Delegation

Remember when a five‑digit Stack Overflow score was a flex? Today that, and a vintage 2022 playbook will buy you precisely zero leverage. Yesterday’s job, tomorrow’s irrelevance Many Engineering managers still run on three rituals: Status ✨astrology✨ or endless forecasting of ticket constellations. Hours massaging burndown charts, Jira dashboards, stand‑up forecasts – cargo‑cult evidence that the sprint is “on track”. Stakeholder appeasement management: slide decks, project reviews, “quick syncs” to keep exec egos fed and legal teams comfy. People babysitting – counting story points, asking to update Jira, tolerance checks for burnout, sniffing out AI-powered overemployment. By the way, did you know of r/overemployed? However, none of those moves the product faster. Meanwhile, AI agents are quietly doing code reviews, generating boilerplate, even writing RFCs. The org chart hasn’t noticed – yet. ...

So you’ve spent years honing your craft as an individual contributor (IC), and now you’re considering a transition to a leadership position. The appeal is obvious: greater influence, more responsibility, and a unique chance to shape your organization’s trajectory. However, stepping into a lead role comes with challenges that aren’t always highlighted in the job description. One of the most significant hurdles is the shift in mindset that this move demands. Instead of focusing your energy on perfecting technical solutions or improving your own output, you’ll need to foster team dynamics, resolve interpersonal issues, and guide others to success. ...

The idea behind delegation is clear: to free up time to focus on other important work while offering your team opportunities for growth and development. It sounds simple, yet, it’s hard to do, and there’s no good (as in, always working) instruction manual to it. In this blog post, I will not try to offer the manual but share some advice heavily inspired by a great book on career development called Rise by Patty Azzarello. ...