First taste of leadership

Alex: Let’s kick things off by going back to the start. Ronen, you didn’t just wake up one day as a leader, there’s a whole story there. This first part is about that journey: the turning points, the messy middle, and what it really felt like moving from building tech to leading people.

Q: You spent over a decade building technical depth, from startups to Amazon EC2 and now leading engineering managers. Was there a specific project or moment that made you realise ‘I want to lead’ rather than just build?

Ronen: I was a tutor for second-year computer science at the University of Cape Town. All students had a big end-of-year project, which they could select from a range of options, one of which was to create an application to teach South African Sign Language. The application should have video recording and playbook, gesture recognition and an extensible lesson system. At the end of the semester, the top-scoring students as well as myself as team lead were offered a summer job to turn their projects into a viable application. So during the glorious, hot Cape Town summer, with the breathtaking view out over Mowbray from the Jameson steps,  me and three brilliant students spent summer holed up in the graduate lab in the Computer Science building on upper campus, building this application, which we completed and presented at the end. The experience of leading and working alongside these brilliant students was so enjoyable, that I knew this is what I wanted to do.

The importance of strong technical foundations

Q: As someone formally trained in electrical & computer engineering, and having built apps, infra, and scaled platforms, how does that technical foundation show up in your leadership today?

Ronen: Beyond being an approachable and supportive manager, you need to lead from a place of technical expertise, so that you can direct and challenge your team. Being a technical leader positions you infinitely better to transform how the engineers work – technologies, tools, ways of working – because you understand the benefits and challenges deeply, and how they impact the engineers on the ground. Let me share a few brief stories to illustrate the point

Two senior engineers got into a major conflict about technology modernisation. There were accusations of lying, building tech debt, ignoring the tech strategy, and going against agreements. Quite a mess. I had to enter this situation, with no prior involvement in this situation, make my own assessment, and resolve it.

Also on tech modernisation, another engineer didn’t understand why we couldn’t continue in the old tech stack. First I had to understand and validate his complaints; after all, maybe he has a point. Then I had to really explain to him ‘why’, make sure he had sufficient training and mentorship, and align it with his career ambitions.

Read more on tech modernisation here.

When growing your best people, you need to be able to mentor them. For example, a senior engineer asked for help with preparing engineering one-pagers and project plans, so that her initiative can get sponsorship from senior leadership. This requires understanding the technical work as well as the strategic objectives the company wants to achieve, so that these can be mapped together, prioritised and scheduled.

Excellent managers are first excellent engineers

Q: You once wrote that ‘excellent managers are first excellent engineers.’ Could you share a story where your engineering depth helped you solve a tough leadership or people problem?

I once joined a team where more than 20% of attempted payments would fail, and some partners were never able to accept payments. The team, who were excellent by the way, was very demoralised about this. Partner support teams were furious, and partners would churn like crazy.

I put all the errors through the same error handling flow: unified dashboards, logging and alerting. I ordered them by frequency of occurrence, and started to work through them one by one. I set up monitoring and alerting based on projections to stop the bleeding. I separated the errors by whether they were actionable – for example, whether they were on the client- or server-side. I put metrics in place for bug fixes where possible, so that we could literally see issues being fixed as the traffic flowing through successfully. Finally, I noticed a lot of errors seemed to occur due to tech debt in the credit card form, so a colleague and I rewrote it in React. We ultimately get the error rate below 1%.

I authored the tech strategy with the team, which was: “stop starting, and start finishing”. By the end of it, I was leading all three teams in this initiative, without coding much myself anymore. After that, I was promoted to senior manager.

Read more about slashing the payment error rate here.

Focus on people and relationships

Q: If you could send a message to your junior-dev self, what’s one insight that would’ve helped you grow with more intention?

Focus on people and relationships. Aim to be the team-mate everyone would love to work with again. Maintain the relationships that you build. Avoid needless conflict. It’s not about being Mr Nice Guy, which is a terrible political strategy. It’s about being savvy, being empathic, and being tough on the issue, not the person. It’s a small world. For example, half of Cape Town now lives in Amsterdam – take Alex, for example! Now that I’m starting my own consultancy, I’ve learned that you live and die by your network.

What I wish I knew as a new manager

Q: Looking back on your first step into management, what did you wish you knew? Were there any blind spots around team dynamics or delegation that hit you by surprise?

Even though you have the mandate to make decisions, 9 times out of 10, you need to bring everyone along with you: your leadership, your co-leaders and your team. It’s always best to have general buy-in and alignment. When I first stepped up as a senior manager, I didn’t include my group product manager enough into major decisions, thinking they were my responsibility. What I do now is make sure to build alignment, especially on key initiatives, and where there is disagreement, approach that as a topic rather than an interpersonal issue. There are many avenues to make decisions, including escalating to leadership for direction, including more people into the decision making process, or partitioning decision-making rights.

How to manage the ups and downs

Q: Imposter syndrome hits a lot of new leaders. Was there a moment where you questioned if you were “manager material”? How did you work through it?

Management is a tough job that requires inner drive and resilience. I recommend meditation, prayer, and working with your leadership team to build confidence. Sometimes you just need to take a deep breath and do what’s necessary. Sport can be a helpful analogy. In long-distance running, there is always just one step: the next step. In boxing, my coach always says, “You won’t die”.

Set a sky-high bar for hiring

Alex: Let’s shift gears a bit – from growth to grit. Leadership isn’t smooth sailing, and your blog is refreshingly honest about the lessons that only come through mistakes. Let’s talk about some of the bumps and breakthroughs along the way.

Q: You’ve talked about rebuilding a management team, twice. What went wrong the first time, and how did that shape what you did differently the second time?

