Amir Bormand: [00:00:00] On this episode of the podcast I have with me Amit Galati. He is the SVP of engineering. At Angie, we’re gonna talk about what it means to be an engineering leader, and more specifically as you’re moving through the engineering leadership ranks, what it means to change those different roles and how does that impact you and your life.
Amit, thanks for being on to talk about this.
Amit Gulati: Thank you for having me, Amir. I’m excited to, Awesome,
Amir Bormand: man. Let’s start off at the top with two things. One what does Angie do and then secondly what are some of your responsibilities as the SVP of engineering There.
Amit Gulati: So Angie is something most folks probably have heard of by now under the name Angie’s List.
We actually rebranded just over a year and a half ago where we dropped the list because Angie is a lot more than just a list where people can find service professionals. So what we really do is we are a marketplace where we try to connect homeowners and home service [00:01:00] providers. To help the homeowners, manage home improvements, home home maintenance, and really help people create turn their home into something that they love, a place that they love to be.
As the SVP of engineering there, my focus is really on the product engineering teams. So we’ve got a team of about 300 folks who partner with product management to deliver the right value for the business, create those features and functionality, and operate those and respond to issues and production support.
And I’m really looking to create an environment where my teams can thrive and really build the right things to create the right value for our customer. All right.
Amir Bormand: And I know I know you got some good stories to share, and then we dive into the topic and, I know a lot of times we’re talking about, people moving into management as their first step into leadership, and that transition is a challenge.
I don’t know if a lot of times we talk about. Moving [00:02:00] from a manager to director to VP S V P type titles and the changes that, that someone has to go through in their career. And I guess, that’s the topic we’re gonna tackle today. And I think as we’re kinda looking at some of that, understanding, what it means to be engineering a leader at each level is very important.
I guess to start off with, maybe we can just tackle from your perspective, your own experience as you’ve gone through that progression in your career. Looking back, making that, initial jump from manager to director, what were the shifts in terms of, just your world obviously, more responsibilities of course, but what were some of the shifts that you’re starting to see as you made that transition?
To me,
Amit Gulati: the. Significant way to measure, identify the difference in responsibilities as you progress through management tiers is focusing on your spirit influence. And this starts really at an entry level engineering position [00:03:00] where your focus, your sphere of influence is on yourself and your growth and your execution and your day, right?
You’re looking at what am I doing today and am I getting my commitments done? Then as you become a more senior engineer, your influence goes broader to your team and the sprint that you’re on, so you’re not just looking at a very narrow thing. It’s slightly broader as an engineering manager. Then you’re not just looking at your team, you start looking at the teams around you.
And typically an organization will have a vertical, right? So you have a set of teams working on one specific area, so you’re starting to influence them. And it’s more at a quarter level, right? Because you’re starting to look a little longer term, then you get up to director and it becomes broader than just your vertical.
It becomes your organization, right? Which again is gonna be a set of verticals and you’re gonna be looking a little bit longer term now, maybe out to the year. And then in these vp, SVP and more executive level roles, then your sphere of influences the company and the [00:04:00] future. You’re not even just focused on the present and what you’re getting through, but really, hey, where are we gonna be in year, three years, five years?
And
Amir Bormand: Absolutely. I guess as you’re talking about the sphere of influence, obviously your day-to-day focus shifts, that sphere grows. You have a wider view of what you’re doing essentially. And I guess when you look at that in, the shift in focus, that sphere of influence as you’re going through each layer of leadership, getting to that, the S V P, the E V P level, as you go through, the skillset has to change cuz obviously the world you’re looking at changes, you’re starting to look at the entire company.
That, that seems like a big gaps, obviously the progression in leadership. But when you’re starting off and you’re in that smaller sphere of influence of your team and, a smaller control, and you’re looking to move up into that director role or director to v you know, v p, svp, whatever the next jump is at your company.
Those skills need to start, being developed. They’re not something that, unless you’re God-given skills and you’re just gonna jump up to that level and just, excel, but a lot of times we need to [00:05:00] develop those skills. H how do we develop those skills? There’s no school you go to if you’re being promoted to go, Hey, go learn how to be a director from manager.
We’ve gotta get those skills to people,
Amit Gulati: absolutely. I think one of the signs of a strong organization that was the kind of organizations that I’ve thrived in and that I encourage people around me to try to look for are ones where we do acknowledge that these are changes and these are new skill sets that aren’t going to come naturally.
