/Management

The Deadline Doom Loop

- James Hawkins tl;dr: “Most companies love to set artificial deadlines. They’re the easiest way to “increase urgency”. But they have a nasty habit of manifesting into meaningful deadlines. Deadlines that generate mountains of debt and slow you down over time. I call this the deadline doom loop and it’s one of the reasons we don’t have product deadlines at PostHog.” James discusses how the loop plays out and principles for escaping the loop.

featured in #595

Manager Antipatterns

- Ted Neward tl;dr: “There's a whole host of mistakes that companies often fall prey to with respect to those they have leading teams, and I thought it a good idea to collect them into one place, under the umbrella heading of "manager antipatterns”.”

featured in #595

Manager Antipatterns

- Ted Neward tl;dr: “There's a whole host of mistakes that companies often fall prey to with respect to those they have leading teams, and I thought it a good idea to collect them into one place, under the umbrella heading of "manager antipatterns”.”

featured in #594

Pause – Decision-Making Superpower

- Michał Poczwardowski tl;dr: “Press pause and take your time to help yourself by: (1) Detaching from emotions that blur your judgement at the moment. (2) Making sure that you can check for blind spots. (3) Getting a new perspective. People may demand answers immediately, and the pressure can be high, but they rarely argue with rules. You can say: "I have a rule that I never answer immediately.”

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[Webinar] Best practices for AI Agent Tool Calling

tl;dr: “Why doesn’t my AI agent call the right tool?” For AI agents that automate work across 3rd-party tools to be adopted, tool calling and tool use accuracy is critical. Join this webinar, where our dev advocate will cover the basics around AI agent tool calling as well as evaluations we ran to uncover optimizing tool calling performance. Register here - you’ll receive the recording and slides afterward, even if you can’t make it.

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What Is Device Fingerprinting And How Does It Work?

- Zack Proser tl;dr: “Every time a device connects to your server, it broadcasts a wealth of information through its browser. Some of these signals are obvious, while others are subtle technical artifacts of how browsers and hardware work together.” Zack breaks down what servers can see and how to mitigate bad actors. 

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Decision-Making Pitfalls For Technical Leaders

- Chelsea Troy tl;dr: “In my experience, it is at least the case that when programmers become trial-by-fire managers, they realize they don’t know how to do their jobs. Technical leadership — tech lead roles, principal eng roles, and even the dreaded “player-coach” role—those sneak up on people. A lot of times there’s still programming involved, so folks feel prepared. Their experience has exposed them to technical decisions and it got them promoted, so the way they do it is probably fine. Right?” Chelsea discusses 3 pitfalls she commonly sees. 

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Diagnosis In Engineering Strategy

- Will Larson tl;dr: Will covers: (1) Why diagnosis is the foundation of effective strategy. Conversely, how skipping the diagnosis phase consistently ruins strategies. (2) A step-by-step approach to diagnosing your strategy’s circumstances. (3) How to incorporate data into your diagnosis effectively. (4) Dealing with controversial elements of your diagnosis. (5) Why it’s more effective to view difficulties as part of the problem to be solved, rather than a blocking issue. (6) The near impossibility of an effective diagnosis if you don’t bring humility and self-awareness to the process.

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5 Code Review Anti-Patterns You Can Eliminate With AI

- Aravind Putrevu Desmond Obisi tl;dr: In this guide, you’ll learn about the most common anti-patterns that pop up during code reviews and how to easily tackle them with artificial intelligence (AI).

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Eyes Light Up (ELU)

- Wes Kao tl;dr: Wes introduces "Eyes Light Up" as a key indicator of effective messaging for leaders. Rather than relying on intellectual feedback, she advises watching for genuine excitement in your audience's eyes. These visceral reactions are more valuable than verbal responses. Stop when eyes glaze over, pivot when interest wanes.

featured in #592