SWLW #563: Winners Take None, IC or EM? Why Not Both?, and more

Heya,

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

This Week's Favorite

5 Things That Are Typically Confused for Productivity
4 minutes read.

Jason Yip shares practices I've seen (and made the mistakes myself) that lead to a wrong sense of productivity gain. Discuss these patterns with the team to consider where you want to change the narrative (and practices) to focus on value.

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Culture

Why Would You Watch People Play Games…?
1 minute read.

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

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How to Supercharge Your Engineering Org (podcast)
72 minutes read.

Great interview with Kellan Elliott-McCrea on his experience at Dropbox, Etsy, Flickr and Adobe. My favorite parts were moving from a single-product company to delivering multiple products and building business literacy. There are so many gems to take from this one-hour interview, so I highly recommend listening on your next commute.

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A Brief History of "Nobody Wants to Work Anymore" (Thread)
3 minutes read.

We often romentisizing the past, thinking it was order of magnitutde better. It's rarely true. This is another nice example of such behavior. This is a dangerous bias to watch for as the company scales, with maybe different statements thrown in the air, but with the same tendency to be false.

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Winners Take None
3 minutes read.

"But other times, and through the most recent cycle, it seems like some of the most dramatic ones were just blitzscaling aimed the wrong target. Narratives and spreadsheets which somehow would take low margin, high fixed cost businesses and transform them into technology companies." -- Hunter Walk made me think a lot about the type of businesses (and markets) with an inherent need to scale, but the margins and the product don't benefit or leverage that enough to build a sustainable (decades) business.

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Peopleware

IC or EM? Why Not Both? — My Journey in Exploring the Two Roles Beyond Senior Software Engineers
5 minutes read.

Komkrit Kunanusont shares the non-linear career we should consider to continue and explore our preferences. Companies should not only support such experimentation but also sponsor and encourage it.

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While Most People Fight to Learn “In-Demand” Skills, Smart People Are Learning Rare Skills Instead
13 minutes read.

The "Outlier Algorithm" is an interesting way to observe where you should invest your time now. Being rare and valuable might imply, in today's world, learning how to leverage LLM to the fullest (not only using one tool better) to become a better writer or a better coder. But figuring out how to do that requires deeper thinking and understanding of the fundamentals, thus a different "information diet" to consider. Without that, you won't be able to reach interesting insights to push you further: "With the Outlier Algorithm, my logic was inverted: If others liked this, it may be worth becoming familiar with, but I can’t use it to make a big profit or impact."

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Should You Give Candidates Feedback on Their Interview Performance?
4 minutes read.

Jacob Kaplan-Moss covers when and how you should give feedback to the interviewee. I've done my fair share of interviewing candidates, and with some, I did share my feedback if they asked for it and felt they could take something constructive from it. If you decide to give feedback, the "Refuse to argue" section is an important guidance as it can easily go sideways.

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@thejustinwelsh: The happiest people I know don't maximize income. They maximize their "impact to time" ratio. Their goal is to build a lifestyle where they enjoy the fruits of their labor, rather than being addicted to the almighty dollar. If you can't ever say no, you're always trapped.

@Patticus: Life's better when you constantly assume you could be wrong. You learn more. Resent less. And attract smart people. Being wrong says nothing about you as a person. Not being able to admit it does.



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.