Andrew Lau argues engineering leaders must stop focusing only on code and schedules. They need to become strategic partners who shape company direction and drive business decisions. Over the next five years, the role will fundamentally change to reflect these expanded responsibilities.
Chapters
I think traditionally when you think of engineering leadership, I think people talk about the code and the architecture and, or more contemporary, the pull requests and the story points. I think a contemporary engineering leader, I think, does need to evolve. I think engineering is like the engine, literally, of like every company today. Software's eating the world, as they say. And so I think leadership in this sense needs to shift, where I think leaders in the technical realm have the opportunity to set strategic direction for the company in ways that hasn't been done before. Now, reciprocally, that means the role has to change, where I think the demands in engineering leadership are no longer just about making sure that code is happening with the right scope at the right time and the right quality. I think it actually has to do more than that. It actually has to lead the business. It actually has to help the business make better decisions. It has to help the business accelerate and take parts of the market over. In order to do that, I think engineering leaders have to suddenly start taking a role in business strategy. They have to understand how what they're doing fits into the bigger picture, how it enables the company to actually grow. And I think people historically have not said that of engineering leadership. And so I suspect over the next 5 years, We're gonna be redefining what it means to be an engineering leader. We're gonna redefine what a career path looks like. We're gonna redefine what that person's demands are. We're gonna redefine what he or she looks like and how they are successful in that role.
