The Engineering Executive's Primer

As an engineering manager, you almost always have someone in your company to turn to for advice: a peer on another team, your manager, or even the head of engineering. But who do you turn to if you're the head of engineering? Engineering executives have a challenging learning curve, and many folks excitedly start their first executive role only to leave frustrated within the first 18 months.

In this book, author Will Larson shows you ways to obtain your first executive job and quickly ramp up to meet the challenges you may not have encountered in non-executive roles: measuring engineering for both engineers and the CEO, company-scoped headcount planning, communicating successfully across a growing organization, and figuring out what people actually mean when they keep asking for a "technology strategy."

This book explains how to:
Get an engineering executive job, negotiate the contract, and onboard at your new companyRun an engineering planning process and communicate effectively with the organizationDirect the core meetings necessary to operate an effective engineering organizationHire, onboard, and run performance managementManage yourself and remain effective through many challengesLeave the job when the time is right
Will Larson was the chief technology officer at Calm and the author of An Elegant Puzzle and Staff Engineer. He's also a prolific writer on his blog, Irrational Exuberance.