Sign up to our DirectorPlus newsletter
Subscribers get the best engineering leadership content in their inbox every month.
Newsletter archive
Cooking up a culture of continuous learning
Continuous learning is an important part of building a collaborative culture.
Retaining engineering talent in a chaotic market
With Bloomberg’s global head of engineering, Adam Wolf.
Encouraging a passion for productivity
In this edition of DirectorPlus, Neha Batra, VP of Engineering at GitHub, explains how she creates a culture of productivity.
Using AI to make a “sci-fi” developer experience
The future of AI-assisted development is so greenfield it’s neon-green, says Dana Lawson, CTO at Netlify.
Latest
-
A founder’s 3 strategies for building successful product teams
Building a company from the ground up consists of understanding customer pain points and engineer autonomy.
-
How DX Core 4 aims to unify developer productivity frameworks
Can it bring together DORA, SPACE, and DevEx, to help inform diverse stakeholders?
-
Why 70% of engineers avoid measuring lines of code
And four other key findings from the 2024 LeadDev Engineering Team Performance report.
-
Is agile manifesting or preventing AI adoption?
In the rush to adopt AI, many organizations have forgotten – or conveniently overlooked – the fundamentals of agile software delivery.
-
Why everyone’s suddenly talking about AI agents
What exactly are AI agents and how are they different from AI assistants?
November 5, 2025
A unique one-day event for Heads, Directors, VPs and CTOs exploring core leadership challenges.
Essential reading
What is a Director of Engineering? The glue keeping engineering together
A director of engineering is responsible for keeping an entire engineering function humming. Find out what skills you need to climb the ladder to this vital position.
On our DirectorPlus playlist
Strategies to hone commercial awareness and drive business outcomes
Learn effective strategies for enhancing commercial awareness in tech teams, turning engineering into a business driver through alignment, impactful initiatives, and stakeholder engagement.
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.
Making the manager of manager’s mindset
Suzan Bond covers the difference between the two roles and the key mindset shifts leaders need to make to manage managers.
November 5, 2025
A unique one-day event for Heads, Directors, VPs and CTOs exploring core leadership challenges.
More for managers of managers
-
How “you build it, you run it” improves team performance
Whether it’s recruiting new talent, team accountability, or streamlining processes, “you build it, you run it” is the philosophy for you.
-
Content sponsored by WorkOS
The engineering leader’s guide to becoming enterprise ready
If you’re responding to enterprise demand, or just preparing for the day, here are three areas to consider to make your products ready.
-
The best feature management and experimentation software 2024
Feature flags and experimentation are critical for progressive developer teams who want granular control over their feature delivery. But which tool is the right one for you?
-
Be careful with ‘open source’ AI
Open source AI models may be appealing for developers, but there are still plenty of complex risks to assess.
-
Should the daily stand-up die?
Will the real agile developers please stand up? Please stand up. Please, stand up.
Videos for managers of managers
-
Ice, confusion, and the 38,000ft crash
Uncover the critical lessons from AF 447’s final moments – how small factors spiraled into disaster and what it teaches us about building resilient systems.
-
Estimates as probabilities
This talk introduces a probability approach to estimations, aiming to transform delivery discussions into stress-free, trust-based conversations between tech teams and stakeholders.
-
How games brought our Engineering Principles to life
See how games transformed Engineering Principles into memorable practices for engineering teams, offering ideas for engaging team-building activities.
-
Launching a Gen AI powered travel companion: A case for tiger teams
Explore Booking.com’s journey in launching a Gen AI travel companion in 3 months, powered by a tiger team approach for rapid, focused product development and innovation.
-
Why you’re doing service catalogs wrong
Learn why service catalogs often fall short and discover practical strategies for building incremental value, avoiding pitfalls, and driving impactful automation and insights.
-
Decoding candidate experiences: A new era in tech hiring
Discover how tech hiring is evolving with insights on candidate experiences, market trends, and empathy-driven practices for creating an inclusive, transparent hiring process.
-
On-call revolution: Building a culture of ownership and collaboration
Discover how innovative on-call rotations empower developers, foster team collaboration, and reduce complexity, creating a cohesive, ownership-driven culture that enhances service quality.
-
Content sponsored by incident.io
Managing authentically across levels
Learn how to manage engineers at all levels with practical tips for adapting your style to support growth and foster a thriving, high-performing engineering team.
-
Effective communication: Mastering growth-oriented feedback
Discover strategies for delivering feedback that builds trust and openness. Learn science-backed techniques to make feedback constructive, approachable, and growth-focused, helping teams unlock their full potential.
-
Tackling tech debt
Learn practical strategies from a seasoned CTO on managing tech debt effectively – when to embrace it, how to prioritize it, and turning it into growth.
-
Exhausted but not burned out: A manager’s story of how to get the team through a tough project
Discover strategies for leading high-stress projects without burnout. Learn how prioritising team well-being, resilience, and self-compassion fosters sustainable success even under intense pressure.
-
Tech odyssey: The epic saga of a mega migration to temporal
Embark on a journey through the challenges and triumphs of a major tech migration, revealing strategies for scaling, continuous development, and operational excellence in platform transformation.