Which is a great distance education MBA course for software engineers?

I'm assuming distance education = "Online", and that's tricky. An MBA in particular should cover leadership as you're looking for, but that's something much better taught in-person than online. Anyways, I found this list of top online MBA programs in the US: https://www.usnews.com/education/online-education/mba/rankings

At a higher-level, I recommend against an MBA. It's generally not very helpful getting you into product management or engineering management positions and many FAANG/FAANG-adjacent companies actively look down on them. Check out this other thread: Exploring MBA-driven career shifts from software engineering to product management or management consulting for higher earnings, particularly in Europe.

If you want to expand your network and build up leadership skills, I recommend doing that at your current company:

• [Taro Top 10] Tech Leadership
• [Masterclass] How To Build Deep Relationships Quickly In Tech

I recommend signing up for Taro Networking too: https://www.jointaro.com/networking/

Will your company cover the cost of the MBA? If so, curious how that works.

If the company doesn't cover the cost, I'm skeptical of the value of a distance MBA course. A huge part of the value is the people you'll meet in the program, and that'll be much harder if it's online.

Yes Rahul, my company would cover the cost of the course, given it is inclined towards my companies best interest and approved by the manager. Because I see the pay difference India is quite different for a business school tag. Though the weightage is for the individuals who have done it offline