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-partnerThen install the plugin:
/plugin install engineering-leader-thought-partner@jayzes-engineering-leader-thought-partnerUsage
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 enhancementsSources
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
