/Management

An Open Letter To Auth Providers

tl;dr: The first job of any auth company is to protect its customers – before anything else. Somewhere along the way it feels like a lot of auth providers lost sight of the thing that matters: You, their customers.

featured in #511

The Manager As Debugger

- Camille Fournier tl;dr: The best engineering managers are often great debuggers. Camille argues that there are overlapping skills between debugging complex systems and managing teams. “Managing teams is a series of complex, black boxes interacting with other complex, black boxes. These black boxes have inputs and outputs that can be observed, but when the outputs aren’t as expected, figuring out why requires trying to open up the black box and see what is going on inside.”

featured in #510

How AI Companies Like Copy.ai, Jasper, And AI21 Labs Are Using WorkOS For Enterprise-Grade Auth

tl;dr: Copy.ai is a leading AI tool for sales and marketing teams. Over the last few years, they had explosive growth and needed a new auth platform that could support SSO and SCIM provisioning (features requested by larger customers). With WorkOS, they were able to add SSO and Directory Sync in less than 2 weeks, immediately unblocking enterprise deals. They also successfully migrated hundreds of thousands of active users to WorkOS via AuthKit and User Management, which supports up to 1 million monthly active users for free.

featured in #510

Basic Things

- Alex Kladov tl;dr: “After working on the initial stages of several largish projects, I accumulated a list of things that share the following three properties: (1) They are irrelevant while the project is small. (2) They are a productivity multiplier when the project is large. (3) They are much harder to introduce down the line.”

featured in #510

The Tarzan Method

- James Stanier tl;dr: “Performance review season always gets people thinking: where am I going? Where do I want to be next year? Why haven't I managed to get that promotion this time around? What's the point of all of this anyway?” James discusses the patterns he commonly sees in reports and how being transfixed on a single goal can do more harm than good.

featured in #509

The Power Of Questions

- Mike Fisher tl;dr: The ability to ask the right questions is a real superpower for executives and leaders. It demonstrates curiosity, intelligence, and the ability to rapidly get to the core of complex issues. Developing this skill requires conscious effort, humility and practice, but yields major benefits in decision making and innovation. Mike shares insights into how to develop this skill. 

featured in #509

Why Passkeys Matter

tl;dr: Passwords are a massive security risk, with billions exposed yearly due to poor practices. Passkeys offer a promising passwordless solution that enhances security and user experience through biometrics and cryptography, eliminating complex credentials. With major tech companies embracing passkeys, widespread adoption could revolutionize online security and user authentication.

featured in #509

Basic Things

- Alex Kladov tl;dr: “After working on the initial stages of several largish projects, I accumulated a list of things that share the following three properties: (1) They are irrelevant while the project is small. (2) They are a productivity multiplier when the project is large. (3) They are much harder to introduce down the line.”

featured in #509

10 Must-Reads For Engineering Leaders

- Anton Zaides tl;dr: “Although I insist you should fully read them, I summarized my main takeaway from each book in today’s article.” Anton discusses: (1) Turn the Ship Around: building a team that doesn’t depend on you. (2) No Rules Rules: removing all controls and bureaucracy. (3) Extreme Ownership: You are the organization. And more. 

featured in #509

The Impact Of AI Tooling On Engineering At ANZ Bank

- Abi Noda tl;dr: “To evaluate whether Copilot should be used org-wide, the authors of this paper conducted an experiment for six weeks, and compared the tool’s impact on a test group versus a control group. They based their evaluation of the tool’s impact using measures for productivity, quality, and security.“

featured in #508