And so you will have management training type of courses. You take you create opportunities for people to learn how to give feedback. How to hold effective one-on-ones, things that are gonna help them do the new job a little bit better. And those are engineering management skills that, that do stay with you all the way up, up the tiers.
But then the other piece of it, Is really, I think it comes from building your own network. I think that’s where I’ve had the most success, is building a network of mentors and peers, people that I can talk [00:06:00] to, and realizing that I need to learn from other people who have experienced things at these levels or at these higher levels.
And so I found the most success that I had in learning. How to do my job better as I got into these higher ranks came from talking with someone, a friend who’s a sales executive at, a finance company. Five. The work that he does and the work that I do have nothing to do with each other, but at the same time, the leadership skills around how to think about the problems you’re facing a little bit differently.
Focus them from an impact and an outcome perspective rather than rather than the outputs that you’re creating are things that come really through conversations with folks who’ve done leadership or performed leadership roles regardless of the type of industry or sector that they’re in.
Amir Bormand: Absolutely.
Now I agree with you a hundred percent. People management transcends. I think one thing I love about this podcast is that whether I’m talking to engineering or [00:07:00] security or data, the leadership concepts really do go pretty wide. You mentioned something about outputs and I think, as you’re talking about sphere of influence how far you get away from the direct output of whatever you’re in charge of starts separating.
You get that wider distance, the less control you. Your focus that, that prioritization changes. Cuz obviously now you’re being pulled in different directions. Other leaders, I could easily see somebody moving from these different levels. We’ll have to also adjust in terms of. Making sure they have enough time for themselves not to be pulled into other stuff that they shouldn’t be.
That, that’s again, another skill you gotta get good at. Cuz at the management level, it’s one thing at the manager level, director level, VP level, that’s gotta be something you’ve gotta grow into as well.
Amit Gulati: Absolutely. I get asked the question of what are those key skills or key habits that I develop that help me progress through my career as I have, and the two that always stand out to me, [00:08:00] most impactfully are learning how to say no more and learning how to ask for help.
It seems somewhat counterintuitive to a lot of people, right? Because when you’re early in your career, you actually think you’re taught that you need to figure things out for yourself. You need to take on more responsibility. You need to go claim go take. And as you get more senior in your role, what you find is more and more people are asking you to do that.
More and more people are trying to take your time and the way. You succeed here is by knowing when to say no and knowing when to put up the walls and take that control back. I found that. The more times I asked people for help, the more I was willing to say, Hey, I’m not sure how to do this. I need somebody to help teach me how to do this.
The more people respected my professional maturity and the more opportunities they gave me because they [00:09:00] knew. That if I found something or came across something that I wasn’t gonna be able to be successful at, that I wouldn’t hide it. I wouldn’t feel like I had to keep that a secret and that we would solve the problem together.
Because in the end, we all do just wanna solve the problems and create the right value. So really those are the things I think that that you have to flip your mindset around as you go into leadership and then try to continue work your way up
Amir Bormand: that. That’s a tricky one. You have that inherent ability.
You feel that comfort of asking for help. I think a lot of times people don’t, I think, the concept of imposter syndrome is something that, we think maybe happens in earlier career. People who are taking on your roles wanna say yes and take on more, and before they know it, they’re drowning.
I guess in what you just described, you could easily see somebody who’s moved into a new level of manage. Isn’t a hundred percent sure how to operate. Keep saying yes to other people want, wants to, get that approval, take on more, [00:10:00] take those responsibilities and show ’em before you know it, they’re in the deep end all of a sudden instead of, delivering and being successful, they’re being asked why are, things slipping?
Why are things not, working out? And that’s a whole slippery sliping of itself.
Amit Gulati: Oh, absolutely. I appreciate that you said, I just had this na ability innately, it is by no means that I learned this over time, frankly, through failure. The best way to learn is to fail.
I, I’ve had plenty of roles, especially in my early management days, where I was like, of course I can do that. Of course I can do that. Of course I can do that. The next thing I know, I’d been working 80 to a hundred hour weeks. For weeks, months, at a time, and I had friends practically have an intervention and say, listen you’re no longer healthy.
