4.3 - Managing upward: Proving EM value to the company
One of the most jarring realizations for a new Engineering Manager is that executives rarely understand what you actually do. To them, the developers write the code, and the product managers design the features. The EM can easily look like unnecessary middle management if their value is not clearly communicated.
Managing upward is the art of translating engineering impact into business value. If you cannot do this, you will struggle to get budget for new hires, tools, or time to fix technical debt.
The translation layer
Executives do not care about "refactoring the legacy monolith into microservices" or "upgrading to React 18". They care about revenue, risk, and time-to-market.
As an EM, you must learn to translate technical initiatives into business terms:
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Instead of: "We need to spend two weeks refactoring the payment gateway".
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Say: "Our current payment gateway has a 5% timeout rate, costing us estimated revenue. We need two weeks to rewrite it, which will reduce customer drop-off and increase successful conversions".
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Instead of: "We need to pay down technical debt".
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Say: "Our Lead Time to deliver new features has doubled in the last six months due to code complexity. Investing 20% of our sprint capacity in stabilization will allow us to ship the upcoming Q3 roadmap 30% faster".
Visibility through predictability
The fastest way to earn executive trust is through boring, relentless predictability. Executives hate surprises.
If you promise a feature by Friday, deliver it on Friday. If you know a project is going to be late, communicate the delay the moment you discover the risk, not the day before the deadline.
Use the data-driven metrics from the previous sections (Velocity, Lead Time) to provide realistic, data-backed estimates. When you consistently deliver what you promised, when you promised it, executives will stop questioning your methods and start trusting your leadership.
🎯 Self-Reflection for You
- When you pitch a technical improvement to your boss, do you use engineering terms or business terms?
- Have you clearly demonstrated how your team's engineering quality directly impacts the company's bottom line?
If you struggle to communicate the value of engineering initiatives to non-technical leadership, let's refine your executive translation skills in a virtual coffee chat.