What is Calibrate

Gain Valuable Insights & Useful Techniques to Put Into Action—

What Does Good Engineering Leadership Look Like?

Why Calibrate?

As fast as we're growing our engineering teams, we're also creating engineering leaders and it's often learn-as-you-go. Engineering leadership has a specific set of challenges with respect to the intersection of people, technology and process, and almost no reference material or developmental community surrounding it.
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‍Let’s change that. We’re bringing together accomplished engineering veterans to address the unique needs of newly minted engineering leaders. We’ll share what it’s like to grow from an engineer to a leader, and offer advice on what to learn in your first few years of leadership. You’ll take away tactics and frameworks for decision making you can put to work immediately.

Who Attends?

Calibrate is aimed at practicing engineering managers, responsible for the people on their team. New people managers will get the most out of this day. As you decide if this conference is for you, know that this event includes people from varying experience levels:

Most attendees are new to management
Some people haven’t yet started their first management role
a few are managing ... without the title
and a small group are veterans (including our speakers)

These are the people you will be meeting, networking with, eating lunch with, talking about hard problems with.

What We Do—

About Calibrate

Founded in 2015, Calibrate is a yearly conference for new engineering managers hosted by seasoned engineering managers.Calibrate is a not-for-profit, break-even event. We are professional engineering managers who care deeply about people and people management. Our aim is to host an event that we wish we could have attended during our transitions to engineering leadership. Our success comes when you connect with other engineering managers in a similar position, learn together and form a support network you can carry with you along your journey.Your speakers are also greatly concerned about the craft of engineering management. The experience level of the speakers ranges from new engineering managers all the way through senior engineering leaders with over twenty years of experience in the field. They have been in your shoes and they are excited to share what they’re most passionate about.

Each Calibrate session aims to communicate lessons and techniques that can be taken back to the office and immediately put into action, in one of two forms:

A practice, process or technique with a clear takeaway

e.g. giving difficult feedback, crafting an onboarding experience, understanding how to manage your time and prioritize, etc.

A framework for analysis and decision making regarding a specific topic

e.g. “How do I think about compensation when people ask for raises or present counter offers?”