BEYOND CODE (A BIT ABOUT ME)
My journey from technical expertise to engineering management at STRV
Let’s start with the “why,” as understanding this motivation is crucial. Here’s some brief context:
My experience in the IT field spans over two decades across a variety of environments:
- Startups: I’ve worked in startup environments where quick decisions and flexibility are key.
- Manufacturing Companies: I was involved in software for manufacturing companies, where requirements have unique specifics compared to end-user-focused apps.
- Healthcare: I have over a decade of experience in healthcare, both in the Czech Republic and the US, where regulations impact every line of code.
- Automotive Industry: My background includes IT R&D in the automotive sector, dealing with dust-free environments and wearing a white coat.
- Embedded Systems and IoT: I’ve worked in embedded systems and IoT, where real-time actions are critical for safety.
- Academic Research: I was also involved in formal research, diving deep into the mathematical core of computer science.
Given this diverse background, when I was offered the chance to step out of a purely technical role and move into engineering management, I decided to accept the challenge. While there are many perspectives on this decision, here’s my take:
Even though I have amazing colleagues (one of them being literally one in a million – greetings, Pavel!) and I have done my job well, I realized that my impact could be greater in a different role. Through detailed preparation – something I’m used to as a hobby pilot – I assessed that my career experiences could be leveraged to make a bigger impact as an Engineering Manager.
CRAFTING EXCELLENCE
The strategic importance of technical presales
An Engineering Manager can influence many aspects of a business. For me, one special area stands out, and that’s people. If you truly believe that a tech stack is just a tool, then investing in a great team is key. Just like a chef can create a delicious dish with any ingredients, having a strong team is essential for success. A cohesive, motivated team forms the foundation upon which successful projects are built. Today, many of my engineers can execute implementations better than I can. They are hands-on with the tech stack, while I have become more of a generalist.
The role of an Engineering Manager extends beyond technical oversight to nurturing and empowering this team. This involves not only fostering technical excellence but also ensuring that each team member is aligned with our business goals and feels valued in their contributions. With this strong team dynamic in place, I can then focus on how engineering managers can contribute to the presales process in STRV.
This is where your impact can scale.
Engineering the Pitch
How the presales process drives success
Presales in STRV is a critical phase where we connect with clients, understand their needs and create tailored proposals that demonstrate our expertise before they sign a contract. This stage is essential for building trust and establishing a strong relationship with the client. Our role ensures a seamless customer journey by aligning technical solutions with customer expectations. For an Engineering Manager, this involvement offers a fresh, technical perspective while also requiring a blend of technical knowledge and business acumen.
Presales is about more than just winning business; it’s about delivering real business value and ensuring that customer trust is established from the outset. Although presales is primarily the domain of Product Architects and Sales teams, there are significant opportunities for Engineering Managers to contribute. Over the past year, despite challenges, we have successfully integrated our technical insights into the presales process, ensuring that the handoff to post-sale teams is smooth and that customer needs are continuously met. This approach aligns with the goal of improving the customer experience through trust, alignment, and a customer-centric approach, resulting in positive feedback and mutual satisfaction.
PRESALES POWER
Enhancing business with engineering insight
Here are some key areas where an Engineering Manager can make an impact in the presales process. This is not a strict checklist, but rather a set of ideas to consider.
Technical Consultation and Solution Design
Why It Matters: Ensures solutions are doable and fit what the client needs.
Ideas:
- Understand Client Needs: Close collaboration with clients and product architects is undertaken to deeply understand their business goals and challenges. This is not as easy as it may sound; the challenge lies in reaching out to a client at the optimal time. Engaging too early can be counterproductive, while engaging too late may result in improper expectations being set. Additionally, it’s important to recognize that sometimes what the client needs and what the client asks for are two different things. Therefore, part of our role is to help them identify and articulate their true needs, ensuring the solutions provided genuinely address their core challenges.
- Check Feasibility: The realism and practicality of the proposed solutions are assessed by considering current tech capabilities, potential constraints, budget, and future scalability. Clients can sometimes become overly attached to their ideas, which can cloud their judgment. While it's important to trust one's vision, failing to see the bigger picture can lead to misguided decisions.
- Design Architecture: High-level architecture designs are created to outline how all parts of the solution interact and fit together. The intention is to design solutions that are robust enough without being over-engineered or under-engineered, balancing cost and timeline effectively.
- Proving We Are the Best Partner: Demonstrating that we are the best fit for the client’s needs is crucial. This involves highlighting our expertise, understanding their unique challenges, and presenting customized solutions that align with their business goals. By effectively communicating our value proposition and building trust, we can position ourselves as the perfect partner for their project.
Technical Presentations and Demos
Why It Matters: Builds trust in technical skills and capabilities.
