Email the Author
You can use this page to email Alexis Monville and Michael Doyle about I am a Software Engineer and I am in Charge.
About the Book
I am a Software Engineer and I am in Charge is a real-world, practical book that helps you increase your impact and satisfaction at work no matter who you work with.
Each of the 7 chapters has the following structure specifically designed to generate insight and move you to action:
Why it matters
A brief introduction to the chapter that offers questions for you to experiment with your current belief about the topic of the chapter.
For example, if you believe you can’t ask a colleague you admire to be your mentor because you think they’re too busy, then what could you do if you changed that belief?
What would you do if you thought that by not asking them you’re denying them the opportunity to pass on their wisdom?
The story
A fictional story following the protagonist, Sandrine, who left her company to get a higher-level role and found that despite the “promotion” everything still feels the same, the people around her are clueless.
In each chapter, Sandrine learns something from the people she interacts with that gets her thinking in a new way enabling her to take a different course of action.
Sandrine is not perfect though, she makes slip-ups, promises to change but goes back to old habits, plans for things a certain way only to discover it doesn’t play out that way—just like in real life.
What do we learn from the story
Here we talk about the lesson from the story, and ask you, the reader, what you will do with your new knowledge and insights.
The experiments
At the end of each chapter, there are 3 experiments for you to try. You can choose to do one or more of them to see what happens when you put yourself in Sandrine’s shoes.
Follow Sandrine on her journey to see for yourself how she solved her problems and increased her impact and satisfaction and in the process find a way to increase yours.
By the end of the book you’ll have learned:
- How your words influence your actions
- How to prosper from feedback
- How to set goals that inspire
- How to work with others to create a better solution
- How to use failure as a data point to inform your learning
About the Authors
Alexis Monville is a member of the Engineering Leadership Team at Enterprise Open Source Software company Red Hat. He brings more than 20 years of operations and management experience from diverse sectors such as the automotive industry, a dotcom startup, IT consulting, public sector, software development, and his own management and organization consulting and coaching firm.
From 2011 until Red Hat acquired eNovance in 2014, Alexis nurtured and grew the eNovance agile organization from a few individuals to more than a hundred people. During this time he maintained the team’s focus on delivering private cloud services with OpenStack while building an open and people-centric culture.
Alexis regularly speaks about management and agile transformation and participates at industry events such as the Open Infrastructure Summit, Open World Forum, and Agile Lean Europe.
Alexis Monville builds high impact sustainable organizations.
Alexis is the author of Changing Your Team From The Inside, a book published in 2018, and I am a Software Engineer and I am in Charge. published in 2020.
Hi, I’m Michael, a Leadership Coach and Digital Marketer.
For more than 15 years I’ve worked shoulder-to-shoulder with software engineers from around the globe.
I’ve seen first hand how developing your professional leadership in software engineering is definitely not the same thing as developing your technical leadership.
Technical leadership requires you to continuously “sharpen the saw” but professional leadership requires you to put down your saw and help other people in the toolshed.
It’s a mindset shift.
Moving from being the expert in a situation to using your expertise to inspire, engage, and grow the people around you.
Working with Alexis, and combining my coaching and digital marketing skills, I’ve now been able to package this professional development experience into a book.
I am a Software Engineer and I am in Charge is one way you can start to shift your mindset and increase your impact and satisfaction at work.