What Impactful Engineering Leadership Looks Like

I'm privileged to be working with Jessica on a contract right now. She's not only the smartest person I've ever worked with, but she manages to elevate people to a level of ability they don't even realize they're capable of.

Her ability to process information and distill critical data is unparalleled: she'll find out everything she needs in 2-3 questions tops. I've seen her do this in front of both highly technical audiences and less technical ones: she perfectly tailors her speech to exactly the level that her audience needs. She sets a great example for how to communicate in a work context.

I think this is what makes her such a fantastic engineering leader: she uses her unique skillset to help remove as many barriers as possible. This enables everyone who works with her to be a better version of themselves, which pays huge dividends.

I was glad to see discussion of a technical track. I just finished reading Skunk Works, and that is a great example of what you can do with a team of outstanding technical contributors. Also one of the messages of that book is that such a team requires less oversight and management overhead. (Not none, but a fraction of other teams.)

I like this comment Your Team's Capacity = Your Executional Ability

The limit of a team's capacity is the leadership and management (executional ability) of the leader.