bthdonohue
Engineering Management
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If your delivery drivers have to do six deliveries a day, they’ll rush from the first moment. They’ll be super efficient at easily measurable metrics. They’ll cut a few corners. If they only have to make five deliveries, you can ask them to spend that ‘down’ time doing things your customers will…
Agile Lite: Agile without all the burnout "Agile software development" is a great idea that's been overcomplicated by the publishing and consulting industries. Agile Lite is an attempt to simplify the situation. You do not need a book or a workshop to explain Agile Lite. You just need a text file…
Whether you’re hiring your first or hundredth engineer, you can build a hiring pipeline to discover, interview, and recruit quality candidates at scale. We’re here to help with every step: Background on the current engineering landscape How to build your employer brand How to source top engineers…
published February 10th, 2019 This week’s essay is on on how to interview an executive, though it may also be helpful to read when preparing to be interviewed. From day 1, one of the most important jobs of a CEO is to hire incredible talent to your team. Hiring the right executive is one of the most…
Today I had coffee with a mentee and he said something which brought an old buried memory back to the surface. He said, “If I want to be a manager then I have to wait until my boss or another manager leaves.” I paused for a moment, recalling all the times I’ve heard an aspiring manager say these…
Last night I was out with a dear friend who has been an engineering manager for a year now, and by two drinks in I was rattling off a long list things I always say to newer engineering managers. Then I remembered: I should write a post! It’s one of my goals this year to write more long form instead…
Career coaching by August 29, 2016 When you’re managing managers, your responsibilities are two-fold: you need to make sure they’re producing good work (as with any employee) and that they’re effectively supporting their teams. You might know how to do the former, but how do you do the latter? Do…
Feedback, performance reviews, appraisals. A collective shiver just went down all of your spines. These words are so highly politicized in today's work environments it's no wonder people can't stand them. For many years I too dreaded the idea of getting critical feedback. I sought recognition and…
You don’t hear the term hypergrowth quite as much as you did a couple years ago. Sure, you might hear it any given week, but you might open up Techmeme and not see it, which is a monumental return to a kinder, gentler past. (Or perhaps we’re just unicorning now.) Fortunately for engineering managers…
Originally posted Aug 30, 2018 When I was getting ready to join Kickstarter as VP of Engineering, Chad Dickerson (who was the CEO of Etsy when I worked there) offered to send me a bunch of advice. Chad had been a CTO multiple times before being CEO; he knew that this executive-level role was brand…
Copied to Clipboard How to be a MANAGER People. The hardest part of building a business. You can figure out how to build a product, open a location or get the first customer. When it’s time to grow the team, things start getting tricky. This guide will help you go from doing everything yourself to…
By John Allspaw May 22, 2012 Last week, Owen Thomas wrote a flattering article over at Business Insider on how we handle errors and mistakes at Etsy. I thought I might give some detail on how that actually happens, and why. Anyone who's worked with technology at any scale is familiar with failure.…
Lessons learned on how to shape the next generation of leaders Tom Sommer 4 min read· Feb 19, 2018 -- The move into management is an often discussed topic. We all want to climb the career ladder, yet some dread the day where the only way up is to join management. This is especially true in…
5,162 reads Write Useful Mission Statements in 3 Easy Steps byNick Caldwell byNick Caldwell@nickcaldCPO @ Looker | ex Reddit, Microsoft| 👨🏾💻=💰🔗 March 25th, 2018 byNick Caldwell@nickcald byNick Caldwell@nickcaldCPO @ Looker | ex Reddit, Microsoft| 👨🏾💻=💰🔗 byNick Caldwell@nickcaldCPO @ Looker | ex…
Hi, welcome to the team. I’m so glad you are here at $COMPANY. It’s going to take a solid quarter to figure this place out. I understand the importance of first impressions, and I know you want to get a check in the win column, but this is a complex place full of equally complex humans. Take your…
Congratulations - you’re a new manager! No, really, I’m being sincere. You can hear the sarcasm in my voice? Sorry, I tried, but I know that along with some excitement, there’s plenty of doubt and angst. You have likely followed a path that’s similar to mine and many others. You‘ve been a software…
How to Run Inclusive Meetings 22 Feb 2018 Peer review and feedback season is well upon us, and one of the most frustrating pieces of feedback I’ve received (and regrettably given) is “you should talk more in meetings.” $PERSON should speak up more. They alway have good, thoughtful input, and I think…
keavy 4 min read· Feb 22, 2018 -- I work at GitHub, as a senior engineer. I’m not looking for a job. But I have been thinking about leadership and what I’ve appreciated most from various bosses over the years. Inspired by Chad Fowler’s “Who I want to hire”, I started noting who I want to work for,…
In this model the engineering manager leads engineers across different technology stacks and different product areas. They often act more as facilitators and rely heavily on tech leads on the different teams to drive most of the decision making, hiring efforts and cross-functional interaction with…
Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... Kim Scott, co-founder of Candor, Inc., has built her career around a simple goal: Creating bullshit-free zones where people love their work and working together. She first tried it at her own software startup. Then, as a long-time director…
My management career began with a misunderstanding. “Rands, you’re doing a great job on tools development and I’d really like you to Lead the effort.” It sounded liked your standard professional compliment. Atta boy! Go run with it! Problem was, I didn’t hear the capital L. Lead is what my manager…
On the list of leadership merit badges, “Successfully deliver hard news” is one the hardest badges to acquire. It’s not just that you have news, it’s hard news. It’s an honest something the human sitting across from you does not want to hear. Not only do you need to deliver it, but you need to…
The daily morning calendar scrub goes like this: Open the calendar and look at the entire day. Note the number of meetings and the amount of unscheduled time. If unscheduled time is zero, die a little inside. For each meeting, ask the internal question, “What do I need to do be prepared for this…
Much has been written about employee motivation and retention. It’s written by folks who actively use words like motivation and retention and generally don’t have a clue about the daily necessity of keeping your team professionally content because they’ve either never done the work or have forgotten…
Resignations happen in a moment, and it’s not when you declare, “I’m resigning.” The moment happened a long time ago when you received a random email from a good friend who asked, “I know you’re really happy with your current gig because you’ve been raving about it for a year, but would you like to…
ey understand how to use “the system” to their advantage, they understand why “the system” exists, but they think “the system” is a bit of a joke.
You can ask a Wolf to become a manager, but they’ll resist it. If you happen to convince them to do it, they will do a fine job, but they won’t stay in…
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