Leadership
Engineering leadership practices for Staff engineers, Tech leads, and Engineering managers.
What Leadership Looks Like
At senior levels, leadership is less about code and more about:
- Making decisions visible — ADRs, design docs, tradeoff discussions
- Aligning stakeholders — Getting buy-in across teams and functions
- Navigating conflict — Escalating appropriately, resolving disagreements
- Building teams — Hiring well, developing talent, creating culture
- Managing performance — Feedback, growth plans, difficult conversations
Sections
Design Reviews & ADRs
How to run effective design reviews and create Architecture Decision Records that stick. Browse Design Reviews →
Stakeholder Alignment
Getting buy-in from product, business, and engineering stakeholders. Managing competing priorities. Browse Stakeholder Alignment →
Conflict & Escalation
When and how to escalate. Resolving technical disagreements. Navigating organizational friction. Browse Conflict & Escalation →
Hiring & Team Building
Interview practices, hiring rubrics, onboarding, and team composition. Browse Hiring & Team Building →
Performance Management
Feedback frameworks, growth conversations, performance reviews, and difficult conversations. Browse Performance Management →
Key Principles
- Clarity over consensus — Seek to be understood, not just agreed with
- Decisions over discussions — Every meeting should produce an outcome
- Context over control — Give teams the “why” and let them figure out the “how”
- Ownership over delegation — Own outcomes, not just tasks
- Growth over comfort — Stretch assignments and honest feedback
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