The Engineering Manager's Starter Kit. Frameworks, Questions, and the Habits That Actually Work - Sam Boswell

Most engineers become managers by accident. One day you're writing code; the next, you have direct reports and a calendar full of 1-1s, and nobody quite tells you what to do with either.

The Engineering Manager's Starter Kit is the practical guide that bridges that gap. Written for engineers making the transition to management for the first time, it covers everything from running great 1-1s to building a hiring process, from protecting your team's focus time to navigating the first 90 days in a new role.

The book doesn't offer a theory of management. It offers frameworks, questions, and habits that work in practice, organised so you can reach for the right one when you need it. Every chapter includes a set of rotating questions drawn from real coaching conversations, so you always have something useful to ask when a situation catches you off-guard.

Across five modules, the book covers running 1-1s that build trust and surface real problems rather than status updates; coaching your team to solve their own problems instead of depending on you for answers; managing performance honestly, including the conversations most managers avoid; building engineering culture, hiring well, and designing teams that scale; protecting deep work and measuring what actually matters; and making the IC-to-manager transition with clear eyes about what you're gaining and what you're giving up.

The hardest part of becoming an engineering manager isn't learning new skills. It's unlearning the instincts that made you a good engineer. The Engineering Manager's Starter Kit is for anyone in the middle of that process, or about to start it.