The kinds of engineering leaders that excel in startups are not just managers, they’re inventors, architects, team-builders, and hackers. The architect/super-hacker type have won the respect of their peers through their long history of technical wizardry. Great engineers will follow them anywhere. The senior engineering manager type knows how to manage engineers to maximum productivity and has a large network of engineering talent to draw upon when it’s time to scale. Some of our nominees will be CTOs, some architects, and some VPs of Engineering, but in a startup they will all play the same role: they’re the magnet that draws choice engineering talent in and the glue that holds the team together.
