/Leadership

Using Systems Thinking To Craft High-Leverage Strategies

- AbdulFattah Popoola tl;dr: "This post proposes a systems-based model for diagnosing, detecting, and fixing the fundamental issues that plague engineering teams. It is a distillation of lessons acquired from identifying and implementing high-leverage strategic remedies across multiple products."

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State Of Engineering Time 2022

tl;dr: The Stack Overflow memes are true: 60% of senior engineers commit 10-100 lines/week of copied and pasted code. And there is more: read the report to learn how 600 engineers (ICs and managers) spend time, from wrangling machines to wrangling people.

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Software Engineering - The Soft Parts

- Addy Osmani tl;dr: "Today I'll share some of the software engineering soft skills I've learned from my first 10 years on Google Chrome, where I am a Senior Staff Engineering Manager." Addy covers topics such as learning new things, technical complexity, design docs, & more. 

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Lessons Learned From Becoming CTO Of A Small Startup

- Vadim Kravcenko tl;dr: Vadim shares things that would have made life easier to know when becoming CTO of a small company, including: (1) If you’re moving from the same team to become their manager, you need to make sure they respect you as a developer first. (2) Your friendship with your teammates will suffer once you’re their boss. (3) Stop wanting to do everything yourself. And more. 

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Having Career Conversations

- Joe Lynch tl;dr: Most exploratory discussion related to someone’s career development include the person's goals but lack an understanding of the motivations behind those goals. Joe gives us insights into how to make career coaching a foundational part of the engineering manager's role. 

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The State of Startup Security Report 2022

tl;dr: Vanta asked startups to honestly and anonymously answer questions about their security posture, their security roadmap, and how satisfied they are with their security in general. Over 500 people took part in our survey and we break down the results in our first annual State of Startup Security Report. Want to learn more? See the data for yourself in the State of Startup Security Report 2022.

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What To Do When Your Feedback Doesn't Land

- Lara Hogan tl;dr: You want to "check that this person has internalized the feedback and will begin to make changes." (1) Ask them if they understand the feedback and urgency. (2) Intentionally create space and pauses to give them time to respond. (3) Ask them to reflect back what they heard. (4) Ask open coaching questions e.g. “okay, given this feedback, what are you planning on changing to be able to meet these expectations?” (5) Identify next steps.

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The Value Of Embarrassment

- Ed Batista tl;dr: The impulse to pretend that nothing has happened is understandable, it carries a cost: You may actually heighten your embarrassment and distress. Instead, by acknowledging and addressing your embarrassment, you: (1) Diminish your embarrassment and the resulting distress. (2) Clarify the situation, restore consistency to your self-presentation, and reduce others' anxiety. (3) Role model a productive response to unwelcome events.

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Engineering Levels At Honeycomb: Avoiding The Scope Trap

- Ben Darfler tl;dr: "Your area of influence should expand as you gain experience. Yet, there is an unfortunate shadow side to this approach: a ladder that conflates advancement with scope is a ladder that only rewards engineers who work on the largest projects. This doesn’t seem fair." Based on this, Ben shares Honeycomb's new engineering job ladder and growth framework.

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The Hidden Power Of Momentum

- Paulo André tl;dr: "When an army has the force of momentum, even the timid become brave; when it loses the force of momentum, even the brave become timid.” Building momentum is about increasing velocity - speed and direction. Leading is about increasing: (1) confidence in the direction i.e. vision, planning, strategy. (2) speed at which you're moving i.e. execution. Paulo discusses practical ways to achieve momentum.

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