Answer extracted from the Digital Construction Podcast — listen to the full episode below.
What early-career development helped Devon Middleditch succeed in transitioning from technical to leadership roles?
Two half-day training modules—Understanding Self and Others, and Managing Self and Others—proved transformative for Devon Middleditch's transition into leadership. These programs revealed a fundamental insight: different people need different communication approaches in meetings, whether that's preparation beforehand, discussion during, or debrief afterward. This awareness became essential when stepping from technical roles into management.
The epiphany was recognizing that not everyone responds the same way to the same communication style. Some team members need to be briefed before a meeting starts so they can think through their position. Others thrive on real-time discussion and feedback. Still others prefer to process and reflect after the conversation has concluded. When Middleditch was managing individual contributors, he could work around these differences informally. But as a leader managing managers and larger teams, understanding these personas became critical.
The training modules gave Middleditch a structured framework for identifying how different people absorbed and processed information. This insight directly shaped how he led meetings, delegated decisions, and built psychological safety across his organizations. As discussed in the Digital Construction Podcast episode, this people-centered approach proved invaluable when scaling teams at major infrastructure programs and Tier 1 companies.
Devon Middleditch — Head of Digital Engineering and Technology at Varys. Middleditch has led teams at AECOM and held key roles in government agencies including Transport for New South Wales. Early in his career, he relocated from New Zealand to Australia, where he took on the role of Technology Architect on the Doha Expressway Program. He pioneered the adoption of emerging technologies—drones, augmented reality, and common data environments—in linear infrastructure projects, while building and sustaining organizational culture across multiple scaled teams.
The modules also equipped Middleditch with language and terminology to discuss these differences with his team. Rather than assuming everyone wanted the same level of information or the same engagement style, he could openly talk about working preferences and adapt his leadership accordingly. This flexibility became especially important when leading through the rapid scaling phases discussed in this episode, where team composition was constantly evolving.
The practical takeaway was simple but profound: leadership development isn't just about mastering technical knowledge or strategic thinking—it's about understanding human behavior and adapting your approach to the people you lead. For someone leaving technical IC (individual contributor) work behind, this shift in perspective often determines whether the transition succeeds or falters.
Key takeaways
- Two focused training modules—Understanding Self and Others, and Managing Self and Others—provided the foundational insight for Middleditch's successful technical-to-leadership transition.
- Different team members require different communication and preparation styles: some need pre-meeting briefing, others prefer real-time discussion, and some benefit from post-meeting debrief.
- Understanding persona-based communication became essential when managing managers and larger teams, not just individual contributors.
- Adopting a people-centered leadership framework proved critical when scaling teams on major infrastructure programs and multinational organizations.
See also
How can technical experts successfully transition into leadership roles without losing effectiveness?
You have to get off the tools and leave behind your technical work to move forward. Organizations do not expect you to do two roles—they want you to do one.
What is the most important skill for the next generation of engineers working with AI-generated solutions?
Critical thinking is essential for the next generation of engineers because they will receive a lot more information generated by different AI agents. Without strong critical thinking, engineers risk letting problems through by blindly accepting machine-generated answers.
Which human skills are becoming more important versus commoditized in construction tech sales as AI advances?
Judgment, trust-building, curiosity, commercial empathy, and the ability to simplify complexity are the skills becoming more important as AI advances and commoditizes technical product knowledge.