We can see it in you. So this isn’t something that comes easy or comes naturally, I imagine, to almost anyone if you don’t feel like you’re an imposter at some point. And I think you’re not trying to push yourself a little bit, [00:11:00] right? I. I try to remind myself every time I have those doubts of saying, wait, why am I here?
Am I the right person to be doing this? I remind myself, that’s exactly why I am the right person to be doing this because I have those doubts. If I thought I knew all the answers, then that would mean that I’m clearly not ready to be in a role where you can’t possibly have all the.
Amir Bormand: And I appreciate your comment.
I think that’s great to know. And, something you just said made me think about this concept of imposter syndrome and I know it’s real, right? It’s not something imaginary. I’ve gone through it. You’ve gone through like you mentioned, I think everyone who’s trying to push themselves puts themselves in those positions of.
Fringe areas you’re comfortable with. And I think what happens is I wonder if this is an organizational cultural issue. I know we call it imposter syndrome. I’m not a psychologist, I’m not a therapist. I’m not a executive at any company, but just on the outside, sometimes when I look at this concept, I talked out of the [00:12:00] leaders I’m looking at that we’re going, I wonder if people are not comfortable raising their hands and saying, I don’t know how to do this, because that’s, Viewed as a positive attribute in an organization.
It might be viewed as a negative. People, put down and go he doesn’t know how to do this. And all of a sudden, you’re put in a position of going, I’d rather be quiet than raise my hand and ask for help.
Amit Gulati: I think that’s a really fair point, Amir. There are a lot of organizations that kind of breed that.
Almost toxic leadership style, and that creates an environment that really is hard for anybody to thrive in. For me personally, I don’t know that I’ve always worked in organizations that have been in. Entirely open to accepting failure and accepting ask asks for help. But I’ve maybe been fortunate that I’ve had managers and leaders and peers around me that have reinforced that for me.
One of the, one of the most common things I find myself [00:13:00] saying to people nowadays is, Especially in these, difficult economic times, people’s jobs are changing. People have uncertainty. One of the things I often remind folks of is, you, you go to work for a company because of what it does or what its product is or what you heard about it, but you stay at a company because of the people that you work with.
The people who are. Really helping you become the next version of who you’re trying to be and help you along that path for yourself. So what I really gonna try to do is I can’t. Necessarily say that I’m gonna make the entire culture of an entire organization of thousands of people via a certain way.
But what I can do, this goes back to that sphere of influence. What I can do is I can teach my direct reports that the more they ask me for help, the more I will reward them the same way my manager has instilled that and reinforced that in me, and try and [00:14:00] set that example on that tone so it trickles down, and so that it creates that environment where people will feel more empowered and.
Feel more open about asking for help and being willing to say no and push back on things.
Amir Bormand: I agree. That’s interesting. I actually was talking to my daughter last night. She’s nine, and I was telling her about when I was younger and I was nine, I made a mistake and how my parents would react and she was like, what do you mean they reacted that way?
I go that’s just the way, I’m 48, so I’m like, that’s the way they reacted when you made a mistake. It wasn’t quite as accepting. And she held my hand. She said I feel bad for you, daddy. And I was like, hun, you. We learn. And that’s why we I as a parent now wanna make sure when you make a mistake, you realize you just wanna figure out what we could do better the next time.
And it’s not a case of, oh, you’re, oh, you made a mistake and I’m upset. And it’s interesting what you said is if your manager promotes that culture, that, that way of thinking I don’t like the idea of blameless, cuz it’s almost a, blameless is a very difficult concept. It’s very, overwhelming to say it’s blameless.
We [00:15:00] need to understand what the mistake was, where would it stem from? What were the issues? And like you’ve been saying, I think, you mentioned controlling the two aspects of being able to say no and knowing what you’re taking on and when to ask for help. I think it’s that little balance of having that right dynamic of going, okay, I can raise my hand.
I’m okay, I feel safe. And they’re gonna teach me, I’m gonna do this with a little bit of handholding until I go off. And hopefully, as I progress, I’ll take that with me on the next toolkit that I’ve added to.
Amit Gulati: Absolutely. I think from an engineering perspective in particular we actually do start to learn that when we’re still in that individual contributor engineering state, I’ve found that I oftentimes equate the challenges of leadership and management to how I solved com, actual programming problems.
