Free Lesson
Prioritizing Strategic Work as a Director of Engineering
30 min
Mar 18, 2026 12:00 PM
Virtual (Zoom)
In this video
What you'll learn
Finding ways to stay in the “sweet spot” for your role
Recognizing how your org pulls you away from strategic work—and ways to get back into it
Letting your managers inside your head
Opening up your thought process—before you have the right answer—to help you and others do better thinking
Raising the bar on how your managers execute
Knowing what’s going on—and drawing your managers’ attention to the things they need to attend to
Why this topic matters
When you manage managers, you're a layer removed from the dev teams doing the work. It's hard not to jump in when things feel urgent. But your job is to look further ahead and make sure the org gets where it needs to be. Directors who learn to prioritize strategic work—even with constant pressure to do otherwise—spend less time firefighting and get trusted with bigger bets.
You'll learn from
Allison Pollard
Co-founder at Middlegame Partners
Paul Tevis
Co-founder at Middlegame Partners