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What does a Director of Engineering do?

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Re: What does a Director of Engineering do?

#21

Post by seattle_spring »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #3

The answer varies wildly based on the size of the company. At smaller companies, they tend to oversee hiring, technical work, and act as managers, but don't necessarily have budgetary authority. At larger companies, they tend to have more authority and involvement in larger strategic efforts; they tend to be "managers of managers."

Absolutely this. There's a huge difference between a real Director of Engineering at a FANG-size company versus a "Director of Engineering" who is just some kid who decided to call their side-project a startup and give themself a hugely inflated title.

Re: What does a Director of Engineering do?

#22

Post by shalotelli »

bobbytherobot wrote: post #18
bojo wrote: post #2

Good insights. Small nitpick, I have no idea what the terms "EOS" and "L10 meetings" mean.

Jumping on here as this is a widespread issue in tech writing. "The first time you use an initialism or acronym in your document, the words should be written out with the short form placed in parentheses immediately after."

Thanks for this tip. Writing in this form definitely doesn't come naturally to me so it's great to be learning not just about the topic but also on how to better my communication.

Re: What does a Director of Engineering do?

#23

Post by lliamander »

> I used to think hard work leads to promotion. This is because I didn't understand why different positions exist outside of a title change. Now I see things a bit differently. If an individual on my team is working hard, I'm going to keep them where they are because they're getting the job done. Rather, I'm looking to elevate my 10x engineer - not the one that's the doing their job well but the one thats mentoring those around them to do their job well too.

An excellent point. This misconception that hard work leads to promotion is widespread, and management doesn't often do enough to dispel it (if they are even aware of it themselves). I think an important step here is to identify the concrete behaviors and competencies needed to advance. In the words of Randall Koutnik: "What does it take to succeed at [your] company beyond 'hard work'?"[0].

[0]https://rkoutnik.com/articles/Questions-to-ask-your-intervie...

Re: What does a Director of Engineering do?

#24

Post by dkarl »

seattle_spring wrote: post #21
nathanaldensr wrote: post #3

The answer varies wildly based on the size of the company. At smaller companies, they tend to oversee hiring, technical work, and act as managers, but don't necessarily have budgetary authority. At larger companies, they tend to have more authority and involvement in larger strategic efforts; they tend to be "managers of managers."

Absolutely this. There's a huge difference between a real Director of Engineering at a FANG-size company versus a "Director of Engineering" who is just some kid who decided to call their side-project a startup and give themself a hugely inflated title.

There are also FAANG-sized corporations that give director titles to individual contributors because it's the only way to get them into a salary band where they can be paid a competitive rate.

Re: What does a Director of Engineering do?

#25

Post by ska »

seattle_spring wrote: post #21
nathanaldensr wrote: post #3

The answer varies wildly based on the size of the company. At smaller companies, they tend to oversee hiring, technical work, and act as managers, but don't necessarily have budgetary authority. At larger companies, they tend to have more authority and involvement in larger strategic efforts; they tend to be "managers of managers."

Absolutely this. There's a huge difference between a real Director of Engineering at a FANG-size company versus a "Director of Engineering" who is just some kid who decided to call their side-project a startup and give themself a hugely inflated title.

It's not as simple as company size, it's responsibility and authority.

Necessarily the nature of the job changes a bit if you are a the head of an organizational unit of 600, or 60, or 6. But it changes fundamentally if you have ultimate budget authority, hiring/firing, etc.

Agree there are a lot of somewhat ridiculous titles in early stage startups (ever seen a 5 person company with 3 "C" levels?) but even when you are small (but growing) there is a role distinction between exec and non-exec roles, and there is a difference worth drawing between director-in-name and director-in-fact positions.

If you are truly acting as a director of engineering, I'd expect you have broad authority to act; you don't ultimately decide your budget or technical goals (but you should be involved in determining both) but within those constraints you have most of the decision making responsibility for how & who.

Re: What does a Director of Engineering do?

#26

Post by karatestomp »

bobbytherobot wrote: post #18
bojo wrote: post #2

Good insights. Small nitpick, I have no idea what the terms "EOS" and "L10 meetings" mean.

Jumping on here as this is a widespread issue in tech writing. "The first time you use an initialism or acronym in your document, the words should be written out with the short form placed in parentheses immediately after."

There's a whole tag to handle it in HTML. Don't have to reserve it for only the first instance.

Re: What does a Director of Engineering do?

#27

Post by Spooky23 »

ttymck wrote: post #13
sunnyP wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EOS = Entrepreneurial Operating System https://www.eosworldwide.com/what-is-eos L10 = Level 10 Meeting https://www.eosworldwide.com/blog/what-the-heck-is-a-level-1...

Unless I'm missing something, the "WHAT THE HECK IS A LEVEL 10 MEETING?" post doesn't actually answer "what the heck is a level 10 meeting?".

You cannot even attend a Level 10 meeting without being 10x. With Level 10 technology, and 10 10x people, you're looking at a minimum of 1000x productivity.

With Level 10, you basically elevate your team and meld them into Chuck Norris.

Re: What does a Director of Engineering do?

#28

Post by Traster »

lliamander wrote: post #23

> I used to think hard work leads to promotion. This is because I didn't understand why different positions exist outside of a title change. Now I see things a bit differently. If an individual on my team is working hard, I'm going to keep them where they are because they're getting the job done. Rather, I'm looking to elevate my 10x engineer - not the one that's the doing their job well but the one thats mentoring t…

I'll tell you what amazes me: If you look at any reasonably large engineering organisation they will likely have guidance published from HR stating what the criteria are for different job roles, and they'll actually be pretty similar across different organisations.

You might be a Senior Software Engineer at one place but called a Staff engineer at another place, but they're broadly comparable, and the seniority criteria show a very clear progression: the more senior you get the more influence you are showing across the organisation, whether that means managing larger projects, mentoring other staff, consulting with other teams on best known practices, or influencing other parts of the company inter-discplinary projects.

Almost every large organisation will have a neat table telling you exactly what attributes you need to show. They all show that progression - more influence on the organisation as a whole.

And yet every single review cycle there's always a portion of engineers who think they deserve a promotion because their personal work was high quality. It's like they haven't read the job spec of the job they're applying for. It's amazing.

Re: What does a Director of Engineering do?

#29

Post by Spooky23 »

lliamander wrote: post #23

> I used to think hard work leads to promotion. This is because I didn't understand why different positions exist outside of a title change. Now I see things a bit differently. If an individual on my team is working hard, I'm going to keep them where they are because they're getting the job done. Rather, I'm looking to elevate my 10x engineer - not the one that's the doing their job well but the one thats mentoring t…

You have to work hard at the right work.

Many people make the mistake of working like a donkey, or burrowing themselves as essential parts of some process.

Re: What does a Director of Engineering do?

#30

Post by [deleted] »

seattle_spring wrote: post #21
nathanaldensr wrote: post #3

The answer varies wildly based on the size of the company. At smaller companies, they tend to oversee hiring, technical work, and act as managers, but don't necessarily have budgetary authority. At larger companies, they tend to have more authority and involvement in larger strategic efforts; they tend to be "managers of managers."

Absolutely this. There's a huge difference between a real Director of Engineering at a FANG-size company versus a "Director of Engineering" who is just some kid who decided to call their side-project a startup and give themself a hugely inflated title.

[deleted]
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