How To Create Compound Efficiencies In Engineering
tl;dr: The article covers the shift towards efficiency in engineering in 2023 and outlines three compound efficiencies: real-time visibility into metrics, automating pull requests & code reviews, and protecting developer focus. By layering these efficiencies, teams can achieve elite performance. Sustainable efficiency in software engineering isn't about one-time decisions but building organizational habits that compound over time, leading to significant improvements in quality, speed, and business impact.featured in #440
The Best Approach I've Seen For Hiring New Engineers
- Jade Rubick tl;dr: A successful example of new engineer hiring through the "Ignite" program. In this program, junior engineers are hired to work on real company problems in groups, join different teams for several weeks, and then are placed on a permanent team. The program is effective in training and integrating junior engineers into the company's processes, providing a positive experience for them. Thoughtful management and structured onboarding can lead to more effective junior engineers, and the lessons from this program can be applied to companies of various sizes, especially those hiring 20-30 engineers annually.featured in #440
Enabling Good Work Habits Through Reflective Goal-Setting
- Abi Noda tl;dr: Abi highlights a study on developers' productivity, revealing that reflective goal-setting leads to improvements. 84% of participants identified concrete goals through reflection, 80% saw positive behavior change, and 92% planned to maintain new habits. The key takeaway is that reflective goal-setting not only enhances awareness and productivity but also encourages lasting behavioral changes, empowering developers to gain control over their work.featured in #438
Bottleneck #04: Cost Efficiency
- Sofia Tania Stefania Stefansdottir tl;dr: This post discusses cost optimization for scale-ups by emphasizing the importance of a cross-functional team to analyze and execute cost-saving measures. It outlines strategies like rightsizing resources, using ephemeral infrastructure, and consolidating tools. A key takeaway is the need for a detailed analysis of cost drivers, such as compute vs storage vs network, to identify specific levers for cost reduction, ensuring alignment with the company's unique needs as it scales.featured in #438
Attention Is All A Manager Needs
- Phil Calçado tl;dr: “All this talk about managing information at scale makes me think of challenges faced by engineering managers and directors as they have to deal with both information overload and scarcity simultaneously. This is a recurring major topic when coaching new managers or folks who made the transition to senior management. In this article, I am going to discuss the challenges and offer a few practical tools that have worked for me in my own journey.”featured in #437
Square’s Updated Growth Framework For Engineers And Engineering Managers
tl;dr: Square has updated its Growth Framework for Engineers and Engineering Managers, reflecting significant changes over the past four years. The revised levels guide hiring, promotion, and encode the company's values, with a focus on clarity, consistency, and adaptability.featured in #437
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 #436
Cultivating A Culture Of Excellence
- Mike Fisher tl;dr: The authors stress the significance of a culture of excellence in promoting product innovation and success. Empowering teams with authority and accountability, focusing on meaningful metrics rather than vanity ones, strategic hiring, nurturing team dynamics, encouraging experimentation, and setting clear objectives are vital factors in fostering exceptional results and maintaining a competitive edge.featured in #435
Making Software With 4,999 Other People
- Brandon Willett tl;dr: Brandon shares what he learned from his time at Datadog, broken into 3 sections: software, projects and people. Takeaways include: (1) Keeping the development cycle near-instantaneous with features like microservices and feature flags is both productive and enjoyable. (2) Take advantage of recency bias to solve problems right after incidents. (3) Prefer projects with small organizational scopes to avoid communication breakdowns and motivate the team.featured in #435
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