From Engineer to Director: Lessons in Expanding Responsibility
Brian’s journey from hands-on engineer to director of IT highlights what happens when leadership intersects with small teams and limited resources. The title might change, but the technical responsibilities often remain, layered with new obligations like procurement, compliance, and budget oversight.
Running Multiple Domains in Small Teams
When Brian moved into director-level roles, his oversight expanded to cybersecurity, physical security, procurement, GIS, and user support—areas that in large corporations would be separated into multiple departments. With only fourteen staff, he had to manage broad coverage while still diving into technical issues like diagnosing fiber optic errors or resolving power failures.
In smaller organizations, leadership does not mean leaving technical work behind. Expect to continue troubleshooting while also managing budgets, contracts, and long-term planning.
Procurement as a Core IT Skill
One of Brian’s surprises as a director was how central procurement became. Vendor evaluation, licensing models, warranties, and total cost of ownership all shaped technical choices. Procurement mistakes could ripple into long-term operational problems.
Research from Deloitte’s 2025 Chief Procurement Officer Survey found that “Digital Masters” in procurement, who embrace advanced technology and vendor analytics, generate about 3.2× ROI compared to peers.
Directors need to be procurement literate. Evaluate vendors not just on price, but on support reliability and lifecycle costs.
Sustaining Technical Depth
Even while managing procurement and budgets, Brian stayed directly involved in infrastructure monitoring. He continued running diagnostics on networking systems and catching early warning signs like retransmits on fiber connections. Staying engaged technically helped him make better long-term investment decisions.
A 2024 survey by SANS found that organizations tracking detailed metrics like Mean Time To Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time To Respond (MTTR) reduce recovery times significantly).
Leaders should carve out time to review infrastructure health personally, or they risk losing sight of how systems actually behave.
Communication as a Technical Skill
Technical expertise alone was not enough. As Brian managed outages and projects, his ability to clearly update stakeholders became critical. He translated outages into business impacts, budget risks, and user-facing consequences.
Gartner emphasizes that stakeholder communication is a key differentiator in IT risk management, reducing misunderstandings and enabling faster recovery from incidents.
Communication is not separate from technical work. Directors should establish reporting cadences and use dashboards to explain technical risk in business terms.
Building a Resilient Organization
New research into digital procurement and IT operations shows that success comes not just from tools, but from how teams are structured to absorb shocks. A 2023 ArXiv study on next-generation digital procurement stressed integration of automation, sustainability, and data-driven decision making to make small teams more resilient.
Directors should think beyond firefighting. Investing in procurement processes, automated monitoring, and cross-training makes small teams more adaptable in the face of resource constraints.