Interviews and Resources for Engineering Managers and Leaders
Location: San Francisco, CA
Current Role: Engineering Manager
What’s your background and how did you get into management?
I was a software engineer for many years and it got to the point where I wanted to expand my skill set outside of technical capabilities. Growing teams and interest to me, so while at Dropbox I became involved with the summer internship program.
Running the internship program brought on a whole new set of challenges that weren’t in my comfort zone,
Current role: Development Manager and Head of Front-end Engineering at eBay
Location: Sydney, Australia
What’s your background and how did you get into management?
I graduated with a bachelor and master of Computer Science from the University of Wollongong in Australia and worked in hands-on technical roles before becoming a manager.
My journey to management is not unusual but not one that I had anticipated or planned for.
At one of my previous companies, I lowered my bar and made a bad hiring. We were looking for a new team member and spent months interviewing. After some consideration, we decided to extend an offer to a candidate who was “almost there”. I agreed with our panel that we could coach the person in the area they were not very strong. This turned out to be one of my biggest mistakes.
My team and I then had to spend the next 6 months to help the individual but ended up letting them go as they failed the improvement plan.
Location: Los Gatos, CA.
Current Role: Build, CI & DevInsights Manager at Netflix
What’s your background and how did you get into management?
I’ve worked in technology for 15+ years, starting in the finance industry, moving toward education and then consulting before joining Netflix. Earlier roles offered me the opportunity to act as an individual contributor in backend engineering before, at some point, being asked to manage a team. This path is not for everyone.
Current role: Backend Engineering Manager at DataFox
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
What’s your background and how did you get into management?
I went to MIT for undergrad and grad school for computer science and joined Box right after. At Box, I was on the Platform Integrations team as an individual contributor. I loved the culture at Box; it had a lot of highly motivated, experienced engineers. I learned a lot about how to ship production code,
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Current role: Senior Engineering Manager
What’s your background, and what is your current role?
I got my Computer Science degree from UC Berkeley (go Bears!) and lucked out getting the first position as employee 15 in an interactive television startup that I stayed with for 9 years. From there I pivoted into the mobile space joining a startup back when you could make millions of dollars off selling wallpaper and ringtones.
Location: San Francisco, CA
Current Role: Engineering Manager at Etsy
What’s your background and how did you get into management?
Over 20 years ago, I learned to write code for The Two Towers LPMud. I designed features, wrote code, worked with a completely distributed volunteer staff, and took on leadership roles there for 17 years while doing other significantly less technical things in the real world. The last 4 of those years were while I studied for my Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science.
Location: New York City and Armonk, NY
Current Role: Software Engineering Manager at IBM
What’s your background and how did you get into management?
I’ve always loved helping people learn and loved how quickly software development turns ideas into reality. Before moving into management, I had three careers: product development, management consulting, and marketing analytics. My first management opportunity happened shortly after the Hour Of Code inspired me to teach IBM marketers an introduction to programming.
Location: Düsseldorf, Germany
Current Role: Product Manager and Talent Lead
What’s your background and how did you get into management?
My background is in classical Computer Science, specializing in software development. I stumbled into management when my current employer, trivago, was growing rapidly, and additional management capacity was needed. My boss asked me if I was willing to take on management responsibility, and I accepted.
What are the biggest challenges you face?
Location: Charlotte, North Carolina Area
Current Role: Web Engineering Manager at Citadel LLC
What’s your background and how did you get into management?
I have a software engineering background and got into management mostly by accident. The director at Walmart Grocery knew of my technical background and thought I would be a good fit to reboot the team and start fresh with some new engineers and a new tech stack.