Ideas:
- Tailored Demos: Customized demos that directly address the client’s specific issues are developed and presented. I believe that simply showing slides as a reference is not sufficient here, although it may have its place in specific phases of the sales process, typically very early on.
- Tech Workshops: Workshops are conducted to explain the technical aspects of solutions in an understandable way. Some clients, despite not being technical, are interested in understanding how we do what we do. The challenge for us is to explain it in a way that helps them grasp the fundamentals.
Collaborate with Sales Teams
Why It Matters: Ensures proposals are technically solid and feasible.
Ideas:
- Attend Meetings: Participation in sales meetings is done to provide technical insights, ensuring that any technical questions from clients are answered accurately and confidently. While I'm definitely not an expert in every field of IT, I should be capable enough to understand the core concepts and capabilities of most of what we do.
- Review Proposals: All technical aspects of proposals must be reviewed to ensure they accurately reflect the appropriate scope and feasibility. This process is critical to mitigate the risk of over-promising or under-delivering, and it is particularly challenging given the numerous known unknowns and unknown unknowns. The added pressure of budget constraints and timeline requirements further complicates the task, making it feel like balancing on a tightrope.
Prototyping and Proof of Concept
Why It Matters: Shows clients how solutions work and builds confidence.
Ideas:
- Quick Prototypes: Quick prototypes are built to showcase core functionalities, giving clients a tangible preview of what to expect. Creating a great prototype at the right moment can significantly boost trust. However, arranging a proper presentation often takes more time than building the prototype itself.
- Develop PoCs: Proof of concepts are created to test and validate critical parts of the solution. Validating the feasibility of the most critical aspects of clients' ideas through proof of concept is an alternative to prototyping. This is essential when the requirement is a unique UI/UX, a complex operation over various data sources, or a challenging integration.
Cost Estimation and Resource Planning
Why It Matters: Provides accurate cost and resource estimates.
Ideas:
- Break Down Costs: Projects are broken down into detailed phases. This is especially critical for either vague ideas or when taking over an existing solution. Given the often extreme pressure to meet deadlines, it is essential to insist on obtaining sufficient information and answers to your questions before providing a qualified estimate. Failing to do so does not add value but rather creates future problems.
- Budget Alignment: Sometimes, we estimate the solution to provide the client with a budget. Other times, the client has a predetermined budget, and we need to design the solution and costs to fit within that budget. This requires flexibility and creativity in resource planning to ensure that the client’s needs are met without compromising on quality or functionality.
- Assess Risks: Potential risks are identified and contingencies are included in the estimates. Often, these estimates must be based on assumptions. It is crucial to ensure that every relevant stakeholder, including tech leads, is aware of and understands the reasoning behind these assumptions. Additionally, we must clearly communicate their impact on solutions and estimates. It is also our responsibility to guide internally on the likelihood of these risks and to recommend whether we should absorb them internally or reflect them in the pricing to the client.
Technical Writing and Documentation
Why It Matters: Ensures clear communication of technical details to non-technical stakeholders.
Ideas:
- Write Proposals: Detailed technical sections in proposals are crafted to clearly explain the solution and its benefits. Your expertise must be evident by default, but there’s an additional challenge. Clients vary in their technical understanding; some may be very technical, while others may not be technical at all. Therefore, it’s crucial to adapt your language and avoid technical jargon, explaining concepts in a way that is accessible to your specific audience.
- Create Specs: Comprehensive technical specifications and user stories for proposed solutions are developed. This is one of the main responsibilities of a Product Architect. Your role is to challenge the specifications constructively. It’s not about simply reading the spec in “this is what they want” manner. Instead, you should read it several times, think deeply about it, look for inconsistencies, and strive for completeness. There are no wrong questions in this process.
Market and Tech Trends Analysis
Why It Matters: Keeps the team ahead of the curve and competitive in the market.
Ideas:
- Trend Reports: The team is regularly updated on the latest tech trends and their potential impact on solutions. This usually happens somewhat naturally on occasion. However, it deserves regular, consistent and systematic effort, rather than just random, occasional ad-hoc messages in the Slack channel.
- Business Trends: Sometimes there are new trends that are using existing technology, but the solutions are new. We should regularly analyze these trends to recognize and adapt to them, offering cutting-edge solutions to clients.
- Innovation Workshops: Sessions are organized to explore how emerging technologies can be leveraged in client projects. Similarly to the previous point, we should not passively receive information about what is happening in the tech world. Instead, based on current trends, we should proactively organize regular efforts to integrate relevant news into the presales phase.
Client Relationship Management
Why It Matters: Builds long-term relationships based on trust and technical expertise.
Ideas:
- Be a Tech Advisor: Act as go-to tech advisors for clients, helping them navigate their digital transformation journeys. Digital transformation remains an area where a lot of companies need significant assistance. This extends beyond merely delivering a new product or application; it involves guiding clients through system design and overall strategic planning.
