Every engineering manager develops a rhythm — a personal blend of habits, instincts, and values that shapes how they lead. There’s no single “right” way. However, based on my experience, three habits consistently drive results: intentionally growing people, co-creating strategy with your engineers, and collaborating beyond team boundaries.
These aren’t abstract ideas — they’re daily practices that shape how teams think, build, and grow.
1. Grow People Consistently
Your role isn’t just to manage work — it’s to make engineers stronger six months from now than they are today. That means stretching them just beyond their current abilities—enough to challenge them, but not sufficient to set them up for failure.
Provide support: pair them with a senior engineer, check in regularly, and review work together. The key is to challenge with a safety net in place.
Focus on each person’s unique journey. Create clear career plans, give specific feedback, and celebrate both strengths and areas for growth. Use concrete examples, and make feedback routine — not only when things go wrong.
In practice: map out the skills expected at each career level. Identify next-level skills for each engineer and assign tasks to develop them, assuming they’re ready and willing. Dedicate at least one one-on-one per month to career growth. Ask: “What do you want to be able to do that you can’t yet?“ Then create opportunities to build those skills.
Senior engineers can grow through coaching or leadership challenges; others might develop presentation skills in incremental steps. Your investment pays off: engineers take bigger swings knowing you have their back.
2. Include Engineers in Strategy and Decision-Making
Many managers draft roadmaps in isolation, then assign tasks. A better approach: co-create a strategy with your team. When engineers help shape the plan, they take ownership of it. The work becomes part of their vision, not just yours.
How it works: before finalizing the next quarter’s roadmap, host a planning session. Present business goals and constraints. Discuss long-term technical strategy and architecture. Then ask: “Given what we know, what should we build? What technical debt is slowing us down? What’s worth doing now versus later?”
You’ll get insights you wouldn’t have considered. Engineers might flag scaling issues, propose simpler solutions, or identify priorities differently. They gain essential context and make better day-to-day decisions. And when challenges arise—as they inevitably will—they persevere because they helped shape the plan.
3. Collaborate Beyond Organizational Boundaries
No team works in isolation. To make a real impact, you need to collaborate across teams. Organizational charts help establish reporting lines — but they can also constrain how systems are designed.
System structure often mirrors organizational communication. If teams are split into Feature, Platform, Tools, and Ops, your code develops seams along the same lines. Over time, this slows work, creates inefficiencies, and encourages workarounds that accumulate as technical debt.
Start by defining the development pipeline you want, and let system design guide workflows rather than letting team boundaries dictate how work gets done. Map out which teams will be affected by an initiative, and then reach out to them early. Short conversations with other managers can prevent conflicts, surface resources, or reveal potential shortcuts.
Collaboration takes effort — you’ll spend more time in meetings and communicating broadly—but the payoff is worth it. Projects that could take eight months may finish in four. Features that might have been mediocre can become great with the correct input.
Bringing It All Together
| Habit | Key Points | Practical Actions |
| Grow People Consistently | Stretch engineers slightly beyond current capabilities with a safety net. Provide clear, actionable feedback. | Create career plans; give regular feedback; document conversations; dedicate one-on-ones to growth. |
| Include Engineers in Strategy | Co-create roadmaps and strategies with the team. Engineers gain context and ownership. | Host planning sessions; discuss technical debt and priorities; ask: “What to build now vs later?”; encourage contributions. |
| Collaborate Across Boundaries | Work across teams and functions. Avoid inefficiencies caused by silos. | Identify impacted teams early; set up cross-team conversations; include specialists (QA, Design, etc.); share context proactively. |
The Skills That Make This Work
These habits rely on core capabilities that strong engineers develop in management roles:
- Decision-making and prioritization: Identify which problems matter most. Connect engineering work to business impact and communicate it clearly.
- Continuous learning: Technology evolves fast. Don’t let comfort zones limit your influence. Keep learning beyond your domain.
- Communication: Solve problems collectively. Write clear documentation, run effective meetings, and tailor your message to engineers, product managers, or executives.
Start Small, Build Momentum
You don’t need to change everything at once. Pick one habit this week:
- Schedule a career conversation with one engineer.
- Invite your team to debate the next technical decision before making a final decision.
- Reach out to a peer manager about a potential collaboration.
High-impact management is about deliberate, consistent practices that compound over time. Grow your people. Include them in the strategy. Collaborate across boundaries. Do these well, and your teams will deliver exceptional work while getting stronger every quarter.
