SWLW #530: Shaping your authenticity, Engineer-Manager-Engineer career path, and more.

Heya,

As always, below you can read my best findings for the week.
 

This Week's Favorite

​​Shaping Your Authenticity
4 minutes read.

"One of the flaws in our thinking is our belief that our authenticity is innate in us, as though we’re born with certain beliefs and values. We then limit ourselves to certain behaviors and possibilities and remain in a comfort zone that does not challenge our beliefs and values. We filter out possibilities because of the potential conflict with our authenticity.[...] Instead of treating our authenticity as innate, consider that the stories we tell ourselves shape our authenticity. [...] don’t think authenticity is something you’re born with. It’s not fixed. It’s something that you shape with experience. But you need to broaden your experiences to shape your authenticity. Break the mold." -- Wonderful writing by Subbu Allamaraju. Try out the exercise Subbu suggests to analyze the stories that drive your behaviors and actions.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
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Culture

What You Built vs What Your Users Wanted
1 minute read.

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

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What We Did Differently With Pleo’s Engineering Career Framework
6 minutes read.

There is no one way to get it right when it comes to career ladders or career frameworks. The beauty is to learn from others and pick the right things that works for your company. I loved the notion of "We define a transition role to management" to "allow someone to experience what it’s like being in the management track."

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I Have Found Myself Teaching and Encouraging Teams to Use ADRs More and More in Recent Years. I Am, However, Constantly Surprised by the Failure Modes That People Find Themselves In, Typically Through No Fault of Their Own. (Thread)
3 minutes read.

ADR (Architecture Decision Record) is a great way to capture dilemmas, options, tradeoffs, and the decision made (most important!) for future engineers. That future engineer can be yourself. This tip is critical: "ADRs should be integrated into the flow of development work, not separated from it."

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Bricks of Love: Create Purpose and Engagement With Weekly Updates
6 minutes read.

Sending weekly team updates can be a great tool: It helps to set focus, share insights from the business, create shorter feedback loops to celebrate as a team, and remind people of the long-term goals. You can copy parts from the template to help you formalize a format that matches your style.

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Peopleware

Engineer-Manager-Engineer: The Career Path Nobody Talks About
5 minutes read.

Life is not linear. The things we care for or are intrigued by are not something we can predict, nor should we. Sometimes you want to solve technical problems, and focus only on that. Sometimes, you want to solve sociotechnical problems and figure out how to get a team of people to work well together. Our careers shouldn't be a straight line. I love this take by Bennett Garner: "People problems are so much more difficult to resolve. It’s emotionally exhausting to lead a team. People are unpredictable. They fight, get sad, and hold grudges. Everyone wants things, and sometimes those wants are in conflict. [...] The tradeoff is that you learn and grow so much from managing people. You develop lasting relationships with the people you help to grow. Managing is about empathy, and you’ll learn a lot."

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Make Believe
3 minutes read.

The stories we tell ourselves, the "make belief," are so powerful in shaping who we are and how we think. We must be careful about the stories we pick to keep and those we are willing to let go of. I like Derek Sivers's take, as we are all the movie stars in our movie: "But we like the way they [statements/stories] feel to believe. We can be the hero of an exciting or romantic story."

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3 Tips to Learn Any New Skill Faster
3 minutes read.

"Here's how to NOT read a book: cover to cover. The best way to read a book is to look at the index and start by reading the chapters that interest you. Unfortunately, what commonly happens is people try to read from beginning to end, and if some chapters don't fit their interest, they put down the book, missing out on the good parts." -- I strongly agree with this advice by Kunal Sarkar. I shared the same in the talk I gave, "How to Find Growth Material & Learn x2 Faster."

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@MillyTamati: Making decisions that inch you closer to your north star, but that don't please everyone.

@susie_dent: Two once very literal expressions: a ‘backlog’ was a large log at the back of the fire that kept smouldering away while smaller wood came and went. And the original ‘deadline’ was a boundary around a prison: any inmate attempting to cross it was liable to be shot.



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.