Srivatsan Sridharan lays out six archetypes of engineering managers particularly for larger organizations1:
- The Inspirational Leader: inspires others to follow them through charisma and empathy. Needs strong engineers to be impactful along with an engineering supporting culture.
- The Business Strategist: Focuses on ROI from their team and the value the team delivers. Needs a culture that values business impact over other concerns and where your impact is easily measured and valued by senior leadership.
- The Technology Innovator: Requires strong technical skills and a heartbeat on bleeding edge tech. Needs a culture that values engineer excellence and collaboration between teams, and this role is not filled by principal level engineers.
- The Tough Coach: Gets improvement out of middling performers and manages out under performers via 1:1 relationship building. Successful in a HR environment where they can operate freely.
- The Orchestrator: Strong management and organizational skills, keeps the trains running on time with a strong attention to detail. Needs an organization that is suffering from process issues (dysfunction or bureaucracy).
- The Savvy Politician: Understands power dynamics and can manage their brand. They negotiate win-wins. This type can be effective in any organization but can backfire if power misunderstood.
1. Sridharan, S. How to grow as an Engineering Manager. Srivatsan Sridharan (2023).