VP of Engineering Course: Engineering Director, 120+ Tools

This course contains the use of artificial intelligence

128 working tools for the people, processes and delivery decisions of a VP of Engineering.

Connect the organization chart, hiring plan, engineering dashboard and board report in one operating record.

An engineering organization can add teams while its decisions remain scattered across managers. Interviewers use different standards, reviews lack shared evidence, incidents compete with roadmap commitments, and the CEO asks what the headcount budget is buying. Each reporting cycle then starts with another reconciliation.

A connected operating record gives each discussion a scope, evidence, an owner and a decision request. The organization plan explains the hiring requirement. Career expectations support consistent reviews. Delivery and reliability evidence enter the same resource conversation as capacity and cost, with unresolved questions kept visible.

Mike brings 20 years of HR practice and experience building engineering organizations alongside CTOs and VPs at Wargaming, Preply and iDeals. His perspective is that of an HR director and founder: hiring engineers, organization design, career levels and reviews. Technical methods are explained from primary sources. This is a practical role course for a product engineering organization of 30–500 engineers.

What the 128-tool count includes

The count is a union of distinct working records, calculations and practice packs inside eight HTML files. Files and tabs are containers, and a repeated form on a slide is counted once. Explained models are distinguished from ready working records and add no extra tools to this count.

• 84 templates, records and matrices: role charter, ownership boundary record, independent interview scorecard, monthly CEO one-page.
• 15 checklists and decision rules: product commitment gate, production event audit, metric-use policy, release decision pack.
• 19 calculations and planning worksheets: cohort funnel calculator, failed recovery calculator, net capacity ledger, plan/actual variance ledger.
• 10 question banks, scripts and rehearsals: standard interview question bank, self-review prompts, budget response exercise, delivery response exercise.

Where the working files sit in the operating cycle

• Role and organization design (34 distinct tools): Engineering Leadership Role Map and Engineering Org Scaling Planner, with the first 90 days, manager coverage and quarterly growth.
• Hiring and careers (31 distinct tools): Engineering Hiring Kit and Engineering Career Review Kit, with the interview loop, scorecards, dual tracks and review calibration.
• Delivery and quality (34 distinct tools): Engineering Delivery Dashboard and Incident and Quality Playbook, with five DORA measures, incident response, SLOs and error budgets.
• Planning and executive reporting (39 distinct tools): Engineering Planning Workbook and CEO and Board Report Builder, with capacity, roadmap, headcount cost and decision requests.

First comes the leadership remit, then the organization, hiring and career system. Delivery evidence and incident records follow. The final two lessons connect quarterly resources to the CEO update and board discussion. Engineering Director, Engineering Manager and Head of Engineering responsibilities are compared through their actual remit.

Veytruvexa, a fictional B2B SaaS company, and its VP Iris Calder connect all eight lessons. Every scenario number is an example number; loaded costs are teaching assumptions. The HTML files contain editable records, completeness checks, browser saving, text copying and printing to PDF. Each lesson has one practical assignment that produces a working artifact.

System demonstrations use mockups rebuilt from public documentation. The real interface and workflow may differ. Greenhouse Recruiting, incident io and Linear appear only within the documented mockup routes; the delivery dashboard uses a neutral interface mockup.

Independent course, not affiliated with DORA, Google, Team Topologies or the software vendors mentioned.

What is included

• Eight lessons and 16 downloadable resources: eight lecture presentations in PDF and eight interactive HTML working files.
• Practical assignments using anonymized data or the supplied fictional business case.
• Lifetime access to all materials.
• Active instructor support in Q&A.
• A Udemy Certificate of Completion.

The next hiring round, quarterly plan and board discussion will need explicit decisions. Start with one unresolved responsibility and put its evidence, owner and review point into the role map. Enroll now and start your first lesson today.

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