Start the hiring process early before leadership gaps emerge.
There’s a common failure in scaling teams, waiting too long to fill key leadership roles. That delay doesn’t just impact organizational structure; it undermines momentum, drains top talent, and dilutes focus. As Ani Mishra, engineering manager at DoorDash, realized, by the time you’re overwhelmed with too many direct reports, it’s already late. One person managing 20 engineers isn’t just inefficient, it’s unsustainable.
Once Mishra hit that tipping point, he found himself in back-to-back meetings, relying on his senior engineers to pick up leadership slack. They weren’t hired for those roles, and while competent, it wasn’t the best use of their skill sets. This dragged down productivity and morale, people started feeling blocked, directionless, and disconnected.
It took him nine months to find a qualified external hire. Nine months at a high-growth company is painful. That kind of delay stalls progress and turns high performers into makeshift managers. Mishra’s takeaway was simple: initiate the hiring process before the need becomes critical. Plan for growth with leadership bench strength in mind.
For executives, this means anticipating where functional leadership will be stretched, and responding before cracks widen. You don’t want your top engineers spending their time firefighting cultural or operational issues that a dedicated manager should handle. Build resilience into your hiring strategy by identifying those leadership gaps six, nine, even twelve months ahead.
Develop leadership talent internally to address management gaps.
Hiring great IT managers externally is hard. Growing them from within? Way more practical, and, in many cases, faster. You don’t need to reinvent every hire. If you’ve got strong engineers, odds are you’ve got future managers on the team. The real task is identifying and coaching them.
DoorDash’s Mishra did this too. After hitting capacity, he promoted a senior engineer with the potential to lead. That move solved half the management issue in just six months, three months faster than it took to fill the external role. And that’s without accounting for onboarding and integration time. Internal candidates already know the systems, the people, and the pace.
The supporting data agrees. Deloitte’s 2025 Global Human Capital Trends survey shows that two-thirds of managers say recent hires lack the necessary skills. What that means is pretty straightforward, we’re better at identifying potential than importing perfection. Growth-minded companies need ongoing systems that identify leadership potential inside technical teams, long before the promotion is needed.
Mishra now keeps an eye out for engineers who show an ability to understand people, guide them, and think long-term. It’s not enough to code well. Future tech leaders need to drive outcomes with teams, not through solo performance. If you see someone like that, invest in them. Give them mentoring, put them in situations that challenge their soft skills, and let them grow. You save time, build loyalty, and create leadership that fits your organization’s DNA.
Prioritize emotional intelligence and team fit over technical perfection.
Too many hiring decisions over-index on technical skill. It’s a flawed model. Most failures in IT leadership roles aren’t about insufficient knowledge, they happen because of poor communication, team friction, or lack of leadership presence. That’s the hard truth. Zachary Lewis, CIO and CISO at the University of Health Sciences & Pharmacy in St. Louis, made that call under pressure, and it backfired.
He found a technically solid candidate after interviewing over a dozen others. But the fit was off. The lack of conversational ease, no natural rapport, and an abrasive demeanor, all visible during the interview, got dismissed because of urgency. Lewis said it himself, “I turned those alerts off in my head.” Post-hire, those traits amplified. The candidate wasn’t a team builder. He operated in isolation, and interpersonal issues slowed down alignment at the leadership level.
When leading high-performance teams, technical competence is necessary, but only gets you so far. People in management roles need the ability to build trust and collaboration across functions. Especially in IT, where you’re often bridging teams, systems, and layers of seniority. If the manager can’t connect on a human level, long-term execution breaks down.
Hiring under pressure can blur judgment. But leaders can’t compromise on interpersonal skill. Teams want a manager who listens, communicates clearly, and integrates well, especially under stress. The right cultural and emotional fit sustains technical teams far more than a résumé packed with experience. Hire people who lift the team, not just solve individual tasks.
Clearly define the IT manager role before hiring.
Clarity is often underestimated in hiring. Before launching any search for an IT manager, leadership must align internally on what the role actually needs to accomplish. That may sound basic, but it gets missed frequently. Zachary Lewis pointed out the issue, it’s not just finding someone experienced. It’s knowing whether you need a strategic leader pushing initiatives or someone guiding junior staff through daily execution.
These are distinct profiles. One is driving cross-functional alignment and velocity. The other is nurturing growth in the early layers of your organization chart. Without clarity, you end up evaluating candidates using vague expectations. That’s risky.
If your current challenges are structural, hire someone who’s done enterprise-level integration or system-wide pivots. If your issue is talent development, look for someone who can coach entry-level engineers or help desk support, not just attend meetings. Trying to find someone who does both often leads to compromise hires who don’t excel at either.
For C-suite leaders, defining role requirements ensures your hiring process serves an actual organizational need. Without that grounding, even competent hires can feel misaligned or ineffective in the role. Lewis nails this when he draws a line between “real senior leader” profiles and talent nurturers. Knowing which lane you need covered is half the battle, and it drives better outcomes post-hire.
