You have to get your hands dirty
It’s easy to lose touch. Athletes lose their sensitivity, their special touch, soon after stepping back. They don’t forget how to play, but they lose the fine-tuned precision that set them apart. Federer didn’t forget tennis when he retired, but he lost the precision that separated him from his rivals at their peak.
The same happens in tech. Skills atrophy without practice. Just as athletes lose muscle memory, engineers who stop engaging with technical details lose the intuitive grasp and nuanced judgment that once made them exceptional.
To stay at the top, you need to keep practicing and learning. Expertise isn’t static.
If you’re an engineering leader, remember both sides of the equation: leader, but also engineer. Your leadership scales only as far as your technical intuition can reach.
This isn’t about writing production code. It’s about staying fluent enough to ask the right questions, spot risks in architectures, and mentor with credibility. The deeper you understand your domain’s fundamentals, the more effective your leadership.
At Amazon, the most senior leaders stand out for their technical expertise and relentless curiosity. They stay on top of the details.
Some ways to keep your edge:
💡 Engage in technical debates. Jump into discussions where critical low-level decisions are made.
💡 Write code. Not necessarily for work, but for yourself. Build prototypes, automate tasks, create a personal project.
💡 Balance your reading. Don’t just read about leadership and business. Dive into large language models, AI, microbiology, or any field that sharpens your thinking.
💡 Learn from your team. Use one-on-ones with engineers to educate yourself: Why this framework? What trade-offs did we make? Why did we choose this approach?
This leads me to another key takeaway: practice matters far more than talent. No matter how gifted you are, staying at the top requires continuous effort.
What do you think? Can leaders stay effective without staying technical? How do you stay in the trenches?
