SWLW #575: A map of your career, Redefining DevEx, and more.

As every Friday, I share my best findings for the week.

 

This Week's Favorite

What Would a Map of Your Career Look Like?
5 minutes read.

Career Maps. I've never thought about it in the way Tom Critchlow covers it in this post. The biggest takeaway I took from it is understanding that I can drastically influence the trajectory by picking the right company and projects to focus on. How does your career map look like so far? What are you most proud of? What made you learn and improve faster?

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Culture

AI Startups Pitching VCs in 2023
3 minutes read.

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

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How to Do Annual Planning and Strategy for an Engineering Organization
5 minutes read.

As we face next year's planning, this framework by Lena Reinhard can help you figure out the context you need and the questions to guide your path.

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People Do 3 Types of Work Within Companies. (1) Produce: Creating Artifacts to Serve the Company’s External Stakeholders. (2) Organize: Creating the Necessary Structures & Processes for Produce Work. (3) Self-Promote: Creating a Proxy for Their Own Competence & Impact. A Short Tutorial (Thread)
3 minutes read.

Read Shreyas Doshi's thread and consider how the ratios look for you today. Does it help you set the impact you seek? What would you change?

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Leading Successful Product Teams
4 minutes read.

Ariel Salminen shares her insights in building effective, successful product teams (with remote-first culture). My favorites: "When useful, have the team members pair up to solve tough problems. Make sure all decisions are documented. Provide weekly updates to the rest of the organization about progress. What has been worked on, what is being worked on, and what happens next. Create a public roadmap that holds the whole team accountable."

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Peopleware

Keeping Up
4 minutes read.

"It is healthier and more accurate to recognize programming as a lifelong craft. Ars longa, vita brevis. [...] Programming is a sea in which you swim, not a potion you consume. [...] Don’t worry about when you’ll “get there;” just relax, enjoy the ride, and don’t imagine for a moment that you know in advance where this journey will take you." -- Jeff Schwab writes it so elegantly. When picking a profession, the beauty is understanding it is a craft that will take a lifetime to master.

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Redefining Developer Experience
6 minutes read.

Cole Peters with one of my favorite posts on how to think about Developer Experience. This is a great takeaway: "But herein lies an opportunity to refocus ourselves, our tools, and our craft. Why would we abandon the Swiss Army Knife? Because it’s not the right tool for the job — it’s not really that enjoyable to use, its many tools don’t even work that well, and the work we make with them isn’t of the caliber it deserves to be for those making use of it."

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Marc Andreessen ”You Can’t Build A Successful Company Without Thinking on Idea Maze !”
4 minutes read.

The "Idea Maze" is a strong concept to apply when promoting a significant effort within a company or as a new company: "The benefits of learning about the maze generally far outweigh the risks of having your idea stolen." -- Understanding the maze can help you also when defending an initiative as an employee, where presenting to upper management will get the same criticism that founders often meet in the market with customers and investors.

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@daltonc: Organizations are like fractals in that when you zoom in or out on different parts you will see all sorts of self-similarity. This is why early organizational decisions matter in unexpected ways, and why it can be so hard to fix cultural problems after the fact.

@david_perell: It’s easy to envy people with incredible wisdom until you remember the incredible pain they endured to acquire it. The fruits of wisdom taste sweet, but they’re earned by walking through the thorn bush.



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.