeholders, such as weekly status updates.

• Practice: Set up informal coffee chats with cross-functional or functional peers to build rapport.

c. Act as the team’s advocate with leadership

• Practice: Maintain data-driven reports in Jira/JellyFish on team performance to present to leadership.

• Practice: Escalate resource constraints with a clear business case for addressing them.

• Practice: Speak on behalf of the team in strategy meetings, ensuring their voice is heard.

• Practice: Proactively pitch ideas from the team to upper management.

5. Strategic Leadership and Innovation

a. Drive planning and execution of strategies

• Practice: Run a quarterly OKR alignment workshop to ensure the team’s goals align with company strategy.

• Practice: Schedule regular strategy syncs with product and leadership to revisit and adjust plans.

• Practice: Develop a roadmap that balances short-term wins with long-term investments.

b. Foster innovation by enabling experimentation

• Practice: Dedicate a percentage of team time to innovative or exploratory ideas and experimentation.

• Practice: Reward and celebrate innovation efforts, experiments that yield learning opportunities.

• Practice: Encourage team members to share tech blog posts or conference insights.

c. Manage upwards effectively

• Practice: Anticipate leadership questions by preparing status reports with key metrics and risks. Example: check and write updates in Atlas.

• Practice: Use the “SHARE model” in updates: Situation, Hindrance, Action, Results, Expectations.

• Practice: Present clear trade-offs when proposing decisions. Example: “If we focus on Feature X, Feature Y will be delayed by 2 weeks.”

d. Create a strategic roadmap

• Practice: Use visual tools like charts or roadmaps to provide clarity.

• Practice: Involve the team in clarifying sessions for long-term planning, and get their feedback.

• Practice: Maintain a living roadmap that evolves with changes in priorities or market needs.

• Practice: Share quarterly progress updates to keep the roadmap visible and aligned.

6. Hiring and Onboarding New Teammates

a. Streamline and Improve the Hiring Process

• Practice: Collaborate with recruiters and stakeholders to define clear job descriptions that align with team needs. Example: Focus on role-specific skills, culture fit, and growth potential instead of generic lists of requirements.

• Practice: Standardize the interview process with structured questions and scorecards to minimize bias. Example: Create a consistent set of technical, cultural, and situational questions used by all interviewers.

• Practice: Test candidates for real-world skills that match the team’s work. Example: Use coding assignments, system design problems, or pair-programming sessions to evaluate abilities effectively.

• Practice: Provide timely feedback and updates to candidates throughout the process. Example: Ensure quick communication post-interview to maintain a positive candidate experience.

  
  

b. Create a Structured Onboarding Plan

• Practice: Develop a 30-60-90 day onboarding plan to guide new hires through learning and contribution milestones. Example: In the first 30 days, focus on tools and team introductions; by 60 days, contribute to team goals; by 90 days, own small tasks independently.

• Practice: Provide a personalized onboarding checklist to cover tools, documentation, and processes. Example: Include steps like setting up development environments, accessing team tools (e.g., Slack, JIRA), and meeting stakeholders.

• Practice: Assign an onboarding buddy to help answer questions and provide day-to-day support. Example: A senior team member walks the new hire through workflows, code reviews, and early tasks.

• Practice: Schedule an onboarding review at the end of the first month to align on progress and address any challenges. Example: Use this review to set clear next steps and gather feedback on the onboarding process.

  
  

c. Foster Connections and Relationships

• Practice: Schedule introductory 1-on-1s between the new hire, their teammates, and key stakeholders. Example: Meetings with product managers, designers, or other teams help the new hire understand collaboration points.

• Practice: Organize a welcome lunch or virtual coffee in the first week to build rapport. Example: Use icebreakers or fun personal questions to help teammates get to know the new hire.

• Practice: Involve new hires early in team ceremonies (e.g., stand-ups, sprint planning). Example: Allow them to observe first before contributing fully to build their confidence.

• Practice: Celebrate the new hire’s first contributions publicly to recognize their progress and boost morale. Example: Announce their first pull request or demo during stand-ups or all-hands meetings.

  
  

d. Ensure a Smooth Transition to Productivity

• Practice: Start with low-risk, high-confidence tasks to build early wins. Example: Assign small bug fixes, documentation updates, or non-critical features.

• Practice: Conduct regular 1-on-1 check-ins to track progress, address concerns, and offer support. Example: Weekly check-ins to review tasks, answer questions, and celebrate achievements.

• Practice: Provide clear goals and expectations for their first quarter.Example: Share priorities, success criteria, and how their work ties into team and company objectives.

• Practice: Use feedback to continuously improve onboarding processes for future hires. Example: Send an onboarding survey after 3 months to identify gaps or areas for improvement.