Level Up!: Leveraging the Engineering Career Ladder

Every career has a story.

Does this story sound familiar?

Sarah thought she was doing everything right. Her boss loves her and, after finding success as a junior engineer, and in project and product management, she was given an engineering team to manage. From day one, she set strong standards on how the work should be done based on management techniques that were effective in her previous background, but she is struggling with her new position. Each engineer needs so much of her time to train to his high standards and there are times when she just wants to stop explaining and finish the work herself. She can envision the solution so easily; why can’t his employees? She cannot seem to get a good understanding of why her employees do not seem to have the same spark as he does for the work.

Thousands of people with engineering or related backgrounds struggle every day, trying to get noticed by their superiors and be promoted into mid-level or senior management. A good portion of those people never make the vertical move; and a good percentage of engineers who get promoted into management fail, wallowing in poor performance and anxiety for years until being restructured or terminated.

You are picking up this book because you have experienced the above situations yourself or have the foresight to want to ensure that you do not fall into a career-limiting trap. It is not uncommon for engineers to want a new challenge after a prolonged tenure at a company and wish to pivot into a new role. Unfortunately, it is not always clear what skills you need to move to the next step on your career ladder.

This step-by-step guide will teach you

• How to excel as a sole contributor or a manager
• How to manage the motivations and personalities of different departments within your company
• How to find mentors to move your career to the next level

Are you ready?