SWLW #578: LinkedIn's Developer Productivity & Happiness Framework, Create Purpose and Engagement With Weekly Updates, and more.

Like always, I share my best findings for the week. If you wrote something or read something wonderful that made an impact on you, share it with me. You can send me an email to oren.ellenbogen (gmail), so I can learn from it  and share it here in future emails with other curious people like you.

 

This Week's Favorite

You May Not Need That Costly, Time-Consuming Infra Re-Org
9 minutes read.

"Rather than funnel expertise into platform teams, it should be encoded into solutions that empower all developers. With abilities to reason about guardrails, optimizations, correctness, and evolving best practices baked in, these tools can encapsulate cloud complexity while enhancing productivity." -- Ala Shiban covers the various options for building infrastructure organizations, with the pros & cons for reach structure.

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Culture

Closing Enterprise Customers as a Startup
1 minute read.

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

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Scaling an Engineering Org: A Journey Through Roles and Responsibilities
6 minutes read.

"My advice is to initiate changes when you begin to feel the pain but before it becomes a constant source of frustration. Communicate with the affected individuals beforehand, minimise disruptions, and ensure everyone understands the why and how of the changes. Remember that org growth is a journey, and evolving structures and responsibilities are key to success." -- John Doran shares their journey at Phorest to enable career growth and better alignment of expectations of the different roles at the company.

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The LinkedIn Developer Productivity and Happiness Framework
12 minutes read.

LinkedIn shares how they think about productivity measurements and the effect on developer happiness. You can skim between the different sections (e.g., "Developer Productivity and Happiness: Goals and Signals" and "Data Collection Principles" are great) and go deeper into areas you feel more relevant today.

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

Joao Alves shares a template you can use to capture interesting learning, wins, insights, and recognition. The format can be adapted to fit your (and your company's) style. Creating more feedback loops is essential, and celebrating small wins more often is a skill worth developing as a leader.

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Peopleware

Explorers Are Bad Leaders
2 minutes read.

Every company should have a few explorers. Disruptors. Dreamers. Some can be terrific leaders, but many can't and shouldn't be penalized for that. Leaders should support explorers, and explorers should learn how to work effectively in the organization once they find an interesting truth or a surprising insight.

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Excellence Is Born From the Sisters of Patience and Iteration
2 minutes read.

Jony Ive, speaking at Steve Jobs' funeral, reminded me why it's so important to detach between the ideation and editing phases. How do you nurture an environment where people seek to bring ambitious ideas to the table?

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10 Years Ago Today Aaron Swartz Took His Own Life After Overly Aggressive Prosecution. He Invented Internet Infrastructure. He Defeated the Greatest Threat the Internet Had Ever Seen. And You Probably Don't Know Who He Is. You Should. Here’s His Story (Thread)
4 minutes read.

Patrick Campbell shares a wonderful thread covering Aaron Swartz's contribution to the modern internet and the tragedy of ending his life. "In an era where truth has jumped from that which frees us to a four-letter word to an amorphous concept, we need more of the pursuit of truth, not less. It’s not a weapon. It’s not a liability. It’s not binary. It’s progress; and progress shouldn’t be closed."

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@david_perell: Life is a joy at 80% fullness, but a nightmare at 100%. Highways stall to a gridlock. Flights get delayed. Workers burnout. People stress out. Efficiency is absolutely worth striving for, but taking it all the way can suck the oxygen out of life.

@NilenduMisra: Today a good friend, also Sr Exec, asked “what is the most important thing for a CTO to know”. My reflexive answer was “Domain. The business. Esp how it makes money. You cannot be a Senator from Iowa without knowing corn. Really understanding corn.”



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.