/Marianne Bellotti

Hunting Tech Debt Via Org Charts tl;dr: "The types of problems organizations have are heavily influenced by their incentive structure." Marianne describes the types of problems you'll find in various org structures i.e. in engineering led orgs, orgs where engineering reports to product, or security, or in flat orgs. She concludes "the best organizations at managing technical debt tend to be the ones that have a thoughtful process in place to adjudicate competing incentives."

featured in #281


Engineering Teams Are Just Networks tl;dr: "If you want to hire well, have modest baseline of minimum qualifications and think of your engineering organization as a network." Marianne illustrates why this is critical: people do not work out in their new roles "because their strengths do not align with the incentives the network creates."

featured in #257


Toxic And Woke Engineering Orgs tl;dr: Given many tech companies push social impact ideals, Marianne feels it's important to understand internal, external and interpersonal boundaries of her reports. "It is so easy to violate or indeed completely throw out appropriate boundaries" when the cause is important.

featured in #218


Why is This Idiot Running My Engineering Org? tl;dr: Risk tolerance defines leaders. Those with a low tolerance become bureaucrats - glamorous titles, big paychecks, scarred from past experiences. Others "embrace death," seeing it to be their duty to "protect and empower." Click on this link if you're paywalled.

featured in #199


All The Best Engineering Advice I Stole From Non-technical People tl;dr: CTO discusses how working with non-technical leaders has shaped her personal philosophies in developing software and leading teams.

featured in #151