Writing an engineering strategy

Once you become an engineering executive, an invisible timer starts ticking in the background. Tick tick tick. At some point that timer will go off, at which point someone will rush up to you demanding an engineering strategy. It won’t be clear what they mean, but they will want it, really, really badly. If we just had an engineering strategy, their eyes will implore you, things would be okay. For a long time, those imploring eyes haunted me, because I simply didn’t know what to give them: what is an engineering strategy?

Don’t build a CSV importer (sponsor)

OneSchema is a ready-made CSV importer for developers which automatically corrects customer data. (Also: edge case handling, simple UI, bulk editing). Engineering teams use OneSchema to save months of development time building a CSV importer. With a large library of prebuilt validations and robust SDKs, OneSchema only takes 30 minutes to get running in your app. See how OneSchema works.

Focus

The best time to stop a distraction is before it starts. The second best time is now.

Retrospectives Antipatterns

Introduction to antipatterns for retrospectives, and how to refactor your situation for the better.

How to announce organizational change in your first 90 days

You took advantage of the first 30 days in the role to build trust by employing “sponge mode.” You asked lots of questions, genuinely listened to your teammates’ answers, and avoided enacting any sweeping, permanent changes to the way work gets done.

Don't Call It A Platform

Delivering a habitable experience requires empathy for the people that will live and work there. Having a clear focus, and vision, for the people who are responsible for this is much more important than any particular technology.

Practice Empathy as a Team

Lifting up both individuals and teams and recognizing emotions builds stronger communities, more trust, and helps people feel cared for. With the environment continuing to feel uncertain, engaging employees in this way is more important than ever.

Mission Control for Your APIs (sponsor)

Make sure your team is on top of key performance and usage metrics at all times. Monitor and analyze your APIs with ease & make data-driven decisions that help you realize the potential value of your APIs as business accelerators. Out-of-the-box Treblle offers real-time API monitoring, auto-generated API docs, API analytics, and an API score that helps benchmark your APIs.

My role as a founder CTO: Year Five

As we enter 2023, the company is more mature than ever before, with well-established processes, cross-functional teams, and leaders in key areas. The company has become a well-oiled machine, allowing us to deliver quality software at a faster pace. However, reaching this point was not without its challenges and it took a lot of hard work to get here.

The Alternative to Performance Reviews for Software Engineers

With the increasing reliance on software in every aspect of our lives, using management techniques from traditional industries in software engineering teams has gained momentum.