Beware! Don't Make This Developer Manager's Beginner Mistake

Same talk, live on stage — בעברית

This is the talk version of my essay on beginner mistakes for new R&D managers — delivered in Hebrew at Leaders in Tech 2022, Israel’s conference for engineering management and leadership.

The core story is the same one from the essay: new R&D managers tend to fall into one of two extremes. The Guardian protects the team from everything outside R&D — and starves the rest of the company. The Pleaser has the team fight everyone else’s fires — and burns the team out. Both create waste; the job is finding the middle ground between keeping the company happy and keeping the team safe.

Chapters

Prefer to jump around? The recording is timestamped:

• 8:39 — What’s around the corner?
• 11:12 — Going to the extremes
• 11:49 — Anti-patterns
• 18:36 — Finding the root cause
• 20:08 — Understanding the driving force
• 22:27 — The Guardian’s organizational waste
• 24:28 — The Pleaser’s organizational waste
• 25:39 — Recap

Want the full story in English?

The talk condenses the argument — the full essay goes deeper into the root causes, the fight/flight/freeze instincts behind the extremes, and how to get ahead of the problem before it litters your roadmap.