- Create Feedback Loops: Feedback systems are set up to continuously improve solutions based on client input. Although this is often handled at the sales level, it is an area where an engineering perspective should also be applied. While it is extremely challenging to sell this concept, clients – especially startups – must be educated on its importance for their success.
Training and Mentorship
Why It Matters: Elevates the overall technical proficiency of the sales and presales teams.
Ideas:
- Tech Training: Regular training sessions for the Sales and Presales teams are conducted to improve their understanding of technical concepts. Sales people are great in Sales, but having a bit of technical knowledge is not just nice to have. It is a must-have. Honestly, in my career, I’ve only met just one or two Sales people who were consistently coming to me to ask for an explanation of tech background of the project. A sales person must perfectly understand what he/she is selling, even if it’s not in the details.
- Mentorship: Junior team members are mentored, helping them develop their technical and business skills and ensuring a strong, capable team. Similarly, it's not typical for IT engineers to get involved in business aspects, and that's okay. However, there are those who occasionally show interest in this field. You can be their guide, helping them navigate and understand the business side of things.
Post-Sales Tech Support
Why It Matters: Ensures a smooth transition from presales to project execution.
Ideas:
- Kickoff Meetings: Detailed kickoff meetings are organized to ensure the project team fully understands the commitments made during the presales phase. Once the deal is closed, it’s time for execution and implementation. It is absolutely essential for the implementation team to be fully aligned with the Product Architect and Engineering Manager who participated in the presales for that specific deal. Additionally, alignment with the Sales team is also beneficial.
- Ongoing Support: Technical support is provided during the initial phases of project implementation to address any unforeseen challenges quickly and effectively. Ideally, this should happen regularly and proactively, on a daily or every-other-day basis, to prevent issues from arising. However, in reality, it is usually performed reactively in response to issues that have already appeared.
Some of these ideas are low-hanging fruit, while others are more future-oriented. Although we may not be there yet, I can see a bright light at the end of the tunnel.
COMPLETING THE CIRCUIT
Reflections on my journey
My journey as an Engineering Manager has been both challenging and rewarding. Transitioning from a purely technical role to a managerial one has allowed me to leverage my diverse background across various industries. As I look ahead, I am excited about the potential to further refine these processes and continue making a meaningful impact.
However, to truly elevate the profession, it’s clear that the traditional approach to solutions engineering is ripe for transformation. The industry is at a crossroads, driven by changing buying behaviors, poor sales experiences, and the historical gap between what customers are sold and what is actually implemented. With an abundance of technology at our disposal, there is an unprecedented opportunity to reshape how we approach these challenges.
By understanding the intricacies of the handoff process, identifying communication gaps, and quantifying the impact on customer success, we can start to bridge the divide between sales and implementation teams. This proactive approach not only enhances customer satisfaction but also drives renewal and expansion, ultimately contributing to the long-term success of both the customer and the organization.
As I continue my journey, these insights will guide me in driving meaningful change and ensuring that our processes evolve to meet the demands of a dynamic industry.
High Altitudes
Engineering leadership inspired by Aviation
At the very end of this paper, let me get a bit personal. Looking back on these experiences, I see parallels with aviation – preparation, clear goals and precise execution are key. And to be even more specific...
- Flight Planning and Preparation: Just like a pilot conducts detailed flight planning and preparation to ensure a safe journey, as an Engineering Manager, I meticulously plan and prepare for projects to ensure smooth execution and success.
- Navigating Turbulence: In aviation, pilots navigate through turbulence with skill and composure. Similarly, I navigate through challenges and uncertainties in projects, maintaining focus and guiding the team through difficult times.
- Clear Communication with Air Traffic Control: Pilots maintain constant communication with air traffic control to ensure safety and coordination. Likewise, I ensure continuous and clear communication with all stakeholders to align on goals and progress, ensuring everyone is on the same page.
- Instruments and Metrics: Pilots rely on instruments to gauge altitude, speed and direction. Similarly, I rely on key performance metrics and project indicators to monitor the progress and health of projects, making data-driven decisions.
- Emergency Procedures: Just as pilots have protocols for handling emergencies, I have strategies and contingency plans for dealing with project crises or unexpected issues, ensuring quick and effective responses.
- Continuous Training and Simulations: Pilots undergo regular training and simulations to stay sharp and prepared. Similarly, I focus on continuous learning and training for my team, running workshops and scenarios to keep skills up-to-date and ready for any situation.
For those who patiently kept reading up to here, I hope this helped you understand what I’m striving for as an Engineering Manager involved in the presales process. And I hope you took away some valuable insights into how we can positively impact the business even before the actual product development work begins.
Blasting off to infinity and beyond; keep the skies friendly. See ya!
Ing. Jiří Koutný, Ph.D.