Follow the “hire slow, fire fast” principle to save time and resources.
Delays in removing underperformers come with a cost. It’s not just financial, it impacts trust, momentum, and delivery timelines. Caitlyn Mackrell, CEO of AuraData, shared how that reality unfolded in her own team. Her first IT manager seemed to have the skills, but struggled with execution. She waited too long to make a change. Then she outsourced to a firm, but that approach also fell short. Each delay compounded. Projects stalled, teams lost clarity, and resources went underutilized.
In high-growth environments, mistakes don’t fix themselves. Knowing when to pivot or cut ties is what prevents damage from spreading across the organization. Mackrell emphasized the importance of moving decisively, especially when early indicators show you’ve made a mismatch. As she recalled, “I should have done it earlier.”
The mindset shift here matters. Take time to hire carefully. Calibrate expectations, define capabilities, vet thoroughly. But once you’ve made the call and it’s clearly not working, act. Not from a place of impatience, but to protect team performance and strategic continuity.
Delaying a mis-hire creates leadership drag. Teams start working around the dysfunction. Communication slows down. Output takes a hit. The strongest performers get frustrated first, and they won’t stick around waiting for course corrections. Mackrell eventually landed a hire who not only understood the technical dimension but was a positive force inside the team. That’s the goal, delivery plus cohesion. You don’t get there by holding on to poor fits out of optimism.
Assess candidates’ people-management aptitude, not just technical skill.
Leadership isn’t just technical expertise at a higher level. It’s a different skill set. Cameron Rimington, CEO of Iron PDF, made that distinction the hard way. He initially hired an exceptionally capable technical architect, someone very good at system design and engineering challenges. But leadership requires far more than solving solo problems. The hire struggled with people, avoiding difficult conversations, failing to address performance issues, and compensating by working excessive hours to clean up others’ mistakes. That approach didn’t scale. It didn’t lead. It didn’t last.
People management isn’t about code quality, it’s about clarity, accountability, and team development. Leaders need to manage communication, set direction, and step in when issues arise, not patch problems in isolation. Rimington ended up rethinking his entire interview process. Instead of just reviewing accomplishments and technical credentials, he began asking how candidates handle difficult personnel situations and how they approach team growth. That changed the quality of candidates he was getting.
If you’re hiring a manager, assess management. Technical credibility still matters, especially on IC-heavy teams. But it can’t overshadow the need for leadership discipline and people-first thinking. If a candidate avoids dealing with underperformance or struggles to build alignment, that’s a risk, no matter how good their design portfolio looks.
Rimington eventually onboarded a leader who focused on people, not just systems. The results were clearer, faster, and more sustainable. That’s where future managers should be evaluated: on how well they make their teams work, not just on how well they work individually.
Identify and prioritize candidates with the ability to influence and align others.
Technical teams don’t move because they’re well-informed, they move because someone rallies them around a clear objective. The ability to initiate, persuade, and align is a core trait of effective IT managers. Ani Mishra, engineering manager at DoorDash, uses a targeted interview question to filter for this trait: “Tell me about something you cared about, something you initiated.” The value of that question is direct. It uncovers whether a candidate can not only identify a problem, but also take the lead in solving it and bring others along.
Leadership in tech doesn’t operate on authority alone. Managers must be able to look ahead, anticipate what the business will need in six to twelve months, and make the case for the people, tools, and infrastructure to address it. Then they have to secure the support required to implement those changes. Influence isn’t optional, it’s part of the job.
Mishra points out the reality: hiring top talent doesn’t happen overnight. If a leader doesn’t see what’s coming, the organization won’t have the people or capability in place when strategy shifts or scaling demands arrive. Managers who wait for direction aren’t contributing at the level required. The ones who succeed are forward-thinking and able to turn vision into motion. That requires more than intelligence, it’s about conviction and communication.
When hiring, evaluate more than just competency. Look for initiative. Look for impact. The right candidates won’t just speak to past projects; they’ll describe proactive action, influence across teams, and lessons learned when pushing efforts that mattered. That’s the difference between someone who can manage work, and someone who can lead progress.
Mentioned Individual: Ani Mishra, engineering manager at DoorDash, emphasizes this approach by assessing whether candidates “can convince others to march with them on a shared problem or vision.”
In conclusion
Hiring an IT manager isn’t a box to check, it’s a strategic move that shapes execution, team health, and long-term resilience. The technical side matters, but it’s only one part of the picture. Decision-makers who focus narrowly on credentials or rush the process under pressure often trade speed for dysfunction. That’s not a compromise worth making.
What works is clarity. Clarity on the role, clarity on cultural fit, and clarity on what kind of leadership the team needs now, and in the next phase of growth. It also means keeping pace with the demands of scale by building internal leadership pipelines early, not after burnout begins.
The best outcomes don’t come from finding unicorns. They come from recognizing aligned talent, investing in leadership growth, and making hire and fire decisions based on long-term function, not short-term relief. Smart organizations aren’t just filling roles, they’re creating momentum. That starts with hiring managers who can lead, not just manage.
