The more experience you gain as a technical leader, whether an individual contributor, a tech lead/lead dev or in a management role, the more varied the roles seem to get. Almost every CTO seems to have a different flavour of the role, VP Eng can mean multiple different things, and it isn’t even consistent whether Staff or Principal is regarded as more senior! Amongst this contradiction and complexity, how can we develop ourselves and others?
In this talk, Meri will share a framework of “career vectors” that she has used when coaching over a hundred technical leaders over the years. Rather than trying to pin to a single concrete definition of a particular role, we’ll discuss the vectors one can choose to mix and match to become the best technical leader that you can be, and then find organisations that want someone with that mix of skills and experiences.
Personal reflections
After watching the talk, take a few minutes to think about the following.
- Take the spider diagram and map your current skills & experiences against the six vectors
- How does that compare to the role that you are currently in at your current organisation?
- How does it compare to the role you think you want in 1 / 2 / 5 years time?
- What are the implications for your own personal development plan? What do you want to focus on?
