A Framework For Prioritizing Tech Debt
- Max Countryman tl;dr: "Now with a complete list of your tech debt as it stands go through each and answer the following questions: (1) If we choose to do nothing, will this issue become worse, remain the same, or improve? (2) If it'll become worse, how quickly will it degrade? (3) If it remains the same, how much disruption is it causing today? (4) If it'll improve, at what point will it improve to the degree it's no longer an obstruction?"featured in #384
We Invested 10% To Pay Back Tech Debt; Here's What Happened
- Alex Ewerlöf tl;dr: Alex discusses how "Tech Debt Friday" started at his org, what was learned and how it's executed: (1) We spend 10% of our time to deal with tech debt. (2) The first rule is not to create debt in the first place. (3) The PR that creates tech debt should come paired with the issue to deal with it. And more.featured in #383
Resilience And Waste In Software Teams
- Jessica Kerr tl;dr: Jessica explains resiliency in the context of the Southwest Airlines software failure. "When software is brittle, it falls over in production, and that falls to people to fix. While software can be robust to anticipated conditions, only people handle unexpected events. When software can’t even handle stuff that happens all the time, then people suffer the strain."featured in #383
Meetings For An Effective Eng Organization
- Will Larson tl;dr: "I’d like to recommend 6 core meetings that I recommend every organization start with, and that I’ve found can go a surprisingly long way. These six are split across three operational meetings, two developmental meetings and finally a monthly engineering Q&A to learn what the organization is really thinking about." Will discusses each in depth.featured in #382
Why Your Team Should Be Using Just-in-Time Access
- Adam Buggia tl;dr: Least privilege in the cloud is hard, but progress can be made by taking a risk-based approach. Consider an attacker who obtained one of your developer’s credentials; what access would they have? By adding a temporal dimension to developer access policies, the attack surface can be significantly reduced for many security-breach scenarios. That’s where just-in-time access comes in.featured in #382
Evaluating Managers: 5 Heuristics To Measure Managerial Impact
- AbdulFattah Popoola tl;dr: Measuring a manager’s impact is hard since outcomes take time. This post provides early evaluation metrics as well as tips for course correction. Each of the following heuristics are explained in detail: execution, people management, team development, strategic vision & organizational influence.featured in #381
featured in #381
What Is A Product Engineer (And Why They're Awesome)
- Ian Vanagas tl;dr: "In this post, we define the role of a product engineer, break down the characteristics of the role, go over their skills, and finally figure out why they matter. We base this information on industry research, and job posts from top startups hiring product engineers, which we quote throughout."featured in #380
Measuring An Engineering Organization
- Will Larson tl;dr: "There is no one solution to engineering measurement, rather there are many modes of engineering measurement, each of which is appropriate for a given scenario. Becoming an effective engineering executive is adding more approaches to your toolkit and remaining flexible about which to deploy for any given request." Will provides a template to work off of.featured in #378
Which Meetings Should You Kill?
- Camille Fournier tl;dr: "I fear that the culprit is a surprising new factor, one that started before the pandemic but has gotten even more out of hand in the world of remote work: 1:1s." Camille discusses how group discussion topics have turned into 1:1 topics in the remote work era.featured in #378