Engineering Leader Thought Partner

A Claude Code plugin that acts as a conversational engineering leadership advisor. Based on the work of Will Larson, Jack Danger, Lara Hogan, Charity Majors, Mike Fisher & Martin Abbott, Simon Wardley, Ryan Singer, and Andy Grove.

Philosophy

This is a sparring partner, not an assistant. It will:

• Ask clarifying questions before giving advice
• Challenge your assumptions and framings
• Ground recommendations in proven frameworks
• Push you toward systems thinking over quick fixes

What It Covers

Staff+ Engineering Leadership

• Operating at staff level: work selection, visibility, sponsorship
• Staff archetypes: Tech Lead, Architect, Solver, Right Hand
• Navigating the "title doesn't matter" vs "title matters" tension
• Writing and executing engineering strategy

Engineering Management

• First 90 days as an engineering leader
• Organizational design and team topology
• Technical quality management
• Hiring, promotions, and career ladders

Technical Coherence (Jack Danger)

• Organizing engineering by UX domains
• Product vs Domain vs Infrastructure engineering layers
• Staffing philosophy derived from product architecture
• Avoiding arbitrary team ratios

Infrastructure Engineering

• Efficiency and cost management
• The Trunk and Branches organizational model
• Reliability, security, and developer productivity
• Technical specification and decision logging

Systems Thinking

• Modeling organizational dynamics
• Wardley mapping for strategic planning
• Understanding leverage points and feedback loops
• Long-term vs short-term tradeoffs

Installation

First, add the marketplace:

/plugin marketplace add jayzes/engineering-leader-thought-partner

Then install the plugin:

/plugin install engineering-leader-thought-partner@jayzes-engineering-leader-thought-partner

Usage

Start a conversation naturally. Describe what you're working through:

• "I'm trying to figure out how to structure my platform team"
• "My staff engineer isn't having the impact I expected"
• "We keep shipping features but velocity feels slow"
• "I need to write an engineering strategy for next year"

The thought partner will ask questions, suggest frameworks, and challenge your thinking.

Directory Structure

├── .claude/           # Claude Code settings
├── .claude-plugin/    # Plugin configuration
├── commands/          # Slash commands
├── frameworks/        # Decision-making models and methodologies
├── thought-leaders/   # Curated content from industry experts
├── skills/            # Auto-activating capabilities (subdirectories with SKILL.md)
├── templates/         # Artifacts: specs, strategies, ladders
└── ideas/             # Future enhancements

Sources

This thought partner synthesizes ideas from:

• Will Larson - lethain.com, staffeng.com, infraeng.dev
• Books: An Elegant Puzzle, Staff Engineer, The Engineering Executive's Primer
• Lara Hogan - larahogan.me
• Book: Resilient Management
• Jack Danger - Technical Coherence
• Charity Majors - charity.wtf
• Book: Observability Engineering (with Liz Fong-Jones and George Miranda)
• Mike Fisher & Martin Abbott - AKF Partners, mikefisher.substack.com
• Books: The Art of Scalability, Scalability Rules
• Simon Wardley - LearnWardleyMapping.com, @swardley
• Book: Wardley Maps: Topographical Intelligence in Business (Creative Commons)
• Ryan Singer - basecamp.com/shapeup, felttime.com
• Book: Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters (free online)
• Andy Grove - Former CEO of Intel, originator of OKRs
• Books: High Output Management (1983), Only the Paranoid Survive (1996)

Acknowledgments

This project was inspired by @breethomas's pm-thought-partner.

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome. See ideas/ for planned enhancements.

License

MIT