Justin Sleep’s Post

As a Manager, don't just focus on hiring for technical skills to solve immediate problems. Approach team-building like constructing a house: start with a strong foundation. Your initial hires should be well-rounded, possessing both technical know-how and essential soft skills like communication and teamwork. This balanced approach will make your team easier to manage, more adaptable, and better prepared for future challenges.

Some metrics on a three-month hiring process for a single senior engineering manager role: * 1003 candidates applied * 112 of them talked to a recruiter * 49 of them went through a screen with me * 23 of those passed my screen and went to on the next round * 1 of those got hired The top blocker for people moving past me? Writing things down. I gave candidates a Google doc and politely asked that people take notes, as we really value written feedback. And candidates just... didn't. I harp on writing a lot for a reason! This is how people win remote work: the combo of written and verbal communication. Without both, there's no chance of success.

As a first-time Engineering Manager, one of your primary duties is to hire great people. Especially if you were an outstanding engineer who just transitioned into the manager role, it's easy to focus on seeking technical talents to address the specific challenges of the moment. As your team begins to scale, more technical talents join to solve more problems. But at some point, you realize these talents: - 🤯 Are hard to manage - 🔍 Are specialized in specific areas and either don't know or don't like the rest - 🥊 Are competing with each other - 🤐 Communicate poorly What went wrong? You focused on solving immediate technical problems without thinking about the bigger picture. Been there, done that. When you start building your team, approach it as if you were building a house. The foundations of the team are the most important. To establish strong foundations, you should hire people who: - 🗣️ Have excellent communication skills - 🎯 Are responsible and take ownership of their tasks - 🌱 Can become good mentors for others - 💓 Possess empathy - 🤝 Are team players, not difficult individuals - 📝 Appreciate the importance of documentation (believe me, this is invaluable) - 💡 Have good (excellent isn't necessary) technical knowledge in various areas Once you've hired two or three of these individuals, your team will be future-proof. You can then consider hiring technical talents for specific problems or areas, always keeping an eye on their soft skills. #hiring #management #leadership #talents #softskills --- 🔔 Want to see more posts like that? Follow me here → Nicola Ballotta ♻️ Found it useful? Please repost! 🤓 Consider subscribing The Hybrid Hacker newsletter, you can find the link in my bio.

Hiring is about so much more than ticking off a technical shopping list. Just because a candidate ticks more of the skills boxes than anyone else does not make them the right fit for your team. Hiring the wrong person can destabilise a previously high functioning team Nicola's post excellent illustrates the approach to take

What they don't tell you about being a Head of Engineering... You’re not just in charge of software development. You’re in charge of people. Lots of them. And with great power comes great responsibility. Here’s what that looks like: - Your team's mental health - Hiring top talent - Championing diversity and inclusion - Technical excellence - Professional development - Creating a vision You’re more than a boss; you're a leader. Your job is to help your team thrive and grow. It's a lot of work, but it's incredibly rewarding. Are you ready to step up?

#hiring Vice President, Group Chapter Leader - Full Stack and Mobile Software Engineering, Salt Lake City, United States, fulltime #opentowork #jobs #jobseekers #careers #SaltLakeCityjobs #Utahjobs #ITCommunications Apply: https://lnkd.in/gscf24MU Job Description: VP of Software Engineering / Group Chapter Leader - Level 8 Are you interested in serving the needs of millions of customers by building the outstanding digital experience that helps them in financial planning, investing, and retirement solutions?We are looking for a driven yet empathetic engineering Leader of Leaders who brings exceptional technology and leadership expertise to help us on our mission to deliver the best omni-channel capabilities to our customers across core business capabilities around Money Movement, Brokerage, Account Management, Customer Management, and Service Automation.A great cultural fit would be someone who embodies drive, confidence, genuinely cares about people-both customers and our associates, is obsessed with technology, decisive, and strategic in the larger scheme of things.The Value You DeliverEngineering Leadership & Product Delivery: You provide engineering expertise and thought leadership across product management, engineering & human-centric design teams to ensure we are building the best products, platforms, and experiences functionally and technically. You establish key goals and performance metrics for the product area and are directly accountable for implementation, tracking and reporting on them. You work collaboratively across multiple teams to prioritize technical efforts and product features and capabilities. You are a key integrator bringing together teams by partnering across UX Design, architecture and product teams on setting technical direction and ensure alignment with our technology strategy while staying abreast of engineering trends in the industry. Establish a future vision to identify areas of need for large systems, initiatives and turn this into roadmaps with concrete landmarks. You establish structures and processes to drive scale & reuse by promoting a platform mentality to drive pace and efficiency. Drive and facilitate decision making around standards, resources, and overall direction of work through proactive partnership with senior leadership.Organizational Vision & Culture Champion: You lead by example and establish organizational core values, culture to inspire our community! Create and promote the vision, roadmap, and expectations for your technology organization. Harnessing the power of your network, you are adept at building teams, recruiting for culture and skills while coaching them to reach their peak potential. Collaborate with organizational leaders to plan for and provide the skilled talent needed to ensure teams have the right expertise, at the right time, to get work done You focus on lea

