don't try this at home: self-improvement as a senior leader
Presented at LeadingEng New York 2022 (https://leaddev.com/leadingeng-new-york/video/dont-try-home-how-practice-self-improvement-senior-leader) -- Most of us have developed our expertise as engineers through a mix of literature and experimentation. The software industry moves at a higher speed than others because we can try and study complex, real-world systems in the comfort of our bedrooms and personal Github accounts. When you become a leader, especially one who leads other leaders, things get a little more complicated. There are books, but they tend to contain generic advice. There are patterns, but the nature of the job makes it harder to identify when and how to apply them. In this session, I want to walk through a few things that have worked for me when you don't have a lab to try things out. Let's explore processes, tools, and resources to continuously improve your skills and expertise when there is no StackOverflow and no coding dojos. Phil Calçado is Global CTO at PicPay, the largest digital wallet in Latin America. He leads a team of more than 1,500 engineers building financial products for 60 million users and processing over four billion dollars yearly. Before PicPay, Phil was Senior Director of Engineering at SeatGeek, where he led the team that built the live events platform used by 44 million people worldwide. He also has led the platform team at Meetup/WeWork, worked on Linkerd - the pioneering Service Mesh, and headed product engineering for DigitalOcean and SoundCloud, both pioneers in the adoption of Microservices architectures.
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don't try this at home: self-improvement as a senior leader
- 1. don't try this at home self-improvement as a senior leader Phil Calçado @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 2. phil gets into management @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 3. just like being a consultant, but now I get to fi re people @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 4. phil gets into senior management @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 5. • hyper growth • everything is broken all the time • we have no idea how to monetize this • we are one DMCA away from becoming Grooveshark @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 6. performance review fl at structure 20% time freedom & responsibility job levels hiring strategy sponsoring projects R&D okrs sta ffi ng strategy remote work multiple o ffi ces acquisitions acquihires @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 7. HARD TO SWALLOW PILLS the higher in the orgchart you are the less time/patience/experience your own manager will have to coach you @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 9. but how do you know what to apply and when? @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 10. write a failing test make it pass refactor @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 11. it turns out people hate being jerked around as leadership “learns more” @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 12. The expensive education of Phil Calçado Phil Calçado @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 13. i think I am ready for my next gig @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 14. • we don’t have a lot of users, but they are passionate • high revenue but low margin • btw our competition is Amazon, Google, and Microsoft—no biggie @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 15. “you are great at delivering product, but you have no idea how to handle budgets” @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 16. phil gets the hell out of senior management @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 18. phil gets dragged back into senior management @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 19. • we got acquired, but we don’t know why • it turns out they don’t know why either • merge these completely different platforms • oh, and win enterprise deals while at it @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 20. 4 completely different jobs • ~10 years • same-ish title • 4 companies @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 21. so, what do I tell senior managers? @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 22. managers make sure the team’s delivery machine works to expectation @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 23. senior managers do whatever is needed in the current stage @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 24. but there are some principles… @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 25. fi gure out what your boss thinks you should be doing @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 26. think of your role as discrete parts @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 27. think of management books the same as design pattern books @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 28. thought leadership is just another word for marketing @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 30. favor internal peers for networking @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 31. the best kept secret in senior management… @pcalcado | philcalcado.com
- 32. technical skill is relevant again @pcalcado | philcalcado.com