How to Lead AI Engineering Teams¶

Have you ever wondered why some teams seem to effortlessly deliver value while others stay busy but make no real progress?

I recently had a conversation that completely changed how I think about leading teams. While discussing team performance with a VP of Engineering who was frustrated with their team's slow progress, I suggested focusing on better standups and more experiments.

That's when Skylar Payne dropped a truth bomb that made me completely rethink everything:

"Leaders are living and breathing the business strategy through their meetings and context, but the people on the ground don't have any fucking clue what that is. They're kind of trying to read the tea leaves to understand what it is."

That moment was a wake-up call.

I had been so focused on the mechanics of execution that I'd missed something fundamental: The best processes in the world won't help if your team doesn't understand how their work drives real value.

In less than an hour, I learned more about effective leadership than I had in the past year. Let me share what I discovered.

The Process Trap¶

For years, I believed the answer to team performance was better processes. More standups, better ticket tracking, clearer KPIs.

I was dead wrong.

Here's the truth that surprised me: The most effective teams have very little process. What they do have is: - Crystal clear alignment on what matters - A shared understanding of how the business works - The ability to make independent decisions - A systematic way to learn and improve

Let me break down how to build this kind of team.

The "North Star" Framework¶

Instead of more process, teams need a clear way to connect their daily work to real business value. This is where the North Star Framework comes in.

Here's how it works:

Define One Key Metric: Choose a single metric that summarizes the value you deliver to customers. For example, Amplitude uses "insights shared and read by at least three people."
Break It Down: Identify the key drivers that teams can actually impact. These become your focus areas.
Create a Rhythm:
Weekly: Review input metrics
Quarterly: Check relationships between inputs and your North Star
Yearly: Validate that your North Star predicts revenue
Make It Visible: Run weekly business reviews where leadership shares these metrics with everyone. Start manual before building dashboards - trustworthy data matters more than automation.

This framework does something powerful: it helps every team member understand how their work drives real value.

The Weekly Business Review¶

One of the most powerful tools in this framework is the weekly business review. But this isn't your typical metrics meeting.

Here's how to make it work: - Make it a leadership-level meeting that ICs can attend - Focus on building business intuition, not just sharing numbers - Take notes on anomalies and patterns - Share readouts with the entire team - Use it to develop a shared mental model of how the business works

Rethinking Team Structure¶

Here's another counterintuitive insight: how you organize your teams might be creating unnecessary friction.

Instead of dividing responsibilities by project, try dividing them by metrics. Here's why: - Project-based teams require precise communication boundaries - Metric-based teams can work more fluidly - It reduces communication overhead - Teams naturally align around outcomes instead of outputs

Think about it: When teams own metrics instead of projects, they have the freedom to find the best way to move those metrics.

Early Stage? Even More Important¶

I know what you're thinking: "This sounds great for big companies, but we're too early for this."

That's what I thought too. But here's what I learned: Being early stage isn't an excuse for throwing spaghetti at the wall.

You can still be systematic, just differently:

Start Qualitative:
Draft clear goals and hypotheses
Generate specific questions to validate them
Talk to customers systematically
Document and learn methodically
Focus on Learning:
Treat tickets as experiments, not features
Make outcomes about learning, not just shipping
Accept that progress is nonlinear
Build systematic ways to capture insights
Build Foundations:
Document your strategy clearly
Make metrics and goals transparent
Share regular updates on progress
Create systems for capturing and sharing learnings

The Experiment Mindset¶

One crucial shift is thinking about work differently: - The ticket is not the feature - The ticket is the experiment - The outcome is learning

This mindset change helps teams focus on value and learning rather than just shipping features.

Put It Into Practice¶

Here are five things you can do today to start implementing these ideas:

Define Your North Star: What's the one metric that best captures the value you deliver to customers?
Start Weekly Business Reviews: Schedule a weekly meeting to review key metrics with your entire team. Start simple - even a manual spreadsheet is fine.
Audit Your Process: Look at every process you have. Ask: "Is this helping people make better decisions?" If not, consider dropping it.
Document Your Strategy: Write down how you think the business works. Share it widely and iterate based on feedback.
Shift to Experiments: Start treating work as experiments to test hypotheses rather than features to ship.

The Real Test¶

The real test of whether this is working isn't in your processes or even your metrics. It's in whether every team member can confidently answer these questions:

"What should I be spending my time on today?"
"How does my work drive value for our business?"
"What am I learning that could change our direction?"

When your team can answer these without hesitation, you've built something special.

Remember: Your team members are smart, capable people. They don't need more process - they need context and clarity to make good decisions.

Give them that, and you'll be amazed at what they can achieve.

P.S. What would you say is your team's biggest obstacle to working this way? Leave a comment below.