The Engineering Leader: Strategies for Scaling Teams and Yourself

by Cate Huston

Great engineers don't necessarily make great leaders--at least, not without a lot of work. Finding your path to becoming a strong leader is often fraught with challenges. It's not easy to figure out how to be successful, empathetic, and caring yet tough. Whether you're on the management or individual contributor track, you need to develop strong leadership skills. This book guides you on the path to becoming a well-rounded and resilient engineering leader. The first half focuses on you, and how you can develop the self-management skills needed to survive and thrive in a leadership role. The second half focuses on teams, including the necessary components of team functioning that will empower and support your teams and the individuals within them. You'll learn how to create and balance both individual and team growth. By exploring these two tenets of leadership, Cate Huston, engineering director at DuckDuckGo, helps

Genres: Management, Leadership, Technology

395 pages, Paperback

Published May 21, 2024

Reviews

[Lucas Wittevrongel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm a casual reader of O'Reilly books, but this is the first one I've read about management. O'Reilly books are well regarded in the IT industry and generally of good quality (over the years, I've only encountered one book that didn't meet my expectations).

I’m a chemical engineer with experience in management and transitioned fully to IT two years ago. This book serves as a broad introduction to what is necessary to become a leader. It's not technical but is written like a self-development book. As a bonus, it's written from an IT perspective, which aligns with the path I've chosen.

I particularly remember the passage about changes being like flowers; some are given, some are picked, and some are sown. This helped me reflect on the many changes I've experienced in my career, realizing they were possible because I chose to study after my hours or attend evening school.

What was new to me was the way to structure a recruitment process. I've never been deeply involved in recruiting, but if I need to be, I'll certainly revisit these chapters.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the book.

[Marina Aisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Engineering Leader" by Cate Huston is a game-changer for software engineers like myself. Cate, a renowned tech manager, offers invaluable insights into navigating the complexities of engineering careers. From understanding how to speak with your manager about promotion to mastering leadership qualities, this book equips engineers with the tools to excel in their careers. Highly recommended for anyone seeking to elevate their role in the tech industry, specially women.

[Veselin Nikolov · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got a signed copy at a book signing. The book felt very relevant to me as, at the time, I was leading a group of teams. I also did a rotation on one of the teams Cate Huston used to lead and had a chance to follow the processes set in place during her time on the team.

I enjoyed several aspects of the book that felt new to me, that uncovered details about the Mobile and the Hiring teams at Automattic. Most of the book is not that, it's like a catalog of activities that an engineering lead need to be aware of. Some sparked my curiosity and I plan to investigate further.

Some highlights from the book
- An engineer should always look at work from the position of personal growth
- Our main resource isn't just time, it's also energy, and skill trajectory. The area of energy management was completely new to me, and a problem I struggled with during my various assignments as an IC, engineering lead, group lead, and a technical lead
- It's clearly defined what good for a team is, Huston's pyramid was nice
- What's the difference between kindness and niceness
- Cate Huston didn't like hiring, maybe even hated hiring, and the book makes it clear why

Overall, a nice guide, focused on breadth rather than depth. I was able to find areas of improvement for myself and areas where I'd try to find more information.

[Ekaterina Baranova · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been reading (and rereading some parts!) The Engineering Leader by Cate Huston since the summer of 2024. It’s an excellent book that covers all aspects of being a great manager—everything from being a DRI (Directly Responsible Individual) to career goals, feedback, self-energy management, the core activities of an Engineering Manager, hiring, helping others succeed, and aligning with the global mission, strategy, tactics, execution, and improving teams. The book is well-structured and packed with tons of useful information. I really enjoyed it (and am now trying to apply its lessons to my career), and I think I’ll reread it.

One important aspect of this book is how Cate Huston addresses women-specific challenges and provides recommendations for further reading on the topic. Based on her suggestion, I started reading Women Don’t Ask, and it complements The Engineering Leader quite well (at least for me). Cate Huston also includes links to books covering various aspects of being an Engineering Manager: strategy, burnout, productivity, coaching, feedback, and more. I now have a solid “to-read” list for the next couple of years!

[Mindaugas Mozūras · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feedback is just information. Sometimes it’s information you can use to improve, sometimes it’s information about someone else, and sometimes it’s information you can use to make informed decisions about where you should be spending 40 hours a week.

Overall, a good general book for an engineering leader. The advice is quite practical, I could feel on the page that what was written was due to real-world experience. As I've read plenty of books about leadership in the past, not every chapter was insightful for me (nor did I agree with everything), but I still ended up highlighting a ton of passages.

The only thing that bothered me was the writing style. I felt it is more verbose than I would ideally like - I suspect the book could've been written with 30-40% fewer words, while losing little in content.

[Cris Barreiro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being an engineer and not a manager or leader myself, I found this book, especially part one, really insightful and interesting. I would recommend it to any software engineers, especially senior ones wondering how to elevate their career. Having read a few books about leadership, I feel most of them are constantly repeating the same information in a clear "this book could've been an article" fashion. That is not the case with this one, as the book is clearly structured, offering new relevant information on each chapter

[kari · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was every bit as valuable and useful as the staff engineer’s path, and i don’t say that lightly. it was chock full of practical advice on how to navigate a leadership role in engineering, even for someone like me on the IC path. the writing style was also conversational without leaning too informal, which i enjoy because sometimes technical writing can be super dry. i’m glad i picked up a physical copy, i’ll revisit this a few years from now with a different perspective and more experience and i’m sure there will be more to learn from it!

[Ben Scheirman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Filled with hard-won tips and strategies for navigating lots of situations. I find myself nodding furiously while reading, there is just a lot here! I will be referring to this book often.

[Marina Aisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Engineering Leader" by Cate Huston is a game-changer for software engineers like myself. Cate, a renowned tech manager, offers invaluable insights into navigating the complexities of engineering careers. From understanding how to speak with your manager about promotion to mastering leadership qualities, this book equips engineers with the tools to excel in their careers. Highly recommended for anyone seeking to elevate their role in the tech industry, specially women.

[Filippo Diotalevi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Generic, unremarkable, unoriginal content. Ask ChatGPT for similar content, at least it's free