From Developer to Head of Engineering: Building Powerful People (with Lester Dong)

Wondering what it really takes to lead engineers – not just manage tickets? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, Bridget, Seamus and Elliot sit down with Lester Dong, Head of Selection at SEEK, to talk about the leap from developer to engineering leader and what it means to “build powerful people”. Lester shares how he moved from hands‑on software development into management, how he now looks after 56 engineers across three teams, and why great engineering leadership is about context, scaling yourself, and solving human problems – not just technical ones. This episode's special guest: Lester Dong (SEEK Head of Engineering - Selection) In this episode, we explore: • Engineer vs developer (and why it matters for your career) – moving from “just writing code” to joining the dots between systems, people and business outcomes, building self-awareness, and learning to zoom in to bugs then “helicopter out” to see the bigger picture. • How to grow from ammo to “barrel” and beyond – Lester’s take on ammunition vs barrels, solving bigger problems to move up, collaborating instead of competing for the one tech-lead slot, and using rotations and context to build a career that outgrows any single team. • Patterns, microservices & high-performing teams (without the hype) – why design patterns and microservices get overused when people don’t understand the problem, how Seek thinks about monoliths vs microservices, and the practical signals of healthy teams: build pipelines, flaky tests, and change-failure rates under 5%. If you’re a software engineer, tech lead or aspiring manager who wants to grow beyond code and lead high‑impact teams, this episode is for you. 🔔 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode