What does a Director of Engineering do?

https://www.hashtagcoder.dev/blog/director-of-engineering

by shalotelli • 6 years ago

307 107 6 years ago

hashtagcoder.dev

bojo4• 6 years ago

Good insights.

Small nitpick, I have no idea what the terms "EOS" and "L10 meetings" mean.

sunnyP• 6 years ago

EOS = Entrepreneurial Operating System https://www.eosworldwide.com/what-is-eos

L10 = Level 10 Meeting https://www.eosworldwide.com/blog/what-the-heck-is-a-level-1...

bojo4• 6 years ago

Thanks!

ttymck• 6 years ago

Unless I'm missing something, the "WHAT THE HECK IS A LEVEL 10 MEETING?" post doesn't actually answer "what the heck is a level 10 meeting?".

chrisweekly• 6 years ago

Haha, I had a consulting client where a VP exec kept referring to "L10 meetings" (which were for the leadership group only), and the devs thought it was an attempted abbrev like "i18n" for "internationalization", or "a11y" for "accessibility".

shalotelli10• 6 years ago

EOS is the framework my company uses to keep every department rowing in the same direction. It's been an interesting experience, especially for me with a background in engineering in learning to put my business management hat on and having to focus a lot more on non technical initiatives. You can find out more about it here if you're interested https://www.eosworldwide.com/

One of my favorites quotes in the book "The 5 dysfunctions of a team" is

A friend of mine, the founder of a company that grew to a billion dollars in annual revenue, best expressed the power of teamwork when he once told me, “If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.”

bojo4• 6 years ago

Interesting, thanks for clarifying. I run a small 8 person software team in a software-is-secondary business, so articles like yours are helpful for me as I discover new terms and approaches to leadership.

bobbytherobot3• 6 years ago

Jumping on here as this is a widespread issue in tech writing.

"The first time you use an initialism or acronym in your document, the words should be written out with the short form placed in parentheses immediately after."

shalotelli10• 6 years ago

Thanks for this tip. Writing in this form definitely doesn't come naturally to me so it's great to be learning not just about the topic but also on how to better my communication.

karatestomp• 6 years ago

There's a whole tag to handle it in HTML. Don't have to reserve it for only the first instance.

tibbon• 6 years ago

Rocks. I also don't know what rocks are.

Well, except things in the dirt.

shalotelli10• 6 years ago

I used to be told that I should be setting additional goals aside from my day to day work. “What more are you going to contribute this quarter?” That definitely didn’t make sense to me. What does make sense is using the SMART framework to define things I’ve identified as absolutely crutial and most likely the things I’m going to be doing anyway. The benefit is by verbalizing them somewhere I can start digging into if what I’m planning to do cures a symptom or the problem itself. It also allows me and my peers to track it and help keep me motivated and on track. Finally it holds me accountable so that I continue to provide value. The end result is that my contributions and value to the team are public and I’m able to feel a bit less of an imposter.

nathanaldensr• 6 years ago

The answer varies wildly based on the size of the company. At smaller companies, they tend to oversee hiring, technical work, and act as managers, but don't necessarily have budgetary authority. At larger companies, they tend to have more authority and involvement in larger strategic efforts; they tend to be "managers of managers."

shalotelli10• 6 years ago

Totally agree. My experience has been interesting because I've grown with the company in this position so I've seen both sides of it. I'm now getting to the point where I'm elevating myself out of the day-to-day "now" and focusing on future strategy and whats "next"

seattle_spring• 6 years ago

Absolutely this. There's a huge difference between a real Director of Engineering at a FANG-size company versus a "Director of Engineering" who is just some kid who decided to call their side-project a startup and give themself a hugely inflated title.

dkarl• 6 years ago

There are also FAANG-sized corporations that give director titles to individual contributors because it's the only way to get them into a salary band where they can be paid a competitive rate.

ska• 6 years ago

It's not as simple as company size, it's responsibility and authority.

Necessarily the nature of the job changes a bit if you are a the head of an organizational unit of 600, or 60, or 6. But it changes fundamentally if you have ultimate budget authority, hiring/firing, etc.

Agree there are a lot of somewhat ridiculous titles in early stage startups (ever seen a 5 person company with 3 "C" levels?) but even when you are small (but growing) there is a role distinction between exec and non-exec roles, and there is a difference worth drawing between director-in-name and director-in-fact positions.

If you are truly acting as a director of engineering, I'd expect you have broad authority to act; you don't ultimately decide your budget or technical goals (but you should be involved in determining both) but within those constraints you have most of the decision making responsibility for how & who.

tcbasche• 6 years ago

The case in between is the developer who's been with the company the longest (>2 years) and so just gets bubbled up the chain into the CTO role while the dev team consists entirely of graduates/juniors

adrr• 6 years ago

Depends on the company. When I was director at a large social network, i didn’t have much authority around my budget or headcount. That was made by the VP. When i was a director at a startup which was the highest technology position, I had full authority over everything. I also drove the roadmap and attended board meetings.

The real way to determine your role and authority is measuring from top down. How many steps are you away from the CEO. Titles don’t mean much.

encoderer• 6 years ago

Great write up on a vaguely understood job.

I would add, at a larger company, the director also takes on a lot of the burden of organizational navigation/representation.

lasermike026• 6 years ago

Foster teamwork and communication. Fix or help fix problems as they happen. Engage teams to plan and deliver. Deliver on organizational responsibilities, objectives, and goals. Listen then speak.

stuff4ben• 6 years ago

I really enjoyed this post, thanks for the writeup! Wondering if I can shoehorn some of these concepts (EOS, L10) into my dev team which is a part of a large enterprise?

shalotelli10• 6 years ago

It fits really well into agile because they deal with different aspects. For me it's just a way to empower my team and keep them unblocked to do what they need to do. It starts with trust and goes from there. If you know your team, you trust them and they're the right people in the right seats you know you're heading in the right direction. We've created a culture where they manage me (meaning they tell me what they need from me not the other way around) and they're accountable to each other not to me (if the DBA needs time off, he makes sure his team mates have what they need - it doesn't effect me except for tracking outputs and if I'm setting them up with what they need then this is already handled anyway). If you use some of these concepts properly success will become a side effect of having an efficient and happy team.

bobbytherobot3• 6 years ago

I don't see "retention" of talent in here but "recruiting" is. Is your team rapidly growing, or do you have high turnover? Recuriting is a costly activity compared to retention.

shalotelli10• 6 years ago

Really good observation. I think retention has become a side effect of happiness, culture and efficiency. We've had low turnover so it really didn't cross my mind because I'm not actively trying to convince people to stay. My takeaway here though is to not take people for granted. Although we have regular 1-1s, sometimes people don't talk about the little things that chip away at them and become big unless they're explicitly asked.

lliamander6• 6 years ago

I used to think hard work leads to promotion. This is because I didn't understand why different positions exist outside of a title change. Now I see things a bit differently. If an individual on my team is working hard, I'm going to keep them where they are because they're getting the job done. Rather, I'm looking to elevate my 10x engineer - not the one that's the doing their job well but the one thats mentoring those around them to do their job well too.

An excellent point. This misconception that hard work leads to promotion is widespread, and management doesn't often do enough to dispel it (if they are even aware of it themselves). I think an important step here is to identify the concrete behaviors and competencies needed to advance. In the words of Randall Koutnik: "What does it take to succeed at [your] company beyond 'hard work'?"[0].

[0]https://rkoutnik.com/articles/Questions-to-ask-your-intervie...

Traster2• 6 years ago

I'll tell you what amazes me: If you look at any reasonably large engineering organisation they will likely have guidance published from HR stating what the criteria are for different job roles, and they'll actually be pretty similar across different organisations.

You might be a Senior Software Engineer at one place but called a Staff engineer at another place, but they're broadly comparable, and the seniority criteria show a very clear progression: the more senior you get the more influence you are showing across the organisation, whether that means managing larger projects, mentoring other staff, consulting with other teams on best known practices, or influencing other parts of the company inter-discplinary projects.

Almost every large organisation will have a neat table telling you exactly what attributes you need to show. They all show that progression - more influence on the organisation as a whole.

And yet every single review cycle there's always a portion of engineers who think they deserve a promotion because their personal work was high quality. It's like they haven't read the job spec of the job they're applying for. It's amazing.

bluGill• 6 years ago

What is more amazing is their managers who have figured out how to work the system are not telling people that. Your job should be helping your people get where they want to go so if they can't get there tell them why.

I've wasted years working hard and trying to gain influence only to realize that the areas I was getting influence in didn't matter to anyone so I was condemned to get good jobs but no promotion. It has been hard to let go and find a path with real influence. Where I was going is one of those areas that only seen if not done. Lesson learned though : the guy who created the bad design requiring them to come in right before release and work a weekend is rewarded above the guy who wrote good code that works...

alexandercrohde2• 6 years ago

Meh, it's been my experience that those charts are borderline worthless. The truth is promotions are probably only fractionally about performance. A lot of it is budget, creating pr/"buzz" [even if it's proportional to impact], did you happen to be on a revenue-generating team, is there any political risk to promoting you (e.g. would you say the type of things I'm saying right now?).

Maybe google or something is different (and I doubt it), but that's less than 1% of engineers.

JoshTriplett• 6 years ago

It's like they haven't read the job spec of the job they're applying for.

Amazingly, some organizations do not hand every new hire that document on day 1, so that they understand what different roles entail. Sometimes managers don't even know about that document, and discover its existence because someone asks about it, who in turn was told by a mentor who happened to know about it.

lliamander6• 6 years ago

I've worked at those kinds of organizations, read the documents, put in the work, and got promoted...by switching companies :).

In my experience, the companies that do have those documents (and not all do) don't actually really use them or make much reference to them in 1-on-1's or reviews. That's because management's perspective is that they are interested in how well you are doing at the job they hired you for, not how you are doing in the job you want.

In the few cases where I've seen people promoted within a company (which pales in comparison to how often people get promoted by switching companies) It was always because management felt that there was a new role that needed filling. Certainly some of the time those people earned those promotions (though not all the time) but the actual driving factor here was (perceived) business need.

cozos• 6 years ago

Would you rather have your organization be filled with engineers that output high quality work or so-called Staff Engineer influencers?

Personally I would rather most to be the former. Doers are important (probably the most important) and should be rewarded, IMO. Hard work and no promotion leads to quitting.

Getting promoted to Staff etc is more about being put on important projects, building relationships with managers from other teams (i.e. reminding them you exist come Promo committee), and tooting your own horn a lot. IMO, this is not necessarily related to how good you are and perhaps not as valuable to the organization as much as we think.

Personally, I've gotten promoted (or recently, not laid off) basically because my team was selected to work on the fancy new project. Probably some other guy in a different team didn't get a promotion because he was just on the wrong project.

alexbanks• 6 years ago

And yet every single review cycle there's always a portion of engineers who think they deserve a promotion because their personal work was high quality. It's like they haven't read the job spec of the job they're applying for. It's amazing.

I have found in my career that most engineers don't read anything. Emails, HR docs, AC, nothin. The first to get mad and the last to think that they could adjust their behavior.

(I am an engineer).

Spooky232• 6 years ago

You have to work hard at the right work.

Many people make the mistake of working like a donkey, or burrowing themselves as essential parts of some process.

justicezyx• 6 years ago

Nah, the idea that "one that's mentoring those around them to do their job well" can lead to promotion is also just an example out of many.

My experience is that the biggest promotion driver is always the product success. And the product success also vary between organizations. I've seen a huge project promoted people in the process, but in the end was entirely canceled and delivered minimal value, while the promoted folks wisely left the team. While in other places, if the product ends not getting their customers happy, execution excellence is not rewarded much.

If product success is not easy to get, the team can be very excellent, but wont have much growth space in seniority. That has nothing to do with their personal skills etc.

7thaccount• 6 years ago

I think hardwork generally does lead to promotion up to a certain point. My company will allow you to go from a 1 to a 2 on good contributions alone and time. Going from 2 to Senior takes additional time, but is more than just technical. It's about how well you can train other members of the team, work on special projects of difficulty, work without direct guidance, give regular feedback to management, work across department barriers, deal with customers...etc. It also helps if you're persistent.

irrational3• 6 years ago

I don't understand why people want to be promoted. I've worked for the same company for nearly 2 decades. I'm basically doing the same job as when I started. I don't want more work or more responsibilities. I'm happy staying in my groove. In that time my pay has more than doubled. Recently my boss informed me that they were giving me a 15% raise. I didn't ask for a raise. I don't have to do any more work. Frankly I've felt for awhile that they are paying me way more than I deserve and I was astonished that they wanted to give me 15% more out of the blue. Maybe I lucked into an unusual situation, but I work for a huge Fortune 150 company and my situation seems fairly typical here.

technicaldonut• 6 years ago

From my experience that is indeed a somewhat unusual situation.

The companies I have worked for in the past and those where friends and family work tend give "raises" to match inflation and sometimes a bit on top.

There are also plenty of companies that dont raise your salary at all unless you get promoted.

I think that is part of why many people advise new graduates to change jobs every 2-3 years for some time as often the salary of the newly hired tends to reflect the current market rate.

I have had instances where newly hired people with less experience than colleagues received 20% more salary simply because they were new. This is for the same job and productivity level.

Your standpoint on promotions is perfectly fine and even healthy. Not all people want to get promoted and as long as your are comfortable in your job and like, or at least not mind, doing it, thats okay.

Your boss and the company you work for may very well genuinely care about you. They may have also raised your salary because your are extremely knowledgeable in your area and cant afford to have you leave the company. They could also very much underpay your current market rate and raised your salary to match what other people are earning in that position. No one except your boss can answer that.

Leaving a company that you like working at is a risk and can backfire. I did it once and regretted my decision. Other times it can be a great decision and expose you to new things that you may end up liking even more than your current job.

At the end of the day that decision is squarely on you.

sibeliuss• 6 years ago

I feel the exact same way. When I have 1:1s with my manager the topic of career progression often comes up and I kinda feel bad saying I'm perfectly happy as a sr engineer who is dependable and does good work.

