/Leadership

Senior Engineer Fatigue

tl;dr: “Senior Fatigue is characterized not by a decline in productivity but by a deliberate deceleration. The vibrant energy of younger engineers, bursting with rapid pull requests and overflowing with design documents, starts to give way to a more measured pace. At this stage, seniors might send fewer pull requests or be quieter in meetings, but this isn't an indicator of lost productivity. Quite the opposite — seniors are often finding more efficient, impactful ways to contribute, leveraging their vast experience.”

featured in #525

Senior Engineer Fatigue

- Kirill Bobrov tl;dr: “Senior Fatigue is characterized not by a decline in productivity but by a deliberate deceleration. The vibrant energy of younger engineers, bursting with rapid pull requests and overflowing with design documents, starts to give way to a more measured pace. At this stage, seniors might send fewer pull requests or be quieter in meetings, but this isn't an indicator of lost productivity. Quite the opposite — seniors are often finding more efficient, impactful ways to contribute, leveraging their vast experience.”

featured in #524

Why Data-Driven Product Decisions Are Hard (Sometimes Impossible)

- Andrew Chen tl;dr: “We strive to be data-driven in our decision making. And barring that, data-informed, overlaying our intuition and thoughts on top of the data. We certainly don’t want to be ignorant, and just make decisions with our gut. And yet sometimes that is exactly what happens — and some argue, better than being data-driven.” Andrew shares the limits of decision making with data. 

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What Do GenZ Software Engineers Really Think?

- Gergely Orosz tl;dr: “These days, most new grad software engineers belong to GenZ, having been born between 1997 and 2012... strap in as we dive into responses from the latest generation of tech talent, and find out what young professionals really think about modern workplaces and their more “experienced” colleagues!”

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Know Yourself

- Murat Demirbas tl;dr: “MongoDB has a nice leadership development program internally. They suggested that filling / sharing this questionnaire would be useful to get you acquainted with the people you work with daily." Questions include: (1) What are you amazing at? Where do you want to improve? (2) What makes you most excited about your work / role? (3) Describe an ideal workday. (4) What is your meeting participation style? (5) What is something that people incorrectly assume about you?

featured in #522

Managing A Bottleneck Team

- Jade Rubick tl;dr: “One of the harder situations you might find yourself in is managing a bottleneck team. What is a bottleneck team? When other teams can’t get their work done unless you do something for them, you’re a bottleneck team.” Jade discusses his approach to managing such teams. 

featured in #522

Conflict

- Mike Fisher tl;dr: Conflict within teams can be productive or destructive. Steve Jobs likened constructive disagreement to a rock tumbler that polishes ideas. Cognitive conflict, in moderation, facilitates learning and innovation. However, relationship, goal, and process conflicts often hinder team performance. Mike discusses each. 

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Structuring Engineering Organizations

- Otto Hilska tl;dr: How you split your software organization into teams can make or break developer experience and productivity. Your organization structure should allow each team to make decisions about a clearly defined product area. After reading this blog post, you’ll know how to balance the four defining factors of a team: outcomes, features, people, and architecture.

featured in #521

Briefly: Anonymous Questions

- Kellan Elliot-McCrea tl;dr: Q&A serves to answer questions, engage the team, and maintain accountability. Kellan suggests using a 3rd party tool for anonymous submissions within a time window. Leaders should address good-faith questions, acknowledging unanswered ones. 

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How To Build Engineering Strategy

- Mirek Stanek tl;dr: “In this article, I will explore tools and techniques to help you build a long-term engineering strategy. Some work best at the organizational level, where Product and Technology collaborate on their challenges. Some can also be successfully applied at the team level and can inspire the rest of the organization from the bottom up.”

featured in #520