SWLW #502: How to build and scale a Staff+ engineering community, Why most strategies lack clarity, and more.

Heya,

As always, below you can read my best findings for the week. If you want to support my work or join our SWLW community in Slack - scroll down to the bottom of the email to see how.
 

This Week's Favorite

​​Life Is Not Short
4 minutes read.

This week was hard for me. This post served as a good reminder of how to look at life and apply a high-agency mindset. I tend to ensure a strong baseline - I'm healthy, have people I love, invest time in areas that matter to me, and enjoy doing my work. It will influence how I plan the decade, year, quarter, and day. I will set my schedule to work for me. I care for my emotional and physical baseline. Dreams are good targets, but we cannot travel far with a stone in our shoes.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.

Product [sponsored]

 Promote your product on SWLW and reach over 29,930 leaders 

Culture

When You Mention JavaScript on Tech Twitter
1 minute read.

My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.


How to Build and Scale a Staff+ Engineering Community
5 minutes read.

"Staff and principal engineering roles may feel in-vogue and prestigious, but in practice, they’re often lonely and ill-defined." -- building a community within your organization to get Staff+ individual contributors to feel less lonely is essential. Scott Triglia's post might inspire you to see it happens in your company.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.


Death to Dependencies (Video)
15 minutes read.

"Work doesn't care about your structure. [...] dependencies become opprutunities of collaboration." -- Fantastic video by Jim Benson that I highly recommend sharing internally with your teams.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.


The Skill/Experience vs. Outcomes "Curves" Look Different
3 minutes read.

I like this framing by John Cutler on the importance of setting the right environment for the team. It's not enough to attract and retain good talent.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.

Jobs [sponsored]

Engineering Manager @ Ecosia
Ecosia the search engine that plants millions of trees around the world is looking for an Engineering Manager to grow its green-search experience teams.

Engineering Manager @ Exos
Exos is hiring an Engineering Manager to lead a team of engineers in delivering the best digital experience available for holistic wellness.
 

 Looking to hire for your team? Promote your open positions on SWLW! 

Peopleware

Why Most Strategies Lack Clarity
4 minutes read.

"The unlock, I think, is realizing that you can confidently communicate a coherent strategy that also acknowledges uncertainty. You know what you know. You assume what you assume. You believe what you believe." -- short and to the point. Strategy, like planning, has merit by helping us prioritize and make decisions. It doesn't mean these are the right ones. They are only right within the constraints and context we have now.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.


I've Been Managing People Remotely for 8 Years. Here's How to Be a Better Manager in a Remote (distributed) Team (Thread)
4 minutes read.

So many great gems that all managers should learn from and practice, not only remote ones: "Most of these tips would directly translate to an office. If you are a good manager in the office, transition shouldn't be hard. i.e. you don't need to smell people to manage them." -- I love the advice on how to run great 1:1s and the importance of documenting how you work, setting expectations, etc.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.


Binstack: Making a Maximal Multi-Dimensional Decision
11 minutes read.

Jason Cohen shares his approach for solving the problem of maximizing a decision when there are multiple input dimensions that cannot be compared with each other, e.g. "growth" vs. "customer delight" vs. "market differentiation." Ordering the attributes you prioritize by is the key challenge for many companies. We often want to do "AND" versus "OR," making it very hard for us to shut down or delay activities we believe are valuable.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.

And finally, inspiring tweets...

@mmay3r: Cynicism makes you look smart and is discouraging for others. Optimism makes you look stupid and is encouraging for others.

@YGoncho: One of the biggest differences in being an entrepreneur is that you meet about 100x the amount of new people you would otherwise. And while it evidently means more assholes, it also means a lot more incredible, inspirational and phenomenal humans. And I absolutely love it.



p.s. if you're interested in joining SWLW's Slack channel, simply reply to this email and let me know. If you're leading a team, consider writing your Manager README (it's free) or getting my e-book and interviews Leading Snowflakes: The New Engineering Manager's Handbook. You can also support me by becoming a SWLW Patron. Thank you ❤️




Keep reading, keep learning.
-- Oren Ellenbogen.