Attest Engineering Handbook

# 🌳 Engineering Management Growth Framework

# Levels & Scope

Engineering Managers have three levels (I, II, and III).

As with the engineering growth framework, when looking at the various Delivery and Approach levels, it's important to recognise at which scope each level applies to.

Level 1 - EM Team and Engineering

Level 2 - EM Team, Engineering, and R&D

Level 3 - EM Team, Engineering, R&D, and company-wide.

# 🔍 Framework

# Attitude & Behaviours

# Promoters

# Team Player 👥

  • Is curious and supportive about what others bring to the table.
  • Readily provides meaningful feedback and welcomes it from others.
  • Generous with time, advice, knowledge, and energy.
  • Shares expertise and learning with other engineers and seeks it out in return.
  • Develops robust relationships across Attest.
  • Considers impacts on other areas when making decisions.
  • Respectfully challenges decisions when they disagree but is quick to put any personal views aside once consensus has been reached.

# Learning & Agility 💡

  • Creates a climate where people are curious, try out improvements, learn and adapt.
  • Embraces changes with an open mind and an eagerness to try out new things.
  • Actively seeks out new learning opportunities.
  • Is transparent about failure and views mistakes as opportunities to learn.
  • Thinks about personal development goals and how to achieve them.
  • Prioritises effectively and makes decisions about where to focus energy.
  • Demonstrates a bias for action when faced with tough challenges.

# EQ 🙂

  • Demonstrates humility in their dealings with others.
  • Actively listens with intent, appreciates others opinions.
  • Celebrates success collectively and shares reward fairly.
  • Open to the idea that there is always a better way of doing things.
  • Is proud of their success but not in a self-congratulatory way.
  • Remains calm under stress.
  • Recognises other's emotions and responds with empathy.
  • Shows respect for colleagues and themselves at all times.
  • Calls out when things go wrong and takes accountability.

# Autonomy & Proactiveness ⚙️

  • Freely explores ideas.
  • Combines problems with solutions.
  • Spots what needs to happen and does it.
  • Embraces failure and learns from it.
  • Sets an appropriate level of stretch for themselves and others.
  • Demonstrates a high degree of passion for their role.
  • Makes it their business to know our business, customers, products, and industry.
  • Comfortable giving opinions and takes decisive action.

# Derailers

# Team Player 👥

  • Operates independently and in silos.
  • Plays favourites and engages in politics.
  • Puts own needs ahead of the collective need.
  • Doesn't take time to communicate or listen to others.
  • Doesn't adapt their style to the audience.
  • Doesn't take feedback into account.
  • Strongly objects or becomes a blocker when a decision is made, they don't agree with.

# Learning & Agility 💡

  • Reacts to change in a knee-jerk fashion.
  • Slow to adapt.
  • Resists or sabotages change efforts.
  • Adopts a fixed view of tech, people, and the organisation.
  • Inflexible in their ways of working.

# EQ 🙂

  • Disregards the views of others.
  • Becomes defensive when criticised.
  • Reacts with angry outbursts.
  • Has an exaggerated sense of their own importance.
  • Assumes they have all the answers already.
  • Creates division by taking all the credit.
  • Makes unfounded statements.
  • Unable to the put their hands up and admit they may be wrong.
  • Behaves like certain tasks and parts of the operation are beneath them or pulls rank.

# Autonomy & Proactiveness ⚙️

  • Waits on guidance from others on most decisions.
  • Strives for perfection before delivery.
  • Acts slowly.
  • Acts indecisively.
  • Defers decisions.
  • Prefers to sit on the fence.

# Delivery

To best represent Engineering Management we can split the delivery of what we do and where we can make the most impact into three main categories.

# Growth & Development 💎

Engineering Managers mentor & coach our engineers, as well as encouraging & managing their performance and development. This category includes how EM's are focused on giving continual feedback, and creating guidelines for technical progression.

Level I

  • Holds regular 121s with their team.
  • Build trust with the team through being available, approachable, and open to feedback. Respects individual confidentiality.
  • Adequately supports in multiple situations including difficult circumstances.
  • Helps build a picture of Engineer's career aspirations and helps them work towards fulfilling them.
  • Helps their team build goals and targets.
  • Identifies, supports and manages underperforming Engineers effectively when required.
  • Builds a picture of the strengths and areas of development for engineers who report to them, using formal and informal feedback, gives continual feedback and can accurately calibrate against the growth framework.
  • Supports and guides Engineers through key periods such as onboarding, probation, and offboarding/handover.
  • Encourages professional development in Engineers and ensures that they dedicate the time to develop their relevant skills.

