Why Leading Tech Teams is Challenging

Hey there! If you’re in the tech world, you’ve probably experienced the classic setup - a chain of managers looking after your work, growth, and happiness at the job. Most likely, you’re reporting to an Engineering Manager (EM for short). Sure, if you’re just starting out, it might be a tech lead, but in most startups (especially those in the 1-10 billion range), you’ll find yourself working with an EM.

Now, here’s the deal - if you’re already an EM, you’ll probably nod along with what I’m about to share. And if you’re an IC (Individual Contributor)? Well, this post might be even more eye-opening for you, because I’m about to pull back the curtain on what makes managing a tech team both challenging and fascinating.

The Big Four Challenges

Let me break down the four major headaches every tech leader faces (trust me, I’ve been there, multiple times):

  1. The Expectations Game: Ever wondered exactly what your manager wants from you? Yeah, spelling out crystal-clear expectations for engineers is tougher than it sounds.

  2. The Feedback Loop: It’s not just about giving feedback - it’s about making it so clear and actionable that you could practically turn it into a checklist. Plus, tracking how it’s working out? That’s a whole other ball game.

  3. The Performance Review Dance: This one’s crucial - making performance reviews that are not just clear but actually useful. And getting both the manager and IC to look at that final rating and say, “Yep, that feels right”? That’s the dream.

  4. The Calibration Challenge: Here’s where it gets really interesting - making sure all the leaders are speaking the same language when it comes to ratings. Because let’s face it, nobody wants their career progression to depend on which team they happened to land in.

Stick around - I’m going to walk you through how I tackled each of these challenges in my previous roles. Not just with good solutions, but with great ones that actually worked in the real world.

Challenge #1 - Expectations, What, How and When!

The very first aspect of any healthy culture is (very) clearly outlining what is expected from an employee at their role and level. In Software Engineering, it would be a set of expectations for the role (Data Engineering, Software Engineering, Security Engineer etc.) and level (L1, L2, Staff, Principle etc.).

Engineering Levels & Competencies Matrix

Level / Competency Code Quality Incident Management Self Growth Growing Others Customer Obsession Technical Writing
L1 (Junior SWE)            
L2 (SWE)            
L3 (Senior)            
L4 (Staff) [see details below] Jumps into L1/L2 incidents, provides critical help for root-cause analysis. Acts as Incident Commander, owns postmortems and follow-ups     Actively engages with customers, implements eng-wide initiatives impacting product metrics  

Example: Staff Engineer Expectations

Measuring Effectiveness

Two key metrics determine the success of this framework:

  1. Cultural Alignment ✓
    • Reflects company values
    • Engineering-focused
    • Clear measurable outcomes
  2. Competency Coverage ✓
    • Precision: Each competency captures specific behaviors
    • Recall: Combined competencies cover all valued behaviors
    • Actionable day-to-day examples