#hiring Vice President, Group Chapter Leader - Full Stack and Mobile Software Engineering, Salt Lake City, United States, fulltime #opentowork #jobs #jobseekers #careers #SaltLakeCityjobs #Utahjobs #ITCommunications Apply: https://lnkd.in/ggGC2bce Job Description: VP of Software Engineering / Group Chapter Leader - Level 8 Are you interested in serving the needs of millions of customers by building the outstanding digital experience that helps them in financial planning, investing, and retirement solutions?We are looking for a driven yet empathetic engineering Leader of Leaders who brings exceptional technology and leadership expertise to help us on our mission to deliver the best omni-channel capabilities to our customers across core business capabilities around Money Movement, Brokerage, Account Management, Customer Management, and Service Automation.A great cultural fit would be someone who embodies drive, confidence, genuinely cares about people-both customers and our associates, is obsessed with technology, decisive, and strategic in the larger scheme of things.The Value You DeliverEngineering Leadership & Product Delivery: You provide engineering expertise and thought leadership across product management, engineering & human-centric design teams to ensure we are building the best products, platforms, and experiences functionally and technically. You establish key goals and performance metrics for the product area and are directly accountable for implementation, tracking and reporting on them. You work collaboratively across multiple teams to prioritize technical efforts and product features and capabilities. You are a key integrator bringing together teams by partnering across UX Design, architecture and product teams on setting technical direction and ensure alignment with our technology strategy while staying abreast of engineering trends in the industry. Establish a future vision to identify areas of need for large systems, initiatives and turn this into roadmaps with concrete landmarks. You establish structures and processes to drive scale & reuse by promoting a platform mentality to drive pace and efficiency. Drive and facilitate decision making around standards, resources, and overall direction of work through proactive partnership with senior leadership.Organizational Vision & Culture Champion: You lead by example and establish organizational core values, culture to inspire our community! Create and promote the vision, roadmap, and expectations for your technology organization. Harnessing the power of your network, you are adept at building teams, recruiting for culture and skills while coaching them to reach their peak potential. Collaborate with organizational leaders to plan for and provide the skilled talent needed to ensure teams have the right expertise, at the right time, to get work done You focus on lea

How to be an awesome tech manager. - Ignore suggestions, you’re the boss. - Don’t care. - Never listen. - Keep your team in the dark about important updates. - Refuse to adapt. - Take credit, assign blame. - Ignore professsional development - if we train you, you’ll leave us. - Underestimate the team. - Lack empathy. - Avoid conflict resolution. - Happily throw a team member under the bus if it best serves you. Paper over all of the above by cracking jokes every so often.

Let's be honest, job titles only tell part of the story. There's a mistake I've seen companies make: they start with the title. They identify a role they want to hire, for example, a Head of Engineering. They kick off a search, post an advert, and even meet a handful of candidates. A few are too senior, a couple aren't senior enough, some aren't technical enough. So they change the requirements. A waste of everyone's time 🤦🏿♂️ The question is, would you write the title and then the story, or would you write the story and then the title? Before picking a title, get clear on: ➤ What a person needs to accomplish in the role ➤ The key problems you're trying to solve by hiring for this position Here's an example for a Head of Engineering position: ↪ We're looking for someone to lead the development of our new payments platform ↪ They will have full management responsibilities for a team of 6 Software Engineers initially, and will scale the team to 20 within two years ↪ Initially, hands-on 70% of the time, reducing as the team grows during the next two years The increased clarity means people can judge the alignment of a role based on the mission and objectives rather than simply the title. It also saves everybody a lot of time! #Hiring #Engineering #Leadership #Recruitment #HiringAdvice Kioni Talent

#hiring Vice President, Group Chapter Leader - Full Stack and Mobile Software Engineering, Salt Lake City, United States, fulltime #opentowork #jobs #jobseekers #careers #SaltLakeCityjobs #Utahjobs #ITCommunications Apply: https://lnkd.in/gpykwy-f Job Description: Job Description VP of Software Engineering / Group Chapter Leader - Level 8 Are you interested in serving the needs of millions of customers by building the outstanding digital experience that helps them in financial planning, investing, and retirement solutions?We are looking for a driven yet empathetic engineering Leader of Leaders who brings exceptional technology and leadership expertise to help us on our mission to deliver the best omni-channel capabilities to our customers across core business capabilities around Money Movement, Brokerage, Account Management, Customer Management, and Service Automation.A great cultural fit would be someone who embodies drive, confidence, genuinely cares about people-both customers and our associates, is obsessed with technology, decisive, and strategic in the larger scheme of things.The Value You DeliverEngineering Leadership & Product Delivery: You provide engineering expertise and thought leadership across product management, engineering & human-centric design teams to ensure we are building the best products, platforms, and experiences functionally and technically. You establish key goals and performance metrics for the product area and are directly accountable for implementation, tracking and reporting on them. You work collaboratively across multiple teams to prioritize technical efforts and product features and capabilities. You are a key integrator bringing together teams by partnering across UX Design, architecture and product teams on setting technical direction and ensure alignment with our technology strategy while staying abreast of engineering trends in the industry. Establish a future vision to identify areas of need for large systems, initiatives and turn this into roadmaps with concrete landmarks. You establish structures and processes to drive scale & reuse by promoting a platform mentality to drive pace and efficiency. Drive and facilitate decision making around standards, resources, and overall direction of work through proactive partnership with senior leadership.Organizational Vision & Culture Champion: You lead by example and establish organizational core values, culture to inspire our community! Create and promote the vision, roadmap, and expectations for your technology organization. Harnessing the power of your network, you are adept at building teams, recruiting for culture and skills while coaching them to reach their peak potential. Collaborate with organizational leaders to plan for and provide the skilled talent needed to ensure teams have the right expertise, at the right time, to get work done