本文来自Linkedin Engineer Blog,并非是翻译,只是原文+阅读笔记,未加润色
I’ve spent twenty years as an engineering director and vice president, managing and mentoring engineering leaders across Silicon Valley and international teams. Over the years, I’ve shipped many products, worked under some amazing leaders, and as a leader myself, written hundreds of performance reviews. During all this time, I’ve learned that great engineering leaders aren’t born; they are made. Or, to be more accurate, they seem to evolve, one step at a time, through four focus areas: technology, process, product and people.
Step 1: the Tech Guy
Most engineering leaders start here. Promoted recently from engineering, they typically focus on technology problem solving; after all, that’s what made them successful in the first place. Java or C++? MySQL or NoSQL? Threaded or evented? They tend to focus the organization around themselves and are central to every project. While this makes them an indispensable individual contributor, they don’t fully leverage their people and scale their organization.
一个伟大的engineering leader不是天生的,而是逐步形成的,在不同时期他们会有不同的重点:技术、流程、产品、人员
阶段1:技术达人
大部分的技术负责人是因为技术一流而被提拔的,他们更关注技术问题,毕竟是技术才让他们获得当前的成功。是采用Java还是C++,是Mysql还是NoSql,是多线程还是事件驱动?他们往往成为项目和团队的核心,变得不可或缺,但这也使得他们无法充分发挥团队的力量也非常不利于团队的扩展
Step 2: the Process Master
After seeing their team suffer and miss commitments, many engineering leaders begin to appreciate how the application of well defined software development processes can help to improve transparency, coordination, and early discovery and resolution of issues. Keywords like agile, waterfall, extreme programming, six sigma, and scrum start flying around. Teams who embrace new practices sometimes outshine and outproduce others. But sometimes, too much focus on process can result in a leader alienating his team; don’t forget the cover on your TPS report.
阶段2:流程大师
团队无法完成既定目标,负责人开始关注开发流程,如何提高透明性、协作以及问题的早期发现和定位。敏捷、瀑布、极限编程、6西格玛,scurm这些关键词开始满天飞。使用了新的实践后团队开始显现出优势,但过多的关注流程会导致负责人疏远他的团队
Step 3: the Product Guru
The rare engineering manager will start to focus not only on how something gets built and shipped, but also on what is being shipped. Having a deep product understanding is an important trait in a good engineering leader. However, everybody has an opinion and many engineers fall into the trap of designing solutions in an inside-out manner. Better solutions result from listening to stakeholders through Sales, Business Development, Product Managers and Designers. Better yet, engineering leaders and their team should get out into the field to spend time directly with customers.
阶段3:产品Guru
有极少的负责人开始关注产品本身,对产品的深入理解是一个好的技术负责人的重要特质。但别被各种选择搞晕
Step 4: the People Person
The most experienced engineering managers know it’s all about the people. Unfortunately, many managers make the mistake of confusing the goal of “everybody is working effectively” with “everybody likes me”. Being buddies with your co-workers is great, but not enough to be an effective engineering leader.
阶段4:People Person
有经验的负责人知道人才是一切,但糟糕的是,很多manager误解了“每个人都高效工作”和“每个人都像我”,让其他变得像你一样这很棒,但还不够
Update: 谢谢@骆逸 提醒,这段确实没仔细看清楚,更正为:许多Manager搞混了“每个人都高效工作”和“每个人都喜欢我”,和同事成为朋友这很棒,但对于一个高效的技术负责人来说这还不够
Step 5: the Evolved Leader
The best leaders manage to strike a delicate balance between technology, process, product and people. They teach best practices, remove impediments, and get out of the way. They focus on dream, fit and passion . They know that if you hire the right people and put those people in the right positions, they will figure out the right technology and process to get the job done. They have a deep understanding of motivation , and create an environment where engineers have autonomy, mastery, and purpose.
阶段5:
最好的负责人能够达到技术、流程、产品和人员的微妙平衡。他们传授最佳实践,去除团队障碍,寻找出路。他们专注在梦想、配合和激情,他们知道如果能招到适合的人并放在合适的位置,他们就能找到合适的技术和流程并完成工作,他们对motivation有很深的理解,能够创造环境让工程师能够自主、自制、找到目标
Engineering Leadership at LinkedIn
LinkedIn prizes highly technical leaders at all engineering levels from manager to vice president and I feel fortunate to be a part of a leadership team that balances all four focus areas. I get the chance to work on advancing our technology (designing active serving from multiple data centers, decoupling services, refactoring key systems, and implementing new frameworks and platforms), optimizing our processes (testing practices, code reviews, agile practices, streamlined release to production), and improving my product knowledge (we’re starting “follow me home” customer visits to keep our engineers attuned to how customers are using our products, and understand their unmet needs). In addition, we get to set up our people for success (improving hiring practices, implementing a technical career ladder, expanding development centers around the world, organizing team learning). And we’re hiring. LinkedIn is looking for software engineering leaders in multiple areas from evolving paid services, to mobile and platform APIs for third-party developers.
Visit the LinkedIn Careers Page to learn more