Curriculum
Everything you can learn on Kayas.
16 tracks and 73 lessons across leadership, management, and technical depth. Each track is a short path: you learn a concept, apply it, and Engram brings it back at the right moment so it sticks.
Core track
The management path, learned in order.
Delivering Feedback
5 lessons · ~27 min- 01~6mFrom accurate to actionableTurn feedback that's true but vague into something the other person can actually act on.
- 02~5mSituation, Behavior, ImpactUse SBI to deliver hard feedback so it lands as an observation, not an attack.
- 03~6mHandling a defensive reactionKeep a feedback conversation productive when the other person pushes back, minimizes, or gets defensive.
- 04~5mAffirming vs. developmental feedbackBalance affirming and developmental feedback and choose the right moment to deliver each.
- 05~5mIn the moment vs. saved for laterChoose when feedback should be delivered on the spot and when it should wait for a private, calmer moment.
1:1s & Coaching
5 lessons · ~30 min- 01~6mWhose meeting is it?Run a 1:1 as your report's meeting for their growth and blockers, not your status check on their tickets.
- 02~6mCoach with questions, not answersResist handing over your answer so your report builds the judgment to reach their own.
- 03~6mOpening a hard conversationOpen a difficult 1:1 topic with curiosity so it lands as a shared investigation, not a verdict.
- 04~6mFrom conversation to durable changeTurn coaching conversations into lasting change by capturing commitments, following through, and connecting weekly work to a growth arc.
- 05~6mDelegation is coachingHand over meaningful work at the right level of autonomy, and resist taking it back.
Hiring & Interviewing
5 lessons · ~31 min- 01~6mDefine the bar before you meet anyoneTurn a vague sense of 'a great hire' into a concrete, role-specific scorecard you can evaluate every candidate against.
- 02~6mInterview for signal, not comfortAsk for specific past behavior and probe it for depth, so you collect evidence instead of merely enjoying a pleasant conversation.
- 03~7mSeparate evidence from conclusions in the debriefRun the debrief so the decision turns on the evidence each interviewer gathered, not on the confidence with which they state a verdict.
- 04~6mGuard against the biases that fool youRecognize the predictable biases that make interviewers hire people like themselves, and use structure to keep the bar consistent across every candidate.
- 05~6mClosing the candidateSell the role honestly in the final stretch and treat the offer as the start of onboarding.
Delivery & Execution
5 lessons · ~28 min- 01~6mFind the constraint before you add processDiagnose where delivery time is actually lost before adding any new ritual or process.
- 02~6mSlice work thin and verticalBreak large work into thin end-to-end slices that each run and retire the biggest risk early.
- 03~5mNegotiate scope, do not absorb pressureRespond to an unrealistic deadline by making the scope-time-quality tradeoff explicit rather than silently absorbing it.
- 04~5mStatus that surfaces risk earlyReport status so slippage becomes visible early enough to act on, instead of arriving as a last-minute surprise.
- 05~6mEstimates are forecasts, not promisesCommunicate uncertainty in dates honestly and update the forecast as evidence arrives.
Performance & Calibration
5 lessons · ~30 min- 01~5mWhat calibration is actually forUnderstand calibration as the mechanism that keeps a rating meaning the same thing across every team, and anchor your case to the leveling bar rather than your advocacy for the person.
- 02~6mRate impact, not activityDistinguish evidence of real impact from effort, output volume, tenure, and visibility so your ratings reward outcomes rather than motion.
- 03~6mThe biases that distort ratingsRecognize the recency, halo, visibility, and similarity biases that skew ratings, and counter each one with full-period evidence and rubric anchoring.
- 04~7mAdvocating in the room: challenge and defendChallenge a peer’s rating and defend your own by anchoring to the leveling bar, and spend your limited credibility on the cases that actually matter.
- 05~6mDelivering the ratingTurn a calibration outcome into a conversation the person can act on, whichever way it went.
Team Health & Morale
5 lessons · ~29 min- 01~6mReading disengagement before it becomes a resignationSpot the early behavioral signals of a disengaging teammate and open the conversation while you can still change the outcome.
- 02~6mPsychological safety, and what it isn'tBuild the psychological safety that lets people surface bad news early, without mistaking it for comfort or a lowered bar.
- 03~5mMorale is a symptom: diagnose the causeDistinguish burnout, boredom, and friction so you treat the actual cause of low morale instead of the surface mood.
- 04~6mProtecting sustainable pace under pressureProtect your team's sustainable pace under delivery pressure by making the cost of a crunch explicit instead of absorbing it silently.
- 05~6mConflict is a featureSurface disagreement early and channel it into better decisions instead of quiet resentment.
Managing Up & Stakeholders
4 lessons · ~25 min- 01~6mWhat your manager actually needs from youTurn status updates into decision-ready communication your manager can act on.
- 02~6mNo surprises: escalate early and wellDeliver bad news early, with options attached, so escalation builds trust instead of spending it.
- 03~6mMap your stakeholders before they map youIdentify who shapes your team's success, what each needs from you, and set a communication cadence that fits their exposure.
- 04~7mDisagreeing with someone above youPush back on a decision from above without caving silently or burning the relationship.
Incident & Crisis Leadership
4 lessons · ~24 min- 01~6mYour job in an incident is not to fix itRun the incident: assign roles, keep one source of truth, and decide, instead of grabbing the fix yourself.
