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Meri Williams: Career Vectors: Navigating Moder...

Turing Fest
July 22, 2024
28

Meri Williams: Career Vectors: Navigating Modern Careers

Everything around us is constantly changing and developing — it’s tough to keep up with, let alone get ahead of. So how do we navigate our own careers and those of our teams with everything in flux? In this talk, Meri will introduce the concept of career vectors, which they have used in coaching hundreds of technical leaders over the years. You’ll learn tools for guiding your own career, those of your team, and even for communicating what types of opportunity is available at your organisation.

Turing Fest

July 22, 2024
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Transcript

  1. Meri Williams, ChromeRose @Geek_Manager MY CAREER JOURNEY & HORIZONS •

    “It’s all about code” • “It’s all about systems” • ”It’s all about architecture and how things fit together” • “It’s all about processes and how things get done” • “Oh shit. It’s all about people!” • “Hang on, it only really matters if people in healthy teams deliver tech that actually meets business needs” • “It’s all about systems of systems!"
  2. Meri Williams, ChromeRose @Geek_Manager ON THE ONE HAND THIS IS

    FREEING … ON THE OTHER HAND IT’S A BIT SCARY
  3. Meri Williams, ChromeRose @Geek_Manager FLAVOURS OF TECHNICAL LEADERS • Hands-on,

    deep technical expert • Tech leads, delivery of projects & products of increasing complexity • Architect type roles – working at a different (strategic) level of abstraction on systems & tech • Combo manager/leader roles – developing and enabling individuals & teams • Organisational leaders – managers of managers (of managers…)
  4. Meri Williams, ChromeRose @Geek_Manager ONLY FOCUS ON A GAP OR

    WEAKNESS IF IT IS A CONTROLLING WEAKNESS
  5. Meri Williams, ChromeRose @Geek_Manager [A CONTROLLING WEAKNESS IS SOMETHING YOU

    AREN’T GOOD AT THAT IS ESSENTIAL TO PERFORM WELL IN YOUR ROLE]
  6. Meri Williams, ChromeRose @Geek_Manager ZOOMING OUT FOR A MOMENT, THINK

    ABOUT WHETHER IT’S CLEAR TO EVERYONE AT YOUR ORG WHICH OF THESE VECTORS MATTER FOR WHICH ROLES
  7. Meri Williams, ChromeRose @Geek_Manager WHAT KINDS OF SHAPES DO YOU

    REQUIRE? WHAT KINDS OF GROWTH DO YOU ENABLE?
  8. Meri Williams, ChromeRose @Geek_Manager COMMON TENSIONS… • How much are

    managers expected to focus on developing & enabling individuals & teams versus ensuring delivery? • Is Tech Lead role more about technical depth or leading the team to deliver a solution? How much business understanding is needed? • At what point (and for which roles) does budget and commercial understanding becoming essential? • Which elements of tech strategy require in-depth hands-on expertise? • Is it clear to everyone what the difference between architect and eg staff or principal engineer is?
  9. Meri Williams, ChromeRose @Geek_Manager DON’T TRY TO MAKE EVERYONE EQUALLY

    GENERALIST – YOU END UP LEVELLING PEOPLE OUT TOWARDS MEDIOCRITY. EMBRACE DIFFERENCE!