What is Technical Coaching? The Art, Science, and Culture Of Engineering Enablement

井の中の蛙大海を知らず - "A frog in a well does not know the great sea."

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, impostor 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.

As a software engineering coach, my job is to not only introduce new technology to software teams, but to strengthen their working relationships within their organization. Coaches aren’t simply technical instructors. Rather, they are change agents that guide a team towards better outcomes for their project as well as their interactions with one another.

In this presentation, I will 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.

• Development
• Other
• Startups