Engineering-Management

Somewhere around year eight or nine, the question stops being hypothetical. Both paths are available. The organisation is large enough that both exist as genuine roles, not just titles. You have to actually decide. I’ve been close to this decision twice. The first time, at the startup, it was resolved by circumstance — there was no EM role to take, so staff-track it was. The second time, in a larger organisation, it was a real choice. Here’s the framework I used and what I’d change about it. ...

The team I joined was called “platform engineering.” The mandate was loosely: make other engineering teams faster. The first three months were spent understanding what “faster” meant, which was more contentious than expected. ...