Week three of Pluralsight LIVE was all about giving the power to the programmers. Today’s boots-on-the-ground engineers face both unprecedented challenges and opportunities. Erica Cuttitta, Senior Director of Engineering at Pluralsight, and Christina Goleman, Senior Manager of Program Design at Amazon, teamed up to tackle how technology leaders can empower their team members while simultaneously building a more impactful team. Here’s a preview of what they covered.

Building tomorrow’s technology leaders

The session opened by answering the question of how technology leaders can empower team members and individual contributors to grow into leadership roles. There are numerous ways to succeed in leadership and in fostering future leaders, but one of the main components highlighted was the willingness to allow the next wave of leaders to grow into their new roles without trying to imprint your style onto them. It’s important to get out of the weeds to enable someone else to grow and thrive. 

“Engineering teams that are data-driven are more successful. 

They’ve done studies on this.” - Christine Goleman

The second aspect of the discussion involved how engineering leaders effectively use data to show team members how their work is impacting the org. Data is, of course, essential in load balancing, supporting old technologies when necessary while building new ones and so much more. It can also be used to show how their work is a catalyst for change. It can help decide what to build next.

Knowing what data points matter for your team

If your team is collecting data points across #AllTheThings but you don’t have an actionable plan for them, it can create even greater challenges. Erica and Christina went into the fact that just having data doesn’t help. You need to know what you want to say with that data. You have to be able to tell the story to the business in order to make important changes.

Attrition and retention

Erica and Christina certainly couldn’t address the current programmer landscape without addressing the fact that 40% of the current workforce are considering quitting their job in 2021 and tackling how leaders and orgs can combat the very real problem of attrition. They addressed signs that leaders can look in their teams as well as reports that prove out the belief that technology teams that stay together longer have a higher velocity of production. 

Christina stressed the importance of open and honest communication, setting career tracks for employees and several other essential aspects of retaining talent, especially in this time of fluctuation for so much of the workforce. 

Empowering team members by helping them grow in their careers, providing them the data and insights to see how their contributions are pivotal to organizational growth and addressing their concerns as they arise can help you build a thriving and highly-productive tech force. 

Sign up for a demo today to learn how Pluralsight can help your team make data-driven decisions.