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SmartyDevs
Advisory · 10

Coaching for engineering leaders.

Practical, confidential coaching from senior partners who've actually been engineering managers, directors and VPs in shipping companies. Weekly working sessions, real situations, no platitudes.

§ 01The problem

The problem we solve

Engineering leadership is famously underprepared. People are promoted because they ship, then asked to do work nobody trained them for. We coach engineering leaders the way we wish we'd been coached: practical, situational, confidential — and grounded in the specific reality of leading engineers.

§ 02Capabilities

What we cover

  • 01First-time manager transition
  • 02Director and VP role transitions
  • 03Performance management (the hard conversations)
  • 04Hiring and team design
  • 05Engineering org structure and growth
  • 06Communicating up: working with founders and boards
  • 07Communicating down: clarity, autonomy, accountability
  • 08Conflict, politics and survival
  • 09Career planning for engineering leaders
§ 03Deliverables

What you receive

  • Weekly 1:1 coaching sessions
  • Async support between sessions
  • Frameworks and playbooks tailored to your situation
  • Honest feedback delivered with care
§ 04Stack

Areas of focus

Career transitions
Performance & feedback
Hiring & team design
Org strategy
Stakeholder management
Communication & writing
Conflict & politics
§ 05Ideal for

Ideal for

  • New engineering managers in their first six months
  • Directors moving into VP roles
  • Engineering leaders in fast-growing companies needing a thinking partner
  • CTOs without an internal peer to spar with
§ 06Process

How an engagement runs

  1. 01

    Match

    We match you with the partner whose background fits your situation — startup vs scale-up, B2B vs B2C.

  2. 02

    Cadence

    Weekly working sessions of 60 minutes, with async availability between.

  3. 03

    Real work

    Sessions are grounded in real situations from your week — not abstract leadership theory.

  4. 04

    Quarterly review

    Every quarter, an honest review of progress against goals you set together.

§ 07Engagement

How to engage

01

1:1 Coaching

Ongoing · monthly

Weekly sessions, async availability between.

02

Leadership Team Coaching

Ongoing · monthly

Coaching across an entire engineering leadership team.

03

Transition Sprint

8 — 12 weeks

Intensive support during a specific role transition.

§ 08Common questions

Frequently asked.

01Is this confidential?

Always. Coaching sessions are not reported back to your company. We're hired by you (or by your company on your behalf with explicit confidentiality terms).

Have a problem worth solving well?

Tell us the outcome you want. We'll tell you what it takes — honestly, within a week, in writing.

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