/Leadership

Decision-Making Pitfalls For Technical Leaders

- Chelsea Troy tl;dr: “In my experience, it is at least the case that when programmers become trial-by-fire managers, they realize they don’t know how to do their jobs. Technical leadership — tech lead roles, principal eng roles, and even the dreaded “player-coach” role—those sneak up on people. A lot of times there’s still programming involved, so folks feel prepared. Their experience has exposed them to technical decisions and it got them promoted, so the way they do it is probably fine. Right?” Chelsea discusses 3 pitfalls she commonly sees. 

featured in #562

Yes, Or...

- John Cutler tl;dr: John calls out the counterpoints to wisdom often cited in common phrases we hear: (1) "Be customer-obsessed.” (2) Teams need clear objectives!” (3) "Think big. Start Small.” (4) "You can’t improve what you don’t measure." (5) "Focus on outcomes, not outputs."

featured in #562

Dear CTO: It's Not 2015 Anymore

- Christine Miao tl;dr: “With AI and big tech layoffs, engineering organizations have been put under a microscope like never before. Engineering leaders need to adapt to this new normal.”

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Eng Org Seniority-Mix Model

- Will Larson tl;dr: A model examining how different policies affect engineering organization seniority mix. Without intervention, orgs become top-heavy with senior engineers, increasing costs. Three key policies work together: backfilling departures at lower levels, stopping senior-level external hiring, and capping the maximum number of senior positions.

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How Not To Disagree

- Andrew Bosworth tl;dr: “Imagine a simple scenario. Your manager is proposing changes to your roadmap. Those changes would negate months of work by your team. You lead the team and don’t agree with the new direction. Following a robust discussion your manager makes the change over your objections. How do you proceed?”

featured in #562

How Not To Disagree

- Andrew Bosworth tl;dr: “Imagine a simple scenario. Your manager is proposing changes to your roadmap. Those changes would negate months of work by your team. You lead the team and don’t agree with the new direction. Following a robust discussion your manager makes the change over your objections. How do you proceed?”

featured in #561

Learning To Learn

- Kevin Li tl;dr: “In the past 3 years, I’ve run over 300 interviews... I especially like capping interviews with an open-ended question that really lets great candidates shine. One of my favorite now-retired questions is: “What’s something you’ve learned that you believe gives you an edge - something that you’re almost surprised more people don’t know about?”

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Design Your Organization For The Conflicts You Want To Hear About

- Dave Kellogg tl;dr: “I have two rules for organization design: (1) Design for conflict. Specifically, design your organization for the conflicts you want to hear about. (2) Ensure value-add. Don’t put thing B under thing A unless the executive in charge can add value to both.”

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Engineering Managers' Guide To Effective Annual Feedback

- Péter Szász tl;dr: “As we’re entering the last quarter of the year, the time has come when many tech companies start their yearly feedback cycles, providing formal feedback on the performance of their employees. While time-consuming, if done well, this is a great tool for Engineering Managers to make a difference in the professional life of their reports, so to help, I summarized what I’ve learned about this process during my career.”

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Manage Your Priorities And Energy

- Will Larson tl;dr: Will reflect on his shift from a 'company, team, self' framework to an eventual ‘quid pro quo' approach during his management tenure at Uber. His ‘quid pro quo' approach is: (1) Generally, prioritize company and team priorities over your own. (2) If you are getting de-energized, artificially prioritize some energizing work. Increase the quantity until equilibrium is restored. (3) If the long-term balance between energy and proper priorities can’t be balanced for more than a year, stop everything else and work on solving this issue e.g. change your role or quit. Will emphasizes the importance of remaining flexible and curious.

featured in #560