From Building a Marketplace to Building Teams
Mike Brittain
VP Eng., Etsy
@mikebrittain mikebrittain.com/talks
A. Do you consider yourself a manager, tech lead, team lead, leader, etc.?
B. See yourself eventually transitioning into that leadership category?
2010: Sr. Engineer -> Team Lead -> Eng. Mgr. 2011: Eng. Director: Core, Devtools, Perf, CI 2012: Eng. Director, Mobile 2014: VP, Eng.
Disinguished Eng. Principle Eng. Sr. Staff Eng. Staff Eng. Sr. Eng. Software Eng. (2) Software Eng. (1)
VP Sr. Director Director Sr. Manager Manager
“We want you to be the director of technology. We want you to run the team. You’re in charge. And, of course, you’ll still be able to write code 75% of the time.”
Hire the right people. Get them onto the right teams.* Create a sense of mission and purpose. Ruthlessly remove the blockers.
Enable them to do what they are great at.
Not just personnel managers, and not just those within your own company.
Build your cohort of fellow leaders.
Build your cohort of fellow leaders.
Not just personnel managers, and not just those within your own company.
Be explicit about when a conversation is to be held in confidence.
You (w|d)on’t have time to know everything that is going on in the team.
Where you expend effort and attention must change as the team grows and the company grows.
Go on a long vacation.
Prepare your team (over time). Assign temporary* delegates for everything. Turn off your email. Spend time thinking about how the team is performing.
Assign temporary* delegates for everything.
“Hey, Bob. I heard from the team that you’re doing an excellent job taking care of X, Y, Z. I’d like you to be in charge of these full-time. We’ll announce that to the team in this week’s All-Hands.”