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From Code to Leadership: My Journey to Engineering Manager

Bogdana-Elena Avadanei

Engineering Manager @ Zoopla

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About me

  • An engineering manager with 7 years experience in the software industry

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  • Completed a Computer Science degree at University of York

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  • Worked in start-ups and large companies as a software engineer�
  • Spent some time teaching programming courses and bootcamps

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Early career lessons

Building the foundation

  • Master the fundamentals�
  • Communicate clearly�
  • Focus on value and impact

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  • My first job: Internship during my year in industry�
  • Academic learning versus real life software engineering�
  • Eager to grow and take on new challenges

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Key learnings:

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Leap to management

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Leap to management

CHALLENGES

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  • The path wasn’t a straight line�
  • Taught software engineering for an apprenticeship for 7 months�
  • Worked on building credibility through:�
    • Leading projects and taking initiative�
    • Mentoring

��…but I had never line managed engineers before

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Leap to management

LESSONS

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  • Balancing team needs vs. technical work�
  • Not all work is visible�
  • Your Productivity = Your Team’s Productivity�
  • Making uncomfortable decisions

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Leap to management

LESSONS

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  • Delivering tough feedback�
  • So much to learn - always!�
  • Decision making with ambiguity�
  • You won’t make everyone happy

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Considering the management path?

  • Do you enjoy helping people?�
  • Are you ready to prioritise a team over individual code contribution? Shifting from solving problems yourself to enabling others to solve them?�
  • Do you like having the big picture and the full context of why the team is building what they’re building?

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You can start doing now

  • Mentoring

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  • Take ownership of projects

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  • Proactively solve problems�
  • Shadowing�
  • Practice prioritisation and decision making

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📌

👩‍🏫

🛠

👀

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Conclusion

    • Each journey to leadership is different, but growth comes from new and uncomfortable opportunities�
    • An engineering manager is responsible for the delivery of their entire team, not just their own�
    • You can start working on your leadership skills before having the title

Transfagarasan Highway

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Questions?

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