- 02~5mCommunicating while things are on fireKeep stakeholders calm and useful with updates that state impact, action, and when the next update comes.
- 03~7mPostmortems that change somethingRun a blameless review that finds contributing causes and produces fixes the team actually ships.
- 04~6mLeading through a longer crisisSustain a team through a multi-week grind without burning it out or letting standards slide.
Strategy & Prioritization
4 lessons · ~25 min- 01~7mStrategy is what you say no toWrite a team strategy as a diagnosis and a few coherent choices, not a list of goals.
- 02~6mPrioritize by cost of delayRank competing work by what its lateness costs, and make the cut line public.
- 03~6mConnect the work to the businessFrame invisible investments in outcomes leadership tracks, so the next budget conversation starts warm.
- 04~6mChange the plan without whiplashReprioritize when facts change, without teaching the team that plans are meaningless.
Leading in the AI Era
4 lessons · ~25 min- 01~6mWhat AI actually changes for your team (and what it does not)Separate the real shifts (verification burden, review load) from the hype, and know which fundamentals appreciate.
- 02~6mAdopt without the hype cycleRun AI adoption as measured pilots on a clear policy floor, avoiding both mandates and bans.
- 03~6mEvaluating the AI feature your team proposesJudge AI feature proposals past the demo: require the eval set, the failure story, and a place in the cost-latency-quality triangle.
- 04~7mGrowing your people when AI does the easy workDesign deliberate growth for juniors and seniors when the tasks people learned on are the tasks AI does best.
Leading Change
4 lessons · ~25 min- 01~6mChange fails at the habit, not the announcementTreat the announcement as the start line: change lands where the old habit fires, and the dip comes before the gain.
- 02~7mResistance is informationRead whether resistance is loss, competence fear, or honest disagreement, and answer each with what it actually needs.
- 03~6mDesign the transition, not the end statePlan the middle of the change: defaults over exhortation, waves over big bang, and an end date for the old way.
- 04~6mMake it stick: from initiative to defaultMeasure behavior instead of ceremony, feed the reinforcement loops, and manage the team's total change budget.
Explore
Broaden into technical range and influence.
System Design
5 lessons · ~31 min- 01~6mStart with the requirements, not the boxesPin down the functional and non-functional requirements before drawing a single component, so the design answers a real problem instead of an imagined one.
- 02~6mThere is no best design, only trade-offsName the property you're buying and the one you're giving up on every significant decision, so choices are deliberate rather than inherited defaults.
- 03~6mFind the bottleneck before you scaleLocate the single tightest constraint in a system and reason about it with rough numbers before adding any scaling machinery.
- 04~6mDesign for failure, not just successAssume every dependency will fail and design the blast radius, degradation, and retry behavior on purpose rather than by accident.
- 05~7mEvolve the system without a rewriteMigrate a live system in reversible steps: seams, strangler moves, and parallel runs.
Communication & Influence
5 lessons · ~29 min- 01~5mLead with the bottom lineStructure a message so a busy reader gets the point and knows what you need from them, in the first sentence.
- 02~6mMatch the altitude to the audienceAdjust the abstraction level of the same message so an executive, a peer manager, and the person doing the work each get what they actually need.
- 03~6mInfluence without authorityGet another team or a skeptical peer to move your way when you have no power to make them.
- 04~6mDisagree, then commitVoice strong dissent in a way that improves the decision, and back a choice you argued against without going silent or subverting it.
- 05~6mWriting that gets readStructure documents so a busy reader gets the point in a minute: conclusion first, detail on demand.
Career Growth
5 lessons · ~29 min- 01~6mFrom aspiration to a growth planTurn a vague desire to grow into a concrete plan built on observable behaviors and the scope where they show up.
- 02~6mOperate at the next level firstUnderstand that promotion recognizes scope you are already demonstrating, and learn to find and take that scope before the title arrives.
- 03~5mMake your impact legibleTranslate your work into impact your decision-makers can see, so recognition tracks reality, without resorting to empty self-promotion.
- 04~6mPlateaus, lateral moves, and the IC/manager forkNavigate plateaus and major direction choices by optimizing for your learning rate rather than defaulting to the next rung up.
- 05~6mBuild the promotion caseAssemble evidence against the next level's bar and enlist your manager as the advocate.
Technical Decision-Making
4 lessons · ~24 min- 01~6mDecide how to decideMatch the decision process to the stakes: one-way doors get rigor, two-way doors get speed.
- 02~5mWrite the decision downCapture context, options, and rationale in a lightweight record so decisions survive turnover and stop being relitigated.
- 03~6mBuild, buy, or adoptEvaluate third-party against in-house on total cost of ownership, not engineering pride.
- 04~7mReversing a bad betSpot sunk-cost momentum and unwind a failing technical decision cleanly.
AI Engineering
4 lessons · ~25 min- 01~6mThe jagged frontier: what LLMs can and cannot doBuild a working mental model of LLM capability so you judge where to apply them by testing, not by hype or vibes.
- 02~7mRAG, fine-tuning, or a bigger contextChoose a grounding strategy by what each actually buys and the costs each hides, starting with the simplest thing that could work.
- 03~6mEvals before featuresBuild the eval set before the feature, so every prompt, model, and pipeline change is measured instead of vibed.
- 04~6mDesign for failure: guardrails and humans in the loopShip probabilistic components safely by bounding the blast radius and routing uncertainty to humans.
Pick a track and start.
Your first lesson takes five minutes. Engram schedules the rest.
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