How to Support Engineers in Project Implementation

As a Principal Engineer, one of my main goals is to enable and empower other engineers. Being a Principal Engineer involves not only technical expertise but also leadership and mentorship. Here are some of the things I do to enable and empower other engineers effectively: Clear Communication and Context Sharing: - Provide thorough context when assigning tasks or explaining projects. This helps engineers understand the bigger picture and make informed decisions. - Explain the "why" behind technical decisions and architectural choices to help engineers connect the dots. Encourage Autonomy: - Give engineers the freedom to experiment and explore different solutions. This fosters creativity and innovation. - Set guidelines and expectations while allowing room for individual problem-solving approaches. Safe Environment for Failure: - Emphasize that failures are learning opportunities, not setbacks. Encourage risk-taking and experimentation. - Foster an open culture where engineers feel comfortable sharing their failures and lessons learned without fear of judgment. Mentorship and Coaching: - Offer guidance and mentorship to help engineers navigate challenges and make informed decisions. - Provide constructive feedback on their work and help them identify areas for growth. Provide Growth Opportunities: - Identify projects or tasks that align with their career goals and give them a chance to learn and stretch their skills. - Support their professional development by suggesting relevant workshops, courses, or conferences. Advocate and Support: - Stand up for "your" engineers in meetings and discussions, especially during challenging situations. - Acknowledge and highlight their accomplishments to leadership and stakeholders. Open Door Policy: - Be approachable and available for discussions, questions, and concerns. - Create an atmosphere where team members feel comfortable seeking help when needed. Lead by Example: - Demonstrate a strong work ethic, technical proficiency, and collaboration skills. - Display a positive attitude and a willingness to learn from others. Promote Knowledge Sharing: - Organize regular knowledge-sharing sessions, where engineers can present their work, share insights, and learn from each other. Celebrate Successes: - Recognize and celebrate achievements, both big and small, to boost morale and motivation. Inclusive and Diverse Environment: - Foster inclusivity and diversity within the team. Respect different perspectives and encourage open discussions. Continuous Improvement: - Regularly seek feedback from engineers on your leadership style and ways to improve the work environment. Enabling and empowering engineers is an ongoing process that requires adaptability and empathy. These strategies help me create an environment where engineers feel valued, motivated, and empowered to excel in their roles.

What can upper management do to enable a culture of collaboration—even in large projects with multiple teams and managers? Ever wondered how to make large, multi-team projects truly collaborative? In many organizations, a common challenge is ensuring that engineers feel empowered to contribute and learn across different parts of the same project. The good news? Leading companies are actively cultivating cultures that break down silos, fostering a much deeper understanding of the entire system. It’s about enabling engineers to see the bigger picture and contribute wherever their expertise is most valuable. Here are three powerful strategies that are gaining traction: 1. Implementing InnerSource Imagine applying open-source development practices within your company. Engineers are encouraged to contribute code, fix bugs, and propose enhancements to modules owned by other internal teams. This fosters shared ownership, promotes knowledge sharing, and builds a collective understanding of the codebase across the organization. It’s collaboration on a grand scale. 2. Organizing Around Value Streams or Features Instead of structuring teams purely by technical layers (e.g., frontend, configuration backend, observability GUI, observability backend, data plane, service plane), many networking and security companies now organize teams around end-to-end delivery of customer value or features. For example, you might see a dedicated Firewall Team, VPN Team, CASB Team, or DLP Team—each owning their feature across the stack, from UI and APIs to backend and data plane functions. This structure fosters holistic understanding and alignment within teams, ensuring that everyone grasps the full scope of a feature’s delivery. 3. Establishing Guilds or Communities of Practice (CoPs) These are groups of engineers from different teams who share a common interest or specialization (e.g., a “Cloud Security Guild” or a “Performance Optimization CoP”). They meet regularly to share knowledge, discuss best practices, and solve common challenges. CoPs transcend traditional team boundaries, enabling cross-pollination of ideas and continuous learning beyond the formal reporting structure. These approaches directly support the kind of system-wide thinking that’s crucial for effective debugging, resilient design, and growth into impactful architectural roles. They help engineers expand their horizons and take true ownership of the product’s success. #SoftwareEngineering #TeamCollaboration #InnerSource #DevOps #TechCulture #NetworkingSecurity #EngineeringLeadership #CareerGrowth #SystemDesign #Aryaka