Level II

  • Can articulate coaching and leadership best practices and shares knowledge on subject.
  • Improves on how we manage growth and development within Engineering.
  • Helps spot knowledge gaps and organises opportunities for individuals to learn.
  • Fosters a culture of continuous learning.
  • Builds on and improves our career growth framework.
  • Continually improves the way we evaluate and measure success of individuals, making sure that we are fair and efficient.
  • Comfortably manages 4 or more engineers

Level III

  • Builds close relationships with peers across R&D, e.g. Product, and Design.
  • Has a view of and understands the squad missions across R&D and their resource requirements.
  • Owns and generates buy-in for initiatives that improve on the delivery output of our squads.
  • Has a deep understanding of the company goals.
  • Identifies and work on initiatives that level up the R&D team as a whole.
  • Meets regularly and exchanges ideas & pain points with Product Managers.
  • Ensures there is a regular flow of communication both within Tech & Product and to business stakeholders.
  • Meets regularly and exchanges ideas & pain points with Product Managers.
  • Continually improves the way we evaluate and measure success, driving improvements across teams and the wider business.
  • Comfortably manages more than 6 engineers from a broad range of seniority and disciplines.

# Product Delivery 📦

Engineering managers should deliver impact through being close partners to other disciplines within Product Delivery. They understand squad goals and pain points across R&D, removing these pain points, balancing our team across squads most effectively, and to actively work on initiatives that level up the output of R&D as a whole.

Level I

  • Promotes identification and discovery of improvements where they can be made within squads.
  • Has a view of and understands the squad missions across R&D and their resource requirements.
  • Identifies and removes blockers from team members.
  • Meets regularly and exchanges ideas & pain points with Product Managers, to ensure engineering is delivering effectively on its goals.
  • Coaches engineers on how their work matters and has enough context of the business to do so (how it relates to Squad goals, those goals to company quarterly plans, those plans to yearly plans, then to our mission/vision).

Level II

  • Builds close relationships with GPMs, and peers across Design and Data Science.
  • Has a view of and understands the squad missions across R&D and their resource requirements.
  • Owns and generates buy-in for initiatives that improve on the delivery output of our squads.
  • Has a deep understanding of the company goals.
  • Identifies and work on initiatives that level up the R&D team as a whole.
  • Meets regularly and exchanges ideas & pain points with Group Product Managers, to ensure engineering is delivering effectively on its goals.
  • Ensures there is a regular flow of communication both within Tech & Product and to business stakeholders.

Level III

  • Builds relationships with R&D team leads and the wider business to understand their goals & challenges.
  • Relies on and identifies data to help better inform squads and identify product delivery bottlenecks.
  • Actively builds on their awareness of impacts from outside the team or key dependencies that will impact delivery, mitigates and manages these.
  • Understanding of key projects / work being delivered across squads, with an oversight of key milestones / features.
  • Awareness of key dependencies / risks at strategic level, guiding teams on how to plan for these.
  • Meets regularly and exchanges ideas & pain points with our Product Leader (head of / directors / VP), to ensure engineering is delivering effectively on its goals.

# Engineering Team Performance 🚀

This category represents how Engineering Mangers work strategically: improving overall engineering throughput, reducing technical overheads, and streamlining processes. Often these initiatives will be building on and championing engineering methodologies and frameworks, working closely with chapters to help facilitate technical strategy & direction, and building effective & focussed hiring plans.

Level I

  • Understand and inputs into Engineering quarterly goals.
  • Builds on and improves Engineering processes and frameworks.
  • Owns initiatives that improve engineering engagement/effectiveness, e.g. hack days.
  • Prompts teams or chapters to continually reflect on their performance and identify ways to improve.
  • Enough understanding of the tech stack / product to independently answer queries from outside of the team or direct to the relevant person.

Level II

  • Facilitates and identifies initiatives within Engineering chapters or cross squad, to reduce technical overhead / increase throughput.
  • Works closely with Engineering chapters to facilitate chapter goals that further the company goals.
  • Works with Engineering chapters to help facilitate technical strategy & direction.
  • Explores blockers & bottlenecks within Engineering pipelines and our overall efficiency. Facilitates initiatives to improve upon these and improve on our Engineering metrics.
  • Builds a close relationship with our Talent team as Hiring Managers.
  • Improves on our hiring pipeline & processes.
  • Understands company strategy and aligns our hiring strategy accordingly, quantifies which background/discipline engineers are required to best deliver it.
  • Able to translate complex technical detail to non-technical audiences and interested parties.
  • Solicits feedback from Engineers, proactively looks for knowledge gaps, and identifies routes to resolve.

Level III

  • Works closely with our most senior Engineers to build and track against measurable Engineering metrics.
  • Rolls out significant process improvements and measurable efficiencies to Engineering performance.
  • Facilitates and identifies initiatives within R&D and the whole company, to reduce technical overhead / increase throughput.

# Approach

# Communication 💬

Level I

  • Identifies and remedies communication gaps and conflicts between others.
  • Actively participates in EM Team meetings.
  • Effectively communicates to others, encouraging open and honest dialogue.
  • Crafts well-written and timely communications for others and chooses the right method for the situation.
  • Explains/clarifies/motivates business decisions to their team when necessary.
  • Communicates upwards from teams to senior management when appropriate.
  • Considers the order in which key information should be shared.

Level II

  • Is a role-model for excellent communication.
  • Uses communication to drive change across Engineering and R&D.
  • Inspires and generates buy in for their ideas.
  • Creates and delivers engaging, digestible communications to the team and follows up on queries.
  • Encourages and facilitates great communication between others.

