Course Overview

Introduction

Most engineering managers are just figuring it out as they go. Not because they're bad at their jobs — but because nobody handed them a playbook. You got promoted because you were a great engineer. That's a different job.

This micro-course exists because the gap between "great IC" and "effective EM" is real, it's uncomfortable, and almost nobody talks about it honestly. The advice you'll find online is either too abstract ("empower your team") or too narrow ("here's how to run a 1:1"). Neither helps you on Monday morning when your skip-level asks how your team is tracking and you have no idea what to say.

What This Is

Six focused modules. Each one covers a layer of the job — starting with the most fundamental and building from there. You can read the whole thing in a weekend. Each lesson ends with one concrete action you can take immediately.

The six layers, in order of priority:

  1. Behavior & Culture — who you are as a manager is the foundation. Everything else sits on top of it.
  2. Role Clarity — what you're actually there to do, for the company, your team, your manager, and yourself.
  3. Relationships & Trust — management is relational. Your influence now comes from trust, not technical authority.
  4. Communication & Influence — how you communicate up, down, and sideways determines how much gets done.
  5. Technical Execution — getting work shipped through other people, with good decisions and lean process.
  6. People Development — the long game. 1:1s, feedback, coaching, and performance management done right.

What This Isn't

This isn't a theory course. You won't find a lot of academic frameworks or references to research studies. What you'll find is what actually works for first-time EMs managing small teams at companies that don't have L&D programs or management coaches on staff.

The Goal

Walk into your first annual review confident you'll get a strong rating. Not because you got lucky, and not because you worked yourself into the ground — but because you had a framework and used it.

Let's get into it.