Career path

Engineering Management

Also known as Management

The management progression after Senior Engineer: Engineering Manager, Director of Engineering, VP of Engineering, and CTO, with Lead Software Engineer available as a role overlay.

Engineering ManagerEM

Grow people, delivery systems, team health, and engineering execution.

EM · 14 concepts

Director of EngineeringDirector

Coordinate multiple teams, strategy, organizational design, and technical investment.

Director · 15 concepts

VP of EngineeringVP Eng

Lead the engineering organization, operating model, investment priorities, and business-aligned execution.

VP Eng · 30 concepts

CTOChief Technology Officer

Set company-wide technology strategy, external technical direction, and long-term technology bets.

Chief Technology Officer · 4 concepts

How this path progresses

Team & Growth

Leadership is partly about improving the system of people around the software, not only the software itself.

Planning & Execution

Engineering leaders must make tradeoffs visible and coordinate work across technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Governance & Capabilities

Engineering managers coordinate people, delivery, and technical direction through clear ownership and decision forums.

Team Leadership

Build the capabilities needed for this area.

Technical Direction

Technical leaders need enough architecture context to choose direction, explain tradeoffs, and keep teams aligned.

Portfolio & Integration

Directors balance team structure, platform investment, application portfolios, and modernization work across departments.

Engineering Strategy

Executives are broad technical and organizational leaders. They decide where engineering capacity should compound.

Enterprise Technology Strategy

VP Engineering and CTO roles are broad, company-level leadership roles. They need a generalist view of architecture, vendors, risk, and long-term leverage.