Key Interfaces between Planning Engineer and Project Engineer for EPC Projects: Planning Engineer's Outputs for Project Engineer: 1. Project Schedule: Provide a detailed project schedule, including milestones, deadlines, and critical path activities. 2. Resource Allocation Plan: Outline the resource allocation plan, including personnel, equipment, and materials. 3. Budget and Cost Plan: Develop a budget and cost plan, including estimated costs, expenditures, and cash flow. 4. Risk Management Plan: Identify potential risks and develop a risk management plan, including mitigation strategies and contingency plans. Project Engineer's Outputs for Planning Engineer: 1. Design and Technical Information: Provide design and technical information, including specifications, drawings, and data sheets. 2. Progress Updates: Offer regular progress updates, including status reports, completion percentages, and any issues or concerns. 3. Change Requests: Submit change requests, including scope changes, schedule changes, or budget changes. 4. Lessons Learned: Share lessons learned during the project, including best practices, challenges, and areas for improvement. Collaborative Activities: 1. Schedule Development: Collaborate to develop a project schedule that meets the project's technical, resource, and budget requirements. 2. Resource Allocation: Work together to allocate resources effectively, ensuring that the project has the necessary personnel, equipment, and materials. 3. Risk Management: Collaborate to identify potential risks and develop mitigation strategies and contingency plans. 4. Progress Monitoring: Regularly review project progress, identifying areas for improvement and implementing corrective actions as needed.

What's the easiest way to build high-quality and well-maintained features? Add software engineers to the conversation on day one. My favorite projects I've worked on had one thing in common. They weren't thrown over the wall. I was there from the beginning. - I attended exploratory meetings - I read user research after it was gathered - I viewed early design concepts and wireframes - I helped scope the feature This resulted in: - Increased context into the why behind the feature - More time to research and implement the best solution - Greater appreciation for Design, UX, and Product - Elevated sense of responsibility and dedication to my team If you want engineers to do their best work, treat them like first-class citizens. Embrace their feedback and participation in the entire project lifecycle, not just the end of it. Have you worked on a team project from start to finish? How did that make you feel?

We know that engineering teams don't usually get along with product, sales, and operations. Engineers feel micromanaged, forced to cut corners and accrue tech debt, and blamed for the results of bad and changing requirements. Meanwhile, the people responsible for bringing in the money think engineers are prima donnas, slow, and carry egos bigger than their output justifies. I tend to agree with both sides. Leaders can get past the blame game, though. Getting the two halves to work together is key to increased productivity and - as I covered yesterday - the most important factor for engineer job satisfaction is perceived productivity. I've also delivered a 1 year roadmap in 2 months with this fix. You need to properly define work. When I was on military projects, the government auditor would ask variations of 3 questions: 1) What are you working on? 2) How do you know that's what you should be working on? 3) How will you know when you are done? I can walk into any engineering department and quickly find the most productive engineers by asking those three things. And I can make them all more productive by improving their answers. Most processes, especially remedial ones put in place by a product or executive team unhappy with engineering results, don't help engineers answer those questions. This is a technical job that needs to be done by technical leadership. If you are standardizing your processes across teams so your project manager can generate a nice status update, you are going to get nice status updates. If you organize around the work, you are going to get good work. Reed Hastings says we should lead with context, not constraints. In product, sales, or support, you will get further with engineers by telling them why you need it a certain way than relying on your authority. Give the context. You probably noticed that engineers tend to assume you are an idiot. Don't take it personally. We assume everyone is an idiot, including other engineers. But we worship good reasoning. Come to an engineer and say "this is the problem the customer is having, here's what I'd like to do about it, and this is the impact we expect". Then ask them what they think and argue about it for a while. Convince them and you will have an advocate. Think your engineers are lazy? They are actually just unmotivated because they don't believe in what they are doing. When we define work well and provide business context for my teams, I need to keep them from working weeknights and weekends because they don't want to stop. I promised I'd give the engineers hell, too, but I ran out of space. You'll have to check back tomorrow to see how I instill accountability and ownership within a tech team. Because you non-engineers have a point. We do tend to act like children and get easily infatuated with our own ideas. But the tech team can also come up with some of your best opportunities if you help them critically develop those ideas.

A hard truth about enterprise AI adoption: telling your engineers to "AI-ify the company" is like asking them to build a house without blueprints. Your engineers are career craftspeople. They've spent years mastering their skills and want to build solutions that matter. Dropping them into vague AI initiatives without clear direction isn't just inefficient—it's demotivating. Three critical elements for successful AI implementation: - Define clear, specific objectives beyond just "adding AI" - Create structured project roadmaps with measurable milestones - Commit to seeing initiatives through, avoiding the "priority shuffle" Remember: Your engineers' time is precious. They want to build career-defining innovations, not chase shifting targets. In this clip, Siddhant Pardeshi shares insights on building an effective AI strategy that energizes your engineering team. If you'd like to talk strategic AI adoption for your enterprise, reach out to chat with one of our team members https://hubs.li/Q039kxf_0 #EnterpriseAI #Engineering #Leadership #Innovation #AIStrategy #TechLeadership What do you think? Have you experienced similar challenges in your AI initiatives? Share your thoughts below 👇