/Management

The Rise And Fall Of Spot Instance Pricing In 2023

- Phil Andrews tl;dr: Dive into our latest deep-dive on spot instance pricing trends over the past year. Azure's prices skyrocketed by 108%, while GCP surprised everyone with a 26% drop. AWS? Somewhere in between. Discover the regions and instance types that saw the most dramatic shifts and learn how our game-changing "scheduled rebalancing" tool can save you big bucks in this ever-evolving cloud pricing arena. Don't miss out on these crucial insights – perfect for refining your cloud strategy.

featured in #456

Characteristics Of Code Quality

- Abi Noda tl;dr: “Researchers found that readability and structure were the most commonly used defining properties for code quality. 82% of interviewees referred to either readability or structure, or both, when describing how they define code quality.” After that, the researchers discovered that comprehensibility, documentation and correctness followed. Abi reminds us that “code quality is a fundamentally human property” and not measured by quantitive metrics.

featured in #455

How To Communicate Like A GitHub Engineer: Our Principles, Practices, And Tools

- Ben Balter Allison Matlack tl;dr: “How we communicate” guidance, we established eight guiding principles: (1) Be asynchronous first. (2) Write things down. (3) Make work visible and overcommunicate. (4) Prefer GitHub tools and workflows. (5) Embrace collaboration. (6) Foster a culture that values documentation maintenance. (7) Communicate openly, honestly, and authentically. (8) Remember, practicality beats purity. The authors also detail how GitHub uses its own platform for planning, discussing, and documenting work.

featured in #455

How DoorDash Defines Great Engineering Management

tl;dr: Doordash discuss their three management pillars and how they map to management roles: (1) Business Outcome: how managers set direction and drive impact based on our strategic goals. (2) Team: how managers support individuals, build team culture and partner with other teams. (3) Engineering Excellence: the quality of our products and systems, how fast we can move, and how efficiently our systems use resources.

featured in #454

The Power Of Soft Skills: Insights From Engineering Leaders

- Ben Ricker tl;dr: “The tactic I’ve found to be the biggest indicator of success is being comfortable saying, “I don’t know. You can’t know everything, and pretending to do so often leads to wasted time, poor expectation settings, and frustration from clients and team members. Pairing “I don’t know” with the ability to ask great questions will help gain trust from all sides of a project and set the tone of working collaboratively.”

featured in #454

Drowning In Feedback

- Ed Batista tl;dr: “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.” Ed discusses the challenges leaders face in an era saturated with feedback and emphasizes the pitfalls of information overload. He critiques common organizational beliefs, such as "feedback is a gift" and the objectivity of anonymous feedback. Ed encourages leaders to self-reflect, manage their attention, and prioritize meaningful insights over sheer data volume. Ed advises leaders to create an "information ecosystem" that filters out noise, allocate dedicated time for deep reflection, and regularly assess the quality and relevance of feedback sources.

featured in #453

How To Hire

- Sam Altman tl;dr: “The vast majority of founders don’t spend nearly enough time hiring.  After you figure out your vision and get product-market fit, you should probably be spending between a third and a half of your time hiring.  It sounds crazy, and there will always be a ton of other work, but it’s the highest-leverage thing you can do, and great companies always, always have great people.” Sam provides his hiring playbook.

featured in #453

The Musk Algorithm

- David Heinemeier Hansson tl;dr: DHH highlights Musk's unique "algorithm" for success, which includes the following in order: questioning every requirement, deleting unnecessary parts or processes, simplifying, optimizing, accelerating cycle time, and finally, automating. While acknowledging Musk's controversial nature, DHH emphasizes the value of extracting wisdom from such figures without feeling compelled to emulate them entirely.

featured in #452

How Many Direct Reports Should A Manager Have?

- James Stanier tl;dr: James explores the concept of "span of control," which refers to the number of direct reports a manager oversees. He argues that there's no one-size-fits-all answer, but suggests that around 8 direct reports could be a "sweet spot." Factors affecting the optimal number include practical limits, the seniority of the manager, the experience level of the reports, the manager's individual contributions, and the type of work the team does. An organization's span of control needs to be managed carefully, especially during economic downturns, to avoid negative outcomes like layoffs or role changes.

featured in #451

What Predicts Software Developers’ Productivity?

- Abi Noda tl;dr: Abi summarizes a study by Google researchers on the factors that correlate with software developers' productivity. The study found that "Job enthusiasm," "Peer support for new ideas," and "Useful feedback about job performance" were the most strongly correlated factors with self-rated productivity. The top 10 productivity factors were non-technical.

featured in #451