Engineering as a consultant

I asked on #randsleadershipslack about some issues I'm having giving my direct report good direction as we both ramp up on a new company, new way of working, and new project. Carter Baxter sent me a link to this guide (that he wrote!) for 18F:

18F guide to consulting engineering

Consulting organizations need consulting engineers. These are people who can straddle the line between strategy and engineering, and who can bring their software engineering experience to bear on understanding and solving a broad range of partner problems. They’re not “developers who consult;” they’re “consultants who code” — people who can team up with with, coach, and mentor their partners.

I'm definitely going to be digging into this some more, but I loved the bit above, and this:

You can also be highly effective bolstering the qualitative data being gathered through research and user interviews. Most engineers tend to be very good a pattern-spotting, finding the sticky piece(s) in large systems, and analyzing available data and visualizing how things fit together. These are all highly valuable skills in a path analysis team.