Thoughts on engineering management from my never-to-be-published book
by Mark Kater
First edition, 2026
I've been an engineering leader for over 15 years, the better part of the last decade at eero ("an Amazon company"). I joined eero when it was still a small hardware startup with no recurring revenue to speak of, and I've spent the past several years standing up the software side of the business: growing my organization from scratch to 70+ engineers across multiple countries, and taking four subscription products from an idea into one of the company's core revenue lines.
I've been fortunate to hire and work alongside genuinely great people who came together to build strong, successful teams, and it's those people who've told me for years that I should write about how I lead. I've always resisted, mostly because I just don't like the “look at me” attitude so many engineering managers have, unaware that it really isn't about them. On the flip side, maybe sharing my thoughts actually weighs heavier than appearing to “show off”, and someone out there (you?) could learn or draw inspiration from it. So here we go, sharing the secret sauce.
“Mark has cultivated an exemplary team culture. His leadership style and willingness to be an equal with the team, rather than just a boss, have enabled him to achieve this. It is a rare quality that I have only observed in a few leaders during my tenure at Amazon.”
— Peer, Product Leadership
These are things I genuinely value, shaped by a career that took me from a six-person startup to a company with over a million employees. Each stop in between taught me something different. Some of you will read this and disagree with parts of it. Others might wish their own manager led more like I do. Some of you might take a piece of it and make it your own. All of that's fine. Everyone develops their own style eventually. This one's mine.
manuscript (noun)/ˈmæn.jə.skrɪpt/
A book or document, typically before publication or official editing.
While I don't intend to ever actually turn this into a book, I did organize things into short “chapters”, each a quick read. Most of them relate to people management and building thriving, productive teams, the things I think matter more than most of what gets written about “engineering culture”. I don't cover the technical side of things here, mostly because I don't think it's that interesting to write about: technology, especially in this age of AI, evolves so fast that whatever I write today might be outdated six months from now. Until robots actually do take over, the people side of being an engineering manager will hopefully stay relevant a bit longer.
Here's what's written so far. The first one is the conversation everyone who joins my team has with me, so it's the place to start; the rest stand on their own.
I originally moved to San Francisco about 20 years ago, from the Netherlands. Started off as a Frontend Engineer, literally turning my hobby into a job. I'm happily married and have two kids who I keep reminding: it doesn't matter what you want to do when you grow up, as long as you're passionate about it.
Being a Senior Engineering Manager at Amazon unfortunately doesn't leave a lot of time to code, but I still love to dabble in side projects. The most recent one is JukeKeeper, a web app I initially built for my dad to manage his vinyl jukebox collection, and then decided to expand to a larger audience.
One more note: all the quotes throughout these pages are real, unless they're a Back to the Future reference, of which you'll find several (a bit of a BTTF nerd, sorry). Every real quote was pulled from annual review feedback I've received over the past few years.