Level III

  • Comfortably communicates complex issues, and large pieces of work, to diverse audiences inside & outside the company.
  • Actively seeks out opportunities to shout about your areas of expertise.
  • An inspiring communicator who presents strategy and key information to a wide audience.

# Leadership ⚖️

Level I

  • Plays an active role in the EM team and suggests improvements to work more effectively.
  • Is always mindful that they are a role model for others in R&D, exhibiting the behaviours and characteristics they would expect from others.
  • Recognises individual and team successes.

Level II

  • Encourages and shares management best practices and principles.
  • Facilitates knowledge sharing activities within the chapter and beyond.
  • Natural teacher, both formally and informally. Adapts style to the individual.
  • Supports the growth of others by spotting opportunities and delegating.
  • Is a role model for others in the EM Team .
  • Confidently leads others, communicating the 'why' in their ideas and generates participation from others.
  • Raises Attest's profile as an Engineering brand through inspiring writing or speaking.
  • Seeks opportunities to provide support and advice to more junior members of the team.
  • Spots disputes and conflicts within the team, and resolves the trickiest conflicts fairly and effectively.

Level III

  • Identifies missing knowledge gaps within the EM Team - facilitates removing this missing gap through workshops, initiatives, and more.
  • Mentors other EMs or equivalent peers across R&D.
  • Leads initiatives that span multiple disciplines and can generate buy in across the whole organisation.
  • Is a role model across the R&D group and beyond.
  • Actively seeks out opportunities to lead and facilitates initiatives and knowledge sharing outside of their own team.
  • Has a strong network and frequently share learning with others, showing a high degree of empathy and have the ability to influence others.
  • Breaks up silos by connecting people together.

# Accountability 🗒️

Level I

  • Prioritises and delegates to make the best use of their time.
  • Makes judgements about when to diverge from the immediate goal to achieve something else.
  • Works hard to achieve the immediate goal.
  • Articulates if things are going well or not, knowing what to escalate and when, and what to solve on their own.
  • Ensures that outcomes & actions are captured and progress is tracked.
  • Dedicates time to professional development and upskilling in relevant areas.

Level II

  • A role model for effective organisation.
  • Develops a clear vision for what success looks like, within the work and projects that you own, and drives them to conclusion.
  • Defaults to utilise data to inform their decisions.
  • Effectively manages delegation by holding others to account.
  • Builds trust with key stakeholders through proactive and timely updates.

Level III

  • Provides regular updates and transparency around progress on initiatives & key topics in their team.
  • Owns the success or failure of their initiatives and idea, communicates or celebrates clearly to the affected audience, and follows up with timely remedial actions where appropriate.

# Commerciality 🏢

Level I

  • Broadly understands Attest's business strategy and the impact that has on the engineering team.
  • Has a good sense of how our customers use the platform, how they view it, how they react to new features and what problems they have with it.
  • Aware of Attest's competitors and what they provide.
  • Understands the basic concepts, common constraints and problems in the market research industry.
  • Looks at ways that engineering can address customer needs.
  • Frames their priorities and tasks within the commercial ambitions & plans of the company.

Level II

  • Has enough context of the business landscape to be a partner to Engineering, Design and Product leads within squads, to help drive squad direction and goals.
  • Is conscious and thoughtful of their teams & initiatives impact on other teams and business metrics.
  • Seeks opportunities to learn more about the industry and Attest's place within it.
  • Appreciation of how our business works, in relation to our ARR metrics and financial goals.
  • Coaches engineers on how their work matters (how it relates to Squad goals, those goals to company quarterly plans, those plans to yearly plans, then to our mission/vision).
  • Seeks to understand other parts of the business outside of R&D and builds good partnerships with other key stakeholders.
  • Helps others in the business understand how engineering can help them.

Level III

  • Uses their knowledge to help drive business goals for the whole of the company.
  • Defines strategy with Engineering and beyond in alignment with company ambitions, is able to justify/defend their viewpoint.

# Problem Solving 🤔

Level I

  • Solves problems that affect the EM Team and the Engineering team.
  • Is able to synthesise information quickly and put forward the best solutions.
  • Is open minded and flexible in their own thinking and does what is right in a wider context. Has strong opinions weakly held.
  • Challenges the status quo and has the attitude that anything can be improved.
  • Listens well to others and understand distinct perspectives.

Level II

  • Takes a strategic approach to identifying future problem areas and mitigates before they arise.
  • Can tackle problems that affect the whole of R&D and come up with multiple effective solutions.
  • Recognises that solutions to large scale problems can take a period of time to validate, works incrementally to build a solution and preservers until the problem is solved.
  • You flex between methodologies and frameworks to adapt to unique situations, without a fixed approach.

Level III

  • Works on the hardest, largest and most ambiguous problems that affect the whole business and breaks down and solves them effectively - bringing others in when necessary.
  • Elicits ideas from others, internally and externally, with the ability to synthesise information quickly.

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