Latest
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Where staff+ engineers can move the needle
As you become more senior in your role, the pressure to expand your impact grows. Here are some ways to get the ball rolling.
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Your go-to professional growth model
When you’re an engineering leader, finding the time to upskill is almost impossible. Following the S-curve model might keep you on track.
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Tech CEOs reckon with the impact of AI on junior developers
CEOs are concerned that the rise of AI tools like Copilot and GPT is causing junior developers to lose touch with core coding skills.
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Leader or engineer? Navigating our technical identity crisis
Am I still technical enough? What does my team think?
Drawing from the hard-won lessons of a leadership initiative for 250 engineers, this talk uncovers unexpected truths in the conflict between technical depth and leadership.
Editor’s picks
Engineering leadership is not just about code
If you’re looking to move into an engineering leadership position, you’ll have to do more than brush up on code!
How to find and become a great engineering mentor
Mentoring is a great way to boost your career. Here’s everything you need to know about getting a mentor, and becoming one yourself.
How to navigate unexpected role changes
At one point or another, you may have to face an unexpected role change. It might not be what you want, but there are ways to make it work.
Berlin • Nov 3 & 4, 2025
Charity Majors, Sam Newman, and Humera Noor confirmed for LeadDev Berlin! 🙌
Essential reading
Learning to enjoy the career progression journey
Reaching a management position in the tech industry is hard work. It’s important to remember to enjoy the journey and celebrate victories big and small along the way.
On our Career development playlist
There and back again – A cautionary tale about entering middle management
Explore the realities of middle management through a journey of promotion, stress, and self-reflection, offering guidance on finding the right leadership path.
Unconventional paths in tech: Leveraging your strengths to find your place
n this talk, Mitra Raman will take a look at the many paths that engineers can take on their leadership journey.
Career vectors for technical leaders
Mix and match skills to become the best technical leader that you can be.
The path from Director to CTO: How to follow it, or how to mentor it
This talk is aimed at both aspiring Chief Technology Officers and those who are in a position to mentor future CTOs. Explore the journey from a Director of Engineering role to a CTO, focusing on the skills and experiences needed for this transition and how experienced leaders can guide others on this path.
Essential soft skills you need to succeed as an engineer
There is a big focus on technical expertise in software engineering – but soft skills are equally as important. Which ones are crucial to master and how can you do this?
The conference for engineering leaders shaping the future of software
Berlin • November 3 & 4, 2025
Featuring
More about Career development
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How Netflix sustains innovation while “doing more with less”
Ahead of her talk at LeadingEng West Coast in October, Netflix’s Carol Barrett talks about sustaining engineering innovation in highly constrained circumstances.
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Building an onboarding plan for engineering managers
Almost all organizations will have onboarding plans for software engineers, but what about engineering managers?
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Knowing when it’s time to leave your job
Leaving a job is such a massive change in your life, so how do you know when it’s time to finally make that move?
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LeadDev editor’s picks: September 2023
August had us asking how the rise of AI-powered coding assistants could fundamentally change the role of the engineering manager, while also grappling with age-old challenges around managing challenging people and having productive 1:1 meetings.
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The reality of being an engineering fellow
Lessons learned from being promoted from distinguished engineer to fellow, including what the title means and what it is that I do.
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Building a learning culture to unlock developer thriving
Allowing developers to learn on the job can be difficult when the pressure is on, but research proves that a strong learning culture can help developers thrive.
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9 ways to build technical depth, fast
Understanding a new technical stack isn’t easy, but these nine activities can help you get there faster.
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Setting boundaries when you’re overworked
It can be difficult to set boundaries at work. Here are a few scenarios to show you how to do so, even if you’re worried about an unstable job market.
Top Career development videos
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Embracing change as an engineering leader
We all want to stay ahead of the curve – after all, that’s what you go to a conference for. But have you ever considered how being ahead of the curve might be dangerous?
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Characteristics of a modern tech lead
Over the last decade or so we have seen a shift towards “generalising specialists”, programmers who, as well as designing and building great software, can understand a business domain, design a user interface, participate in and automate some of the testing and deployment activities, and who are sometimes even responsible for the health and wellbeing of their own systems in production.
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Addressing Imposter Syndrome for engineering leaders
Impostor Syndrome is the feeling that you aren’t really qualified for the work you are doing and will be discovered as a fraud.
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Prioritising personal development as en engineering leader
What should I focus on to become a better leader and to better support my team? Where do I find the time to keep my technical skills relevant? How do I learn more about the business so I can understand the needs of the organisation better?
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Leadership Through the Underground Railroad
Software development has regularly borrowed processes and terminology from outside technology to improve how code gets to customers.
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Being a customer-focused engineering leader
Most software engineers don’t realize that an outage is more than keeping the TTR low (yes, TTR is very important); it’s also about managing the expectations of your customers.
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Do the Most Good
Mina shares reflections from the campaign trail and explores strategies to use your time and skills to affect social change.
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Storytelling patterns for engineering leaders
In most forms of entertainment, it all comes down to the story.