In this episode of our Product Talks series, we had the pleasure of having a chat with Tomas Della Vedova, , Engineering Manager at Elastic.
Elastic is the company that develops search-powered solutions (https://www.elastic.co/). They’re known for creating the popular open-source search engine, Elasticsearch, used for tasks like site search, log analysis, and security analytics.
They also offer commercial products and cloud-based solutions based on Elasticsearch.
With Tomas, we discussed:
Career progression at Elastic
Discussion about career paths for engineers at Elastic including individual contributor track and transitioning to management.
Roles of engineering manager and tech lead
Clarification on responsibilities of engineering manager and tech lead roles and how they work together.
Transitioning to management at Elastic
Discussion about experience transitioning from engineer to engineering manager, including resources that helped with decision.
Challenges of being a new manager
Discussing the challenges of feeling alone as a new manager and ways companies help with mentorship programs.
Measuring engineering team effectiveness
Discussing different approaches to tracking work and measuring efficiency of engineering teams.
Product management process
An overview of how product managers work with engineering teams at Elastic on features.
Integrating community contributions
Challenges of integrating code contributions from the community into open source projects.
Open Source Contributions at Elastic
Discussion around contributing to open source projects while employed at Elastic and examples of successful open source projects started at Elastic.
Opening Internal Tools as Open Source
Question asked about potential benefits and challenges of opening internal tools and packages as open source to attract more contributors.
Managing Underperforming Team Members
Discussion around challenging experiences managing a team including dealing with low performers and approaches to resolving performance issues.
Providing Feedback to Improve Skills
Discussion around paths and tools to allow employees to improve communication skills through feedback and examples of feedback approaches.
Handling Last Minute Requests
Discussion around prioritizing urgent requests that come up last minute against existing roadmap items.
Prioritization Criteria
Discussion around the order of priority for different types of work like security, stability, and speed.
Links
Blog posts
- How do I feel worthwhile as a manager when my people are doing all the implementing?
- Twin anxieties of the engineer/manager pendulum
- Be a manager
- Not a promotion, a career change
- First one on one questions
- How to Be a Superb Leader Without Being an Expert
- Reasons not to be a manager
- Should engineering managers be technical?
- Alignment > Autonomy
Books
- Managers path
- Managing humans
- The culture map
- Engineering management for the rest of us
- An elegant puzzle