Run the meetings before you have the title
RitualsYou don't need a title to start acting like a Scrum Master.
Volunteer to run the retros and the standups, especially when no one else wants to. Stepping up to lead the rituals nobody else will is the most direct, lowest-cost way to show leadership, and it gets you comfortable holding a room.
Bring your manager solutions, not complaints
Thinking one level upMake a habit of giving your manager suggestions.
Not gripes, but thinking one level up about the project, the process, and how the team is staffed. It teaches you how your leadership actually thinks and builds your instinct for the job. And if you come with a proposal instead of just a problem, you get twice the credit for half the effort.
Get to Tech Lead
Surface areaOnce you're a Tech Lead, you're suddenly in the room with your manager, the PM, and other teams' leads far more often.
The more surface area you have, the more people see how you operate, and the opening tends to find you rather than the other way around.
Make your work visible: demos and hackathons
VisibilityTechnical ability only counts once it's seen.
Demo your work regularly so your results are in front of people. Hackathons aren't just for fun either, they're one of the fastest ways to get noticed by management and by the team next door.
Positioning is half of it; the loop is the other half. Paste a real EM posting and see the questions that team asks at the level you're aiming for.
Scan an EM posting →Mentor someone
The core skillHelping someone else grow is how you practise the core management skill.
It doesn't have to be on your own team. Explaining, patience, coaching: the heart of the job is taking something complicated and making it clear enough that another person can run with it on their own.
Invest in relationships
Goodwill compoundsIt isn't about being the loudest person in the room; it's about being someone people find easy to trust.
This one matters a lot working abroad, and plenty of people underrate it. Lunches, coffee chats, team events, birthdays, showing up is the cheapest trust you can build. In the day to day, help someone fix a bug or share a doc; small favours, but they add up to goodwill. When you finally move into management, those become the votes behind you.
Build the manager mindset early: read
Two booksStart building the mindset before you're in the role.
Two accessible reads I'd recommend: The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo, and Become an Effective Software Engineering Manager by James Stanier. Pair the theory with the practice above and you walk in already thinking like a manager.
The move into management isn't something you wait for, it's something you build toward. Visibility is earned, not granted.
Do the right things consistently and keep your patience, and the accumulation turns into a real step up. Once you've decided to make the move, the next gate is the interview: see the Engineering Manager interview guide for the loop and the bar, and why engineering managers fail interviews for the traps to avoid. For the level above, there's the leadership interview prep hub, and how I went from EM to Engineering Director covers the climb after this one.
When it's time to interview
Walk into the leadership loop ready
Once you're positioned for the move, go in ready for the leadership loop. Paste a real Engineering Manager posting and Calibrd shows you the people-management and technical questions that team and level asks, benchmarks the comp, and, with your CV, flags the gaps an interviewer will probe, then lets you rehearse your answers out loud with coached feedback until you're confident. Your first mock is free.
Free to start · No credit card · Your CV stays on your device