Coaching for engineering leaders running teams of teams.
Stake Taco works with engineering organizations to develop their directors and senior managers. 1:1 executive coaching, cohort programs, and in-house workshops.
Who I work with
Directors of engineering, senior managers running multiple teams, and the managers being prepared for those roles. I also take on a small number of senior engineering leaders privately, outside of any corporate engagement.
What I see
Every level of engineering leadership is a different job. IC to manager is one. Manager to managing managers is another. Director leading an org through an acquisition is another still. Most companies promote on the assumption that the new role is mostly the old role with a bigger title. It isn't.
What I see most often: people keep doing the work that got them promoted. The senior engineer who can't stop being the smartest person in the architecture review. The new manager who still writes code at night to feel productive. The director who can't let go of the decisions her managers should be making. None of that is a character flaw. It's what happens when nobody tells you the rules changed.
That's the gap I work to close.
How the work shows up
1:1 Executive Coaching
One leaderPrivate coaching for a senior leader the company is investing in. Two sessions a month, usually for three to six months.
Cohort Programs
Six to twelve leadersA layer of leadership developed together over several months, with group sessions and structured peer practice.
In-house Workshops
One leadership teamA focused session, on-site or remote, on a problem the team is facing now. A good first piece of work with a company.
Working on something privately? Private coaching is the same work for individual leaders, with a smaller roster.
Stake Taco is the consulting practice of Jake A. Smith.
I was a Director of Engineering at Yahoo, leading a 40-person global org that ran the content and notification platforms behind Yahoo Mail, Finance, Sports, and Search. I've mentored dozens of ICs through the transition into management, absorbed teams, redrawn org charts, made layoff calls, and spent years untangling the platform duplication that acquisitions and consolidations leave behind.
More about me