Sep 2–3, 2020

2020 Schedule

Leading Engineers to Water: The Art, Science, and Culture of Technical Coaching

Software engineering may be difficult, but fostering a working environment that enables skilled engineers to perform their best can sometimes seem downright impossible. Every day, many engineering teams are battling a messy whirlwind of forces like unmovable deadlines, imposter syndrome, psychological safety issues, personnel/leadership conflicts, fierce technological preferences, and more. With teams more distributed all over the world than ever before, cultural differences can exacerbate many of these difficulties.

In this presentation, I’ll discuss tips, tricks, and techniques that technical leaders and managers alike can utilize to better coach engineering teams, including concepts like the definition of empathy (and, more importantly, what doesn’t count), the trust-influence relationship model, introducing new technologies in a meaningful and consumable way, and a 5-step process to provide teams confidence to own their new solutions moving forward.

Michael Migliacio

Lead Engineer & Software Engineering Coach, Target

Track: Agile Leadership