Interviews and Resources for Engineering Managers and Leaders
Location: San Francisco
Current Role: Director of Engineering at PlanGrid
What’s your background and how did you get into management?
I grew up in Germany and moved to the Bay Area 4.5 years ago to join a small startup. I gathered a fair amount of technical and project leadership experience in my first two jobs, but I didn’t get into people management until I joined PlanGrid at the end of 2015.
Location: Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Current Role: Director, Core Engineering, BAMTECH Media
What’s your background and how did you get into management?
I spent the first decade of my career chasing global scale challenges related to databases and distributed systems. In every position, my curiosity kept me deeply engaged with operations and infrastructure. Which lead me to BAMTECH Media – then MLB Advanced Media – as a software engineer helping a company achieve the ever-coveted “DevOps transformation.”
Location: New York City
Current role: Director of Engineering at VTS
What’s your background and how did you get into management?
I come from a software engineering background, but I’ve always had a passion for product and business. I’m a serial entrepreneur: I co-founded BillMonk in 2005 (tracks informal debt between friends, like roommates splitting bills; company was sold to Obopay) and the I co-founded Precision Polling in 2010 (self-serve IVR phone surveys;
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Current Role: Director of Engineering at Stitch Fix
What’s your background and how did you get into management?
I’m a programmer. I always liked computers and from the time I was a kid, I thought programming was just the coolest thing.
I went to school for comp sci, then got a job at a big defense contractor, because if you graduate with a comp sci degree in the DC area that’s just what you do.
Location: Vancouver, BC
Current Role: Director of Engineering
What’s your background and how did you get into management?
My background is completely liberal – I studied Economics and Philosophy and am a self-taught developer! I really loved coding and building little websites and that’s how I got into software (and web) development. I was a web developer for a while and joined Buffer as a full-stack engineer, but transitioned to an engineering manager in my first six months on the team.
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Current Role: Director of Engineering at Teradata
What’s your background and how did you get into management?
I am a technologist at heart, with a startup mindset.
Currently, I oversee key aspects of Analytics Ecosystem and Platform at Teradata, a leading provider of business analytics and data solutions.
Before joining Teradata, I worked for some of the largest technology companies such as Adobe,
Location: Argentina
Current role: Director of Engineering at Modern Tribe
What’s your background and how did you get into management?
I’ve had the immense privilege to be born in a pretty tech-savvy family. Both my parents were hobbyist developers in the early ‘80s and my dad even started a software development firm back then. Argentina in the ‘80s wasn’t the best time and place for that so it didn’t prosper,
Location: Palo Alto, California
Current role: Director of Treatment Delivery Applied Research at Varian Medical Systems
What is your background and how did you get into management?
I have an MSc in Medical Physics and a PhD in BioEngineering. I was first employed in medical device research and then, through a variety of economic changes, acquisitions, reorgs and whatnot, I found myself in a System Engineering role in a different company.
Location: Remote (Houston, TX)
Current Role: Director of Engineering, R&D
What’s your background and how did you get into management?
I have been in software for over fifteen years. I currently manage 13 engineers and quality assurance engineers, distributed mostly across the United States and several in Costa Rica.
I have a very good mentor. He convinced me I would enjoy management and excel at it, he coached me through the transition,
