Engineering Leadership at NextGen

What Engineering Leadership Actually Looks Like at NextGen

In the tech world we are often told that leadership is about making world changing decisions or choosing the perfect stack in a high stakes vacuum. But if you sit down with two of our leaders, Nathan Klim and Scott Buckley, they will tell you the truth: leadership is often found in the mundane, choosing the most viable path forward and prioritising the quiet moments of mentorship.

The Mundane Reality of Hard Choices

We recently sat down with Nathan and Scott to talk about technical conflict. We expected stories of grand architectural wars. Instead, Nathan shared a story about a UI ticket.

The reality tends to be far more mundane, Nathan noted. It is not an exciting conflict between two minds vying for the future of the company. It’s usually that the customer wants it yesterday, but the truth is that this might not always be possible. 

At NextGen we do not pretend that technical debt or customer pressure does not exist. Leadership here means having the backbone to acknowledge the reality of the situation and choosing the path that maintains our integrity.

Collaborative Problem Solving

Nathan shared a recent example of a Tech Lead who was stuck on a data structure problem for a new UI field. Rather than dictating a solution, the leadership approach at NextGen is about walking the path together.

• The Approach: Looking at existing schemas, questioning if XYZ really means XYZ and identifying the proper way versus the the quick-fix crappy way.
• The Decision: We empower our leads to investigate the effort for the right way, even if it requires future refactoring.

Clarity of Responsibility

One thing we do differently? We protect our engineers’ focus.

As Nathan puts it, a Tech Lead’s responsibility is not to phrase things for the customer or manage their feelings. Their job is to understand the technical delivery, calculate the effort and advise the analysts. We let our experts be experts, ensuring the technical truth does not get lost in translation.

The NextGen Difference: We do not need AI flavoured leadership tropes. We need people who can ask a series of small, smart questions until there is a clear path forward.If these insights have made you curious to learn more about the people who make NextGen operate, you can read more from our careers blog to find other profiles and stories, orjoin our online community to learn more about what is going on at NextGen and connect directly with our teams.