Camille Fournier
Engineering leader, formerly CTO of Rent the Runway and head of platform engineering at Two Sigma, and a longtime committer on Apache ZooKeeper. Author of "The Manager’s Path" and "Platform Engineering". Writes at Elided Branches about management, career ladders and the technical track.
Camille Fournier did not write this page.
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Their wordsDon’t let (or make!) HR do all of the work. It’s really not their job to define expertise in your functions.
↗10 Years of Engineering Ladderselidedbranches.com 1st of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsYou should not try to create a ladder that functions as a pure checklist or scorecard that guarantees promotion if people check enough boxes; promotions are as much about the needs of the organization as the skills of the employees.
↗10 Years of Engineering Ladderselidedbranches.com 2nd of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsAssuming you are still hiring junior engineers (you really should be even in this AI era), the good ones will learn quickly and want to see career progress in their first few years of working.
↗10 Years of Engineering Ladderselidedbranches.com 3rd of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsThe Tyranny of Structurelessness has yet to be overcome, and for those who still care about creating strong, transparent, equitable organizations, this work matters.
↗10 Years of Engineering Ladderselidedbranches.com 4th of 4 in this piece
- 4 years earlier
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Their wordsgreat engineers really shouldn’t need to manage large teams to get promoted, and companies lose out on a critical skillset when they push all of their good engineers into management.
↗How New Managers Fail Individual Contributorselidedbranches.com 1st of 6 in this piece
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Their wordsBut it is critical that you step back on the technical decisions to make room for the team members to own things and grow.
↗How New Managers Fail Individual Contributorselidedbranches.com 2nd of 6 in this piece
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Their wordsWhen you don’t give your team the context for the work and just pass on tasks and work items to them, you make it clear that they are simply “doers” and your job is the job of “decider.”
↗How New Managers Fail Individual Contributorselidedbranches.com 3rd of 6 in this piece
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Their wordsAs a manager, your output is not measured by your individual work. Rather, your output is measured by the work of your team and the people that you influence.
↗How New Managers Fail Individual Contributorselidedbranches.com 4th of 6 in this piece
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Their wordsIf it’s your code that gets you over the finish line for every project, you aren’t providing multiplicative value for the team, you’re providing the additive value of your work as an engineer.
↗How New Managers Fail Individual Contributorselidedbranches.com 5th of 6 in this piece
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Their wordsNew managers, make sure that you aren’t trying to be a senior engineer who has direct reports.
↗How New Managers Fail Individual Contributorselidedbranches.com 6th of 6 in this piece
- 4 years earlier
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Their wordsIf your team is completely overwhelmed with work, well, it’s partially your fault. You are the manager, and you are the person who is responsible for pushing back on the work commitments for the team.
↗How do managers* get stuck?elidedbranches.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsUltimately, if you want to manage managers, a manager should want to work for you.
↗How do managers* get stuck?elidedbranches.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsFew senior ICs get promoted beyond a point on the strength of their ideas and code alone.
↗How do managers* get stuck?elidedbranches.com 3rd of 3 in this piece