Have you ever coached an engineer to become a manager or into a management role? If so, can you tell me about the experience and

As part of my role, I continuously evaluate team members on key attributes such as working effectively in ambiguous environments, domain and technical knowledge, ownership, bias for action, and team collaboration. While many of these align with their current job requirements, an engineer consistently excelling in these areas and contributing beyond their immediate scope is a strong indicator they are ready for the next level.

Once I identify such an engineer, I collaborate with them to expand their responsibilities. For example, I assign them as the lead for a project where they can create a project plan, unblock teammates, remove blockers, and enable the team to work efficiently. Additionally, I ask them to tackle a persistent engineering problem, allowing them to expand their influence and showcase strategic problem-solving.

To further assess their readiness, I give them a project that requires cross-team collaboration to evaluate their ability to work across functions and manage stakeholders effectively. Throughout this process, I gather data, monitor their progress, and document their achievements. The final step involves compiling these insights and recommending them for promotion based on demonstrated impact and readiness.

Yes, i coached an engineer to progress into a manager role with an ownership of delivery responsibility for an entire customer account and managing 3 teams. This progression happened in a course of 3 years. This was during the time when I was leading embedded sw organisation, and while building the time I hired this senior engineer.

He showed good promise and transitioned into top performer with good hold on technology, communication skills and mentoring and helping others. We identified dealing with ambiguity as one of the improvement ares and he systematically addressed that. Cleint communication was next identified target area and he improved on that too.

To help him get better, i provided his opportunities at project work, connected him to mentors and also suggested trainings that he can leverage.

Based on his interest to lead a team, we identified team management as learning focus area.

I started him with a small team of 3 memeber s, gave him autonomy to lead and drive his charter interacting with his team, but with regular check-in to assess how he is doing.

This way he made good use of opportunities provided to him and grew in his cadre. At each growth level, we identified opportunities to improve on and facilitating him with various support parameters including regular feedback mechanism and course correction I was happy to grow a senior engineer to a client account manager