
Ask HN: How do you become VP of Engineering? - askhn_vp
The title says it all. What kind of skill set do you need? If you are a VP, how did you become one? As an engineer it feels like I can be a leading position in my field one day but don&#x27;t see a pathway to become a VP level.
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byoung2
I'm a director of engineering, not a VP, but there isn't a higher engineering
position at our startup, so it's just a matter of semantics. I sort of lucked
into this position when the CTO left the company suddenly due to personal
reasons. Rather than bringing in a new CTO right away, I convinced management
to promote me to director to ease the transition. So far it's been a year, and
they haven't even started the search for a CTO, since I handle most of those
duties (though the time may come where we need someone with more experience as
we grow and expand).

The most important skills for my position are being able to quickly spot
talent (or lack thereof) in other engineers (necessary for quick hiring and
firing), the ability to mentor and develop other engineers, especially when
they are possibly more talented than I am, and the ability to communicate with
the rest of the management team. This last one is the most important of the
three listed. Part of that is giving good estimates for level of effort, time
to market, expenses, etc.

Being in a leadership role, you have to be able to trust your team to get the
coding work done so you can focus on bigger picture things like managing,
architecture, etc. A good VP will not be coding most of the time.

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greenyoda
The VPs of engineering that I know combine a deep knowledge of engineering
with a deep knowledge of the business. They're comfortable talking with
executives, marketing people and customers as well as engineers. Before they
were VPs, they were senior development managers who had other managers
reporting to them. (I'm not a VP of Eng., but my direct manager is one.)

