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Discussion on: I am Software Engineer and former Director of Engineering, Ask Me Anything!

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Jay R. Wren

Did you make the leap directly to the director role or were you an engineering manager too? Where were the most important skills for each of these rolls? How did your background equip you for these roles?

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Allan MacGregor 🇨🇦

I actually had several roles with scaling levels of responsibility. Technical speaking my role as Director of Engineering was very much an engineering management role, hiring, firing, performance reviews ... you know the fun stuff.

Before that I had a role as Practice lead, which was def more technical and less management, but still a good introduction in terms of mentoring and training.

Softskills become essential as you dig more into management, knowing how to resolve conflicts, give feedback, etc.

Honestly, my background and the career path planning I had a the company I used to work wasn't the best it was more of sink or swim kinda mentality.