Engineering Management Q&A and Videos

Hi everyone, I recently joined a new company and am in the process of onboarding with a new team. After a week, I’ve noticed several challenges stemming from our team lead’s transition back to an individual contributor role. Currently, there’s no clear roadmap, sprint retrospectives haven’t been conducted for a while, and regular 1:1s with engineers are missing. While the company is trying to hire a new engineering manager, which might take at least three months, I’m considering stepping up to fill in some of the management gaps. I’ve always been interested in moving into a management role, and this situation seems like it could be a good opportunity. Do you think this is a good idea? If so, how should I go about offering myself for these responsibilities, or should I wait to be approached? Any advice or experiences shared would be greatly appreciated!

I am working on defining a Career Path for my QA team. I have identified 3 different tracks as below: Individual Contributor Track: Junior QA -> Intermediate QA -> Senior QA -> Staff QA -> Principal QA Managerial Track: Junior QA -> Intermediate QA -> Senior QA -> QA Lead -> QA Manager -> Senior QA Manager -> QA Director SDET Track: Junior SDET -> Intermediate SDET -> Senior SDET -> Staff SDET -> Principal SDET Wondering what does the Software QA/SDET role career path looks like in your organizations?

What is the difference between an EM and Tech Lead position in terms of amount of individual contribution overall (is this a difference of 80-20%)? Not like a TPM position which is more business facing, but I expect EM to be more cross-functional than Tech Lead. How is EM similar to Tech Lead, but how does it work with it at a larger company structure wise, and with TPMs on a project? Who has the most 'power' and autonomy? Context: Previously I was a startup founder and CTO and as I contemplated senior IC roles that I have interviewed for (AI primarily), I'm curious to know the differences here because I could go either way and I'm afraid that EM roles I may be in less code day to day. Does it just mean I have more 1:1s for soft skill stuff to mentor other engineers as oppose to talk to them about the actual nature of the work?