/Management

Improve Developer Experience With A Combination Of Surveys And System Metrics

- Miikka Holkeri tl;dr: The most challenging thing about running developer experience surveys is knowing what questions to ask. That’s why Swarmia teamed up with psychometrics experts to develop a 32-question survey framework that covers all aspects of software development, from architecture to cross-team collaboration. You can copy the questions here to run your own survey.

featured in #527

15 Life And Work Principles from Jensen Huang

- Peter Yang tl;dr: (1) “My goal is to create the conditions where amazing people come to do their life’s work.” (2) “I have 60 direct reports, and I don’t do 1 on 1s.” Almost everything that I say, I say to everybody at the same time. (3) “I give feedback right in front of everyone.” (4) “I spent alot of time reasoning with decisions.” (5) “We don't do just vice president meetings or director or board meetings. At the meetings I have, there are new college grads there. There are people from every different organization. We are just all sitting in there.”

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Useful And Overlooked Skills

- Morgan Housel tl;dr: (1) Calibrating how much you wanting something to be true affects how true you think it is. (2) Respectfully interacting with people you disagree with. (3) The ability to have a 10-minute conversation with anyone from any background. (4) Getting to the point. (5) Diplomatically saying “No.”. (6) Respecting luck as much as you respect risk. 

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What Is SCIM Provisioning And Why Is It Important In An Enterprise Roadmap?

tl;dr: Signups are great, but your product only grows when your customers actually use it. Adding Directory Sync (SCIM provisioning) to your app can help improve activation rates and land those larger enterprise deals. Like SSO and SAML, implementing Directory Sync is full of archaic standards, versioning nightmares, and manual integrations; it can be a lot to handle. This Developer's Guide will walk you through what Directory Sync is, why it’s important, protocols like SCIM, and how to build it into your product.

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Goal Crafting

- Subbu Allamaraju tl;dr: (1) Make your goal unarguable: An unarguable goal is one that most people agree with as it aligns with the organizational principles and direction. (2) Manufacture consent: A leader’s job involves creating willingness for others to work with the organization to support their objectives. (3) Let it make everyone uncomfortable: They should put your team out of their comfort zone, testing their assumptions and technical and human-relationship competencies.

featured in #525

Build vs Buy: A Guide For Notification Systems

- Sam Seely tl;dr: A complete guide for what to consider if you're evaluating whether to build your own notification system or use a third-party vendor.

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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

The Documentation Tradeoff

- Kent Beck tl;dr: “In the end, write the docs you want to write. If no one reads them, or if readers find they are out of date, then consider not writing them next time. But don’t let anyone shame you into wasting time. The question is not, “Do you have documentation?” but rather, “Do you communicate clearly?””

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A Guide To Organization Modeling In Authentication

tl;dr: Organization modeling is a crucial part of building authentication and authorization into applications. However, once SSO and various user-organization relationships are thrown into the mix, the logic can become complex to manage. For developers building this in-house, there are important nuances and implementation details to consider.

featured in #524