But this one in particular is when you think about. Avoiding that, that spiral down. Avoiding that spinning on a problem that we do as engineers. I think anybody who’s who’s written profe code professionally for more than a year or two has [00:16:00] had one of those experiences where you’re trying to solve something and you’re like, okay, I spent an hour, I spent four hours, I.
Two days I spent, wait a minute, I spent two days trying to solve something and I still feel like I haven’t made any progress. Now it’s okay for me to go ask for help. If I asked after four hours, then I would’ve been being lazy and pawning off the problem. But if I start to realize that there’s a time when I’m not gonna solve this by myself.
And. Kind of one of those tactical analogies to me where I can say, Hey, the way I solve problems as an engineer is not dissimilar from the way I solve problems as a manager
Amir Bormand: or as a leader. Absolutely. I like that. That’s actually a good analogy. I think, engineers they have those smaller spheres of influence to small solve, these smaller problems.
Going back to the concept of that sphere of influence and you get some of those, skill sets of being able to ask for help early. Cuz in engineering, it’s a little bit different. It’s a, it’s not that every time you’re creating something new, it’s a problem you might have never seen.[00:17:00]
And it could come up next day, next week, next month. And it seems like it’s a constant. The profession. So that’s an interesting, view that you, that’s a skill you can learn early. I guess on the flip side of that you mentioned obviously, saying no and actually, trying to control your calendar, trying to not take on more than you can, when you’re looking at that side of it, right?
So a, not asking for help is one danger. And I think you mentioned that’s one of the two keys, and then being able to say no is the other. And again, maybe it goes a little bit hand in hand to understand. How much you capacity you have, you know how much you can take on when you’re looking at that, saying no.
What did you learn through your progression in terms of being comfortable? What, what took, what did it take for you to start being comfortable to say no?
Amit Gulati: For me, I think I started to learn how to say no when I had one of those great managers who saw me say yes and said, Are you sure? Are you sure you have time [00:18:00] for that?
I’m like, yeah, you need this, so of course I’m gonna do it for you. Yeah, but I’m not asking you to work an extra five or 10 or 20 hours. So are you sure you can do this? It’s okay to tell me that something has to slip or ask me, is this more important than that thing? And that’s really where it came from for me.
You, you have to have people around you who are gonna encourage these same habits in you. I don’t think anybody can grow. I suppose it’s a little arrogant for me to say nobody, but I’ve never met anybody who can grow into a senior who was able to grow into a senior leadership role without a lot of support from a lot of people around him.
It’s at the Oscars or the Emmys where everyone goes up on stage and says thank you to everybody that they’ve ever come across in their lives. That’s really also true. It has to be true to get to a more senior level where you’re starting to have an impact and an influence on such a broad set of people.
You just can’t get there alone.[00:19:00]
Amir Bormand: So I guess the one thing that I was just thinking about was, we’re talking about saying no, you mentioned how a manager observed and noticed you needed some help and questioned you. And obviously he’s taking on what you’re telling him. He has to make a decision, Hey, can emit do this, can he not?
He’s gotta trust you. You gotta trust your team, and he had to give you enough room to operate, maybe fail, maybe succeed. And as, as a leader, as you move into the VP levels, Is that a bigger part of your job to go? I got to give my team the latitude. As a manager. I need to learn to let go, let them operate.
I’m there, I’m watching if they need help, hopefully they’re coming. If not, I’m still seeing how the plays are unfolding to step in if needed. Yes,
Amit Gulati: absolutely. As I. Expanded my role and started to be more and more distanced from the execution of things and the work that’s actually getting done.
The way I approach it is, and I think this is something that that I didn’t coin, I’m not sure, but I think of it as a [00:20:00] team, a p I. What, what I look to my direct reports, who, you know at this time they’re vice presidents. I ask them like, listen, this is what I need to be able to know.
I need to be able to see that we’re doing the right things. I need to be able to see that the work we’re doing is creating the right value. And I need to be able to see that we’re not making bad decisions from an architectural perspective that are gonna lead to. Slow down development and more difficulty innovating down the road.
That’s what I need to know. You can get that information to me however you want. I’m giving you this interface and I need you to give me the results that I’m asking for and give them to me roughly in this format, cuz that’s how I can ingest them best and that’s how I can roll them up together.
