Consider CoS a stop in your career jungle gym

I switched from engineering management to an individual contributor role last year. But I am an individual contributor that is working on operational efficiency and resilience for a 600-person-R&D-org. Curious why I switched to being a Chief-of-Staff for the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions and what I have learned in the past year? Read on.

First a bit of context…

I have always been an explorer in my career. I started as a new grad working on UI but slowly moved to the backend, and then back again to the frontend when I was one of few women working on the iOS stack (ask me about the women’s bathroom line in WWDC 2013 — there was none!). I switched to management and was responsible for the iOS app, and then the iOS and Android app…eventually I managed teams that worked on the full stack (iOS, Android, Web, API, Backend). Forgot to mention — my software engineering thesis project was related to hardware and bluetooth technology. Go figure :)

These lateral moves truly helped me leapfrog my learning and made me open to exploring such opportunities.

Why CoS?

In my role as an engineering manager on LinkedIn Pages product, I developed a strong understanding of what my teams were working on and how that fit into the overall strategy of LinkedIn. But I didn’t really understand the overall LMS strategy. I had always heard about the complexity of running an ads stack but hadn’t worked directly with the ads teams even though we were part of the same organization.

The CoS opportunity showed up just when I was open to change and exploration. My deep respect and curiosity around organization design made the decision easy. I believe organization design, along with culture, drives the experiences we build for our customers. And what better way to understand organization design and operations than by being part of the leadership team.

So, how was last year?

I learnt that the CoS Staff role is very fluid. A lot of it depends on the leader you support and where they need your support. You will own things that no one owns (or wants to own!). This means you are stretched and grow in directions you never imagined. Eg. I never imagined putting together an all hands agenda for 600 people, and giving tips on public speaking. I now understand the complexity of the ads stack. There are so many engineering processes that need to run effectively from onboarding to infrastructure planning to on-call in order for the organization to be successful.

But most of all, this role helped me get a better grasp of business and strategy. I got to see how tough prioritization is, how complex investment calls are and how critical communication is to organizational effectiveness. I feel I am a better engineering leader as a result of this experience.

Considering this role? Here are some tips…

• Take the time to understand the whole organism (I mean organization!) — the business, the people and the strategy. We are all high functioning individuals. We all like to have an impact. But in this role it is important not to rush.
• It’s not about you! You have to set the stage for others — make them successful. Connect people with opportunity. Support ideas. Act on feedback.
• Most importantly — get REALLY good at prioritization for your own sanity.

If you are still reading, I hope this article was useful. Please follow-me/connect-with-me on LinkedIn where I will be sharing more of my ideas and thoughts on engineering leadership.