From manager of managers to principal engineer (with Ralph McTeggart)

Engineering Leadership Excellence Podcast

In our first episode of Season 2, we chatted with Ralph McTeggart, Principal Engineer at Productboard, about his decision to become a Tech Lead after wearing a manager hat for several years.
He examines the benefits as well as the challenges he faced upon returning closer to the technical side, sharing how the skills he gained from serving in both positions are now helping him in his day-to-day at Productboard.
Ralph discusses his approach to architecture and documentation, the importance of establishing strong networks both in and outside the office, why feedback matters, the reality of imposter syndrome, and how engineers can advance their careers without crossing into the management track.

After listening to the podcast, be sure to check out Ralph’s reading recommendations:

• The Elements of Style
• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
• It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Crafting Killer Sentences
• Writing Well For Work and Pleasure: The New Writer's Guide to Producing Great Content
• Speak So Your Audience Will Listen: 7 Steps to Confident and Authentic Public Speaking
• Gravitas: Communicate with Confidence, Influence and Authority
• Effective Java
• Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software
• Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems (Martin also has great content on
• YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@kleppmann)
• Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track (and site https://staffeng.com/)

Interested in joining our growing team at Productboard? Well, we’re hiring across the board! Check out our careers page for the latest vacancies. We’d love to hear from you!