Keeping a “work log” is a great idea for software engineers. Every week, record key work items you’ve worked on: key code changes, code reviews, design documents, discussions and planning, helping out others, postmortems and anything else that took time, and has impact. Julia Evans calls this a brag document, and it has so many benefits: not just for performance reviews, but also for yourself feeling better on just how many things you did!

This is an example of a weekly project status report that the project lead - e.g. a software engineer or engineering manager - can send out.

This document is meant to serve as guidance on areas first-time managers need to master to get up to speed. This is meant to be an additional support for professional growth and is not a substitute for any of the existing guides. It is also not a checklist, nor is it exhaustive.

This document is an example performance review template that as a manager, I’ve used in the past to give feedback for software engineers. It is meant to give inspiration and ideas for engineering managers. It is unlikely the template will be useful without customizing it for your process, environment and own approach.

As a project engineering lead, your role will be crucial for the team to succeed. Below is some guidance of what this role consists of, and what the expectations are.