Amazon has a leadership principle “Hire and develop the best”. You need to be extremely picky with hiring. We are looking for the top 1% and every hire should be better than the existing 50% – the bar goes up over time. This is even more important when hiring leaders.

1. Do the hard work of vetting. Phone their referrals, and look up their past projects. Do background research.
2. Never feel under pressure to hire – not even from your boss or HR. Rather hire no one than the wrong person.
3. Hire based on the person, not the gap you have today. It’s a long-term decision. You want a bench of A players.
4. Consider immutable traits, like intelligence and conscientious. Skills can be taught; experience can be gained.
5. The best information comes from actually observing them doing the job. Use the probationary period.

How to help managers with burn-out

Q: Can you share a story of a misstep or failure: what happened, how did you recover, and what lasting change came from it?

I once took on a team where the Engineering Manager was already burned out. I could immediately see that something is wrong, because the person was not responsive, put off meeting with me, and in my first meeting, confided that he wanted to change his role. Instead of helping the person who was struggling, I took it personally. What I learned since then is:

• When you pick up a new area, expect it to be on fire. That’s why they need you.
• Engineering management is a tough job. It’s common even for seasoned managers to feel burn-out.
• Treat struggling people with empathy. Try give them an offramp.
• Burn-out tends to affect people who are trying to over-achieve, resulting in a tragic downward spiral.
• Don’t take anything personally.

Nowadays, I treat people in such situations with as much empathy as possible. Sacrifice the ego. When I had a similar case a few months ago, I adapted as much as possible to accommodate the person, which for them meant being very specific regarding delegated requests and using only specific communication channels. If it also becomes a performance issue beyond an illness issue, then we cross that bridge when we come to it.

The art of saying “No”

Q: What’s something you only truly learned by getting it wrong once, or more than once?

Everyone tells you that you need to say “No”. But no one explains that there is an art to it. It’s not about assertively saying the word. You need to engage with the asker, and understand what it would mean for you and your team: work sizing, and how it would affects existing priorities, for example. Do your best to point them to the next steps to resolve their issue, even if you can’t help them. Respond tactfully, not emotionally. When you need to say no, you will have a reason why, or at least a feeling – explore it with curiosity and open discussion with the requester.

Q: What’s a milestone you’re especially proud of, whether technical, managerial, or cultural? What made it meaningful to you?

I’m especially proud of two people that I’m mentoring achieving on their goals. One senior engineer was appointed as a caretaker engineering manager, and another senior engineer just had her first major public speaking engagement. It’s so rewarding to see people achieving their goals, and I’m proud to be a small part of that! Well done to them.

How to grow new leaders

Alex: Let’s zoom out a little. Leadership isn’t just about what you’ve done, it’s also about what you’re building next. In your blog, you emphasise growth, reflection, and nurturing new leaders. So let’s dig into your vision and toolkit for the future.

Q: You’ve coached and developed multiple engineering managers. What specific approaches have helped you nurture leadership in others most effectively?

“The best leaders don’t just create followers – they create new leaders.”

They identify talented potential leaders, understand their motivations, and construct actionable plans to get them there. They source meaningful opportunities for their aspiring leaders to succeed or fail on their own merit, because that’s where the real growth happens.

They connect their people to the resources and individuals who can support them, help them clear blockers, and guide them to victory. They target tangible career outcomes for them on a defined timeline.

Read my full article on nurturing talent here.

How to lead through change

Q: Leading through rapid change is tough. Can you share an example of a time your team faced shifting priorities or uncertainty – and how you kept them grounded?

This is similar to when I was talking about the pandemic. Okay, so share as transparently everything that you can. If you don’t know, share when you might know. If you know something but you can’t share it, then say that. People crave emotional support and stability, so try to give them as much stability and support as possible. Be empathic – it’s not nice and it’s not fun going through lots of uncomfortable changes and having doubts – just remember a time when you had to go through it, and you’ll be more understanding of others. And take care of yourself, you can’t take care of others if you are not in a good space. The world only has an increasing rapidity of change. You need to get comfortable with constant learning and adaptation – think of it as the new normal.

My leadership north star

Q: What’s your ‘leadership North Star’ – a principle that helps you choose clarity when the path gets messy?

Build the team that builds the product. The challenge is always in balancing the people-first approach with thinking customer first and delivery. But these things can be complementary, once you realise the meta game of hiring and building the best team. So when under pressure, remember that the results are delivered through the team and the team needs to be grown and supported to do that.

How to sell your vision

Q: How do you bring your team along with your vision? Any rituals, habits, or frameworks that help you create shared ownership?

The team and especially the leadership team needs to be involved in the creation of the vision, strategy and objectives. The best way to create buy-in is to include stakeholders into the process. Genuinely listen to them and incorporate their feedback if it aligns. You are still steering the process but you’re giving everyone a voice so they feel ownership over the end result.

AI is the number one skill for the future

Q: What skill or mindset do you think every future tech leader needs to start building now? How do you help your own team build it?

AI-first development. The future is here! So I talk about it as much as possible, I pivoted my X account to be about AI, and at work, I’m trying to model this behaviour by emphasising where I myself am using AI and where I’ve seen others use it successfully.

The “manager” title does not confer power

Q: One leadership myth you wish people would stop believing?

Leadership gives you automatic power – seeking power is a poor reason to pursue leadership. It’s quite the opposite in that you become the servant to your teams. Yes, you are in charge, and yes, it’s you on the line at the end of the day, but people need to buy in to your vision 

My leadership mantra

Q: What’s a quote or mantra you keep coming back to?

Leadership is a verb – something you do, not something you are.

This OfferZen Leadership Ask-Me-Anything session was originally streamed via live webinar. With a huge thanks to Alex Howes and the team at OfferZen for hosting me.