Thorentis• 6 years ago

I would be happy to be in the same role for the rest of my career if it meant that: a) I got to work on different projects across my career b) The company I work for was happy to invest in my development and learning (through paying for courses/certs/self-learning time and importantly c) I got regular pay rises.

Sadly, the order I listed those is in decreasing order of how likely each company is to offer them. So many companies are reluctant to give out pay rises (and I'm not talking 2% inflation rises that only ensure you stay above water). There's almost this unspoken principle where if you agreed to do a job 5 years ago for one price, why should you want more to do the same job 5 years later? There's no notion that maybe your institutional knowledge is worth something, or you're a better engineer now, or the company will be worse off if you leave vs. if they hire somebody else.

And so, people more often than not move companies to get a raise. Gone are the days where you can start at a company as a grad, and work there till you retire. I wish those days were still here, but they're not. Every time I got a raise it was because I moved jobs.

Lammy• 6 years ago

That’s fine as long as you are able to keep that position but leaves you increasingly vulnerability to chance events as the years pass. Entire companies have imploded despite being made to appear healthy, like Enron. A personality conflict with one well-connected person could have them try to push you out. Any number of things. If two hypothetical people competed in the job market with similar skill sets but a twenty year age difference I know which one I’d expect to see hired first.

I’m sure that’s not actually true for you anyway since it would be really hard to not gain an immense breadth of knowledge from twenty years of constant industry exposure. Breadth might not pay as well as depth, but you probably aren’t giving yourself enough credit if it felt so gradual.

nickm12• 6 years ago

This is a good attitude. Promotion is not just "more of the same" but is really moving to a different job and it may not be a job you like better.

That said, people want to get promoted largely for some combination of increased status, power, and income. I don't think it's worth taking a job you dislike for these things, though. Life's too short.

KKKKkkkk1• 6 years ago

I think it's time that our industry retired the notion of the 10x engineer the same way we don't use the terms "rock star" and "ninja" anymore.

lliamander6• 6 years ago

Variability of productivity between engineers is a real thing. Even when I've been on teams where everyone is fairly competent and senior, I've seen folks who really stand out.

birdyrooster2• 6 years ago

Owneship

Director of Engineering does not use spell check

d3ad1ysp0rk• 6 years ago

Why the snark?

dswalter• 6 years ago

There are many jobs where a lack of attention to detail (i.e. spelling) on your resume will get you tossed aside from consideration. It's not unreasonable to request a Director of Engineering be held to a similar standard on a public-facing document like this.

jackcodes• 6 years ago

Because what would hackernews really be if not for constant superiority complex in the comment section

rejschaap• 6 years ago

Nice write-up, but it feels like I'm missing some important parts of the picture. The company seems to have a lot of layers for its size. How big is the company and how is it organized? What does this person consider to be their team and their peers? How many direct and indirect reports do they have?

reesef2• 6 years ago

Great piece explaining a poorly understood role. What tool did you use to build and export an SVG mind map?

shalotelli10• 6 years ago

It’s a cool tool called markmap https://github.com/dundalek/markmap

reesef2• 6 years ago

Thanks!

yibg2• 6 years ago

Doesn’t most of this also describes an engineering manager? What’s the distinguishing role of a director vs a manager?

shostack• 6 years ago

In many orgs a director level role manages managers. And there is definitely a different skillset as it goes beyond management into leadership.

yibg2• 6 years ago

Right, but the article doesn't really talk about that aspect of the role. So to me it seems to just describe the role of a manager and part of the role of a director.

emmanueloga_• 6 years ago

My personal mission is to create a world class engineering team that create world class products. This starts from the individuals

How do people in positions like this manage to keep track of individuals when the numbers could be in the lower tens to hundreds? Perhaps is one of the traits that makes one a good director? It seems like something like [1] but for tracking office relationships could be a good idea.

OTOH, it maybe that people that matter the most naturally flow to the top of the director line of sight, or that they are making a bigger effort for that to happen :-).

1: https://www.monicahq.com/

atlgator• 6 years ago

Posts like this are why I love HN.

blanchoir• 6 years ago

Titles, titles, titles... 90% of companies don't need 80% of the titles they use. We like to mimic the giants and the unicorns but the reality is those positions overlap so much in smaller / medium sized startups where one guy is doing the job of 2. We need to grow our organizations and the culture strategically and only when necessary. This will also save people a ton of money.

john4532452• 6 years ago

"If I have strong executors but am lacking in people leaders, I bring in someone who has that focus"

I don't understand how people who can not execute and lack technical expertise will be a better fit for engineering leadership than those with strong technical skills ?

musicale• 6 years ago

TL;DR: not much.

What does a Director of Engineering do?

Related Stories