Our head of engineering was brilliant when building the original software, but now that the department has grown to thirty engineers, attrition is spiking because they insist on code-reviewing every ticket. How do we determine if this leader simply lacks management capacity or if they belong in a non-executive technical seat?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

You evaluate this leader using the GWC™ framework from the EOS toolset. Does this person Get it, Want it, and have the Capacity to do the job?

Getting it means an innate, intuitive understanding of what the leadership seat requires. At thirty engineers, the seat is no longer about writing brilliant code or catching syntax bugs. It is about leadership, management, and accountability (LMA). It is about setting architectural standards, mentoring engineering managers, managing resource allocation, and building automated CI/CD testing environments so the code checks itself.

If your leader is reviewing every single ticket, they do not get the seat, or their definition of capacity is stuck in individual contribution. They are acting as a senior individual contributor masquerading as an executive.

To test whether this is a fixable skill gap or a permanent misplacement, sit down for a clear, direct conversation. Lay out the Accountability Chart. Explain that an executive seat requires empowering managers, not policing pull requests. Define the weekly measurables on their Scorecard: engineering velocity, developer retention, and sprint delivery rate, not personal review volume. Give them thirty days to delegate line-level reviews and transition to systems leadership.

If their stress levels skyrocket, if they continue hoarding technical decisions, or if they confess they miss building systems rather than managing people, they lack the capacity for the executive seat.

Do not fire them if they live your Core Values. Reassign them to an individual contributor seat, such as Principal Architect or Chief Technical Fellow, where their technical brilliance generates value without destroying team morale. Then hire an authentic engineering executive who thrives on running people and operations.