Workbook
The VP of Engineering's Field Guide
Managing the People Who Built the Thing You're Now Responsible For
Build the organization that makes them better together.
For the VP of Engineering or Engineering Director leading multiple teams and working through the identity shift from technical authority to organizational authority — including the politics, the culture work, and the people.
The Name It First Experience
VP of Engineering is where leadership gets complicated. You manage managers who are closer to the code than you are. You hold technical credibility in the CTO conversation while representing engineering constraints to product and business. You build the organizational infrastructure that makes engineering teams capable at scale. This workbook examines your leadership philosophy, names where it is tested, and produces Your Engineering Leadership Charter — the document that makes your approach to engineering culture explicit and portable.
You can opt into 30-, 60-, and 90-day check-ins from your account. We recommend you do — the point is to see what changed.
Sample questions
- What do you believe about how engineering organizations work best — and does how you're leading reflect that?
- How do you lead technical managers effectively — and what makes that different from leading individual contributors?
- What organizational infrastructure are you building — hiring, culture, process, governance — and is it the right one for where the organization needs to go?
Research basis
Larson & Reilly The Manager's Path on engineering leadership ladder / Fournier CTO/VP Engineering transition research / Maslach Burnout Inventory for engineering leader pressure / Kegan self-authorship for engineering identity / Will Larson engineering leadership research on VP-level organizational design.
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Every format asks the same questions and produces the same document.
Print Paperbackpersonalize
A real book and a pen. Write in the margins. The most permanent version of you on a page.
$22.99
eBook + journal
The full guide on any screen, with a companion journal to write your answers by hand.
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Audiobook
We read every question and every scenario aloud. For the commute, the walk, the dishes.
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Hardcoverpersonalize
The keepsake edition — sewn, ribboned, made to sit on a shelf and be returned to.
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Digital Fill + membership+membership
Answer on screen. Your responses save as you go and assemble into your finished document.
$12.99
Hands-Free Interactive + membership+membership
Listen to each question and speak your answer. We capture it. You never touch a keyboard.
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Choose your pace.
The Essential path takes you to your finished document by the questions that matter most. The Full-depth path walks every question, every scenario, every angle. Both produce the same signed document — one just goes deeper on the way there.
Essential path
Shorter sessions. The questions that go directly to the document.
Full depth
Every question. Every scenario, every angle.
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