And the rest is up to you. And that’s really the first step of latitude is you stop being focused on how, and you just say, Hey look, this is the what that I need. And [00:21:00] you get to decide the how. And so that’s. Place where I feel like you start to give more and more latitude to folks. And the other piece to that is I do find myself in situations where I hear somebody working through a problem and I see the path that they’re gonna take and.
I’m like that’s not gonna work. I just, I have enough experience and I’ve seen similar types of situations, so I’m barely certain that’s not gonna work. But I can’t, I’m never gonna tell somebody do it because I said so. That’s the wrong way to tell, get people to do things. So I’ll gauge in that moment.
If they do it their way, this is probably what’s gonna happen. Is that okay? Yeah, we can recover from that. So I’m gonna let that happen and I’m gonna let them learn that lesson for themselves, because that’s gonna be way more impactful and way more powerful than me giving any kind of direction or trying to force it down on them.
Amir Bormand: I like that. I think that’s that’s a really a cool way of [00:22:00] looking at that in terms of how. Big will the impact be, can you recover from it? And understanding that, that person has to play it out. Cuz sounds like that’s how you, you saw their managers and I think, the one thing I’ve noticed is that when you have really strong engineering leaders that you’re learning from.
These habits seem to come easier to some people, which obviously we talked about. It’s, they’re not inherent in most people. We gotta learn and we gotta trial and error failing. And hopefully, a as we grow and develop these better cultures for failing and learning more, people will be able to be, comfortable within these constructs and hopefully have these transitions be slightly.
Amit Gulati: I think about this a lot with how I wanna empower my teams to deliver too, right? They often say something like, oh, hey, we need to be careful about how we release this because we don’t know, we don’t wanna risk breaking anything. And I always say, don’t be careful because [00:23:00] that’s operating from a perspective of fear and uncertainty.
Just be confident that you’re gonna be the one, the first one to know that something went. And this is how I teach, like building good software, right? Having the right observability metrics and and the right dashboards and alerting in place. But it’s true in how we grow our people and how we help them help teach them how to make decisions too.
It’s not about being careful, it’s about creating an environment and reinforcing the fact that it’s okay to make mistakes. Just keep making new ones and make sure you’re the one that figured out it’s a mistake and you’re the one who’s driving the effort to fix it or address the repercussions.
Amir Bormand: Awesome, man. I think that, that’s actually I love how you you put that and I, I think that’s a great, I was paying attention to the time. I’m like, oh, he’s probably gotta get back to his day job and manage. But I wanted to thank you for being on the show. Thank you for sharing it.
I greatly appreciate it.
Amit Gulati: Absolutely Mayor. It was a lot of fun to be here. Thanks a lot for having me. I’m looking forward to see how this turns [00:24:00] out.
Amir Bormand: All right. Definitely. So two final questions for you before I let you go. One is I ask everybody if there’s a topic you want a future guest to address, what that would be.
Amit Gulati: I would love to hear more about. Partnership between engineering and product. That’s something that comes up a lot in, in, in my world these days. And hearing more perspective on what that partnership looks like and what’s the right dynamic and interaction model between and ownership model between product and engineering leadership.
Amir Bormand: Awesome. That’s actually a good one. I actually, for some reason, to be honest with you, I don’t know why I’ve been covered that aspect yet, but but hopefully soon. And then if somebody wants to reach out to you, you gotta get some great, awesome content here. People might wanna reach out, touch base with you, pick your brain.
What’s a good way of getting a hold of you m. Yeah,
Amit Gulati: absolutely. LinkedIn is really the best way to get in touch with me. I assume my profile information will be in in the notes, but DM me is I’ll, I [00:25:00] look at that fairly frequently and I’d love to meet folks. I’d love to build, continue to build that network and find you folks to learn from and love to teach too.
So if I can be of any help to anybody, please happy to.
Amir Bormand: Awesome man. We’ll include then the show notes when we publish the episode. And I guess that’s it for this episode. We’ll be back again. Different guests, different topic until then. Two things. One, if you can talk about the relationship between product and engineering reach out to me.
I’d love to have you on, or if you know someone that could let me know. Secondly, if you found a podcast useful please share it with somebody else. Or. A review wherever you listen to it. That’s how the podcast is organically grown, and I thank everyone who does that. Until next time, thank you and goodbye.