Scaling yourself during hypergrowth: Lessons learned managing managers

Description

A year ago, Julia Grace spoke at Velocity about building engineering teams under pressure. These teams were were mostly composed of ICs (individual contributors), and the tips were geared toward line managers in diverse, fast growing environments.

Fast forward to today: now Julia manages managers (including directors who manage managers) and several very senior ICs as Slack’s engineering organization has grown 3.5x in size. Along the way, she’s learned a lot about how to effectively lead managers (and grow them from within).

Join Julia to learn how she made this transition into senior engineering leadership and how she builds high-performing management teams. The role of managing managers is much different from managing ICs, and there is much less written about how to be a successful senior engineering leader and technology executive. The hard-earned skills from being a line manager can come to haunt you as a senior leader, proving the axiom “What got you here won’t get you there.” Julia shares missteps line managers make on their way to senior management and all the things she wishes she had known before starting this journey.

Topics include:

• Helping people with their management problems without dive bombing or micromanaging
• How to manage organizational challenges like re-orgs and leadership changes
• Struggling—and making progress—with building a diverse team
• How to communicate up and down and why this is especially important at very senior levels