SWLW #400: Design docs at Google, Your interviews shouldn’t be spoilable, and more.

I hope that you and your family are doing well, and you are able to find a new rhythm in this hard situation.

Today is the 4-0-0 email of SoftwareLeadWeekly. That is 400 consecutive Fridays of sharing my best findings with you. I've received hundreds of emails throughout the years with stories of how it helped you gain more confidence and tools to become a better leader. These stories and honest "Thank You" made it easy for me to keep this habit for more than 7 years. Thank you for allowing me to be part of your journey.

If you want to support my work, pick up a few tools and frameworks (or buy it as a present to new Engineering Managers), and celebrate the 400th issue of SWLW, you can get a 40%-off discount on my book & interviews. Enjoy 🥳

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

This Week's Favorite

​​When Your Coworker Does Great Work, Tell Their Manager
4 minutes read.

Being noticed for good work is such a tremendous motivator. Many of us feel that we're doing our best work, but rarely people notice. Listen to Julia Evans's advice and encourage good work by putting a spotlight on it. It's even more critical when such work doesn't get noticed as it happens behind the scene - debugging a complicated problem, upgrading an infrastructure, writing documentation, getting someone unstuck (local env problems), etc.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.

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Culture

Joining Back to Back Zoom Meetings Late
1 minute read.

My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face, even in this difficult time.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.


Design Docs at Google
9 minutes read.

"As software engineers our job is not to produce code per se, but rather to solve problems." -- I like the structure presented by Malte Ubl in this post as it covers most areas you should consider to maximize understanding (of value and tradeoffs) and the adoption of your peers (where needed).

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.


Microsoft Analyzed Data on Its Newly Remote Workforce
10 minutes read.

The findings in this post by Microsoft is something we all feel. We need to take care of managers in our company who deal with much more pressure to build those connections and navigate daily challenges in this setup. We need to set more time to build relationships that are harder to create or nurture when people are working remotely. Yes, some companies were built like that from day 1. Most companies didn't. As we all go through it together, we can also look at it as an opportunity to change our working setup in the long run.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.


Your Interviews Shouldn’t Be Spoilable
4 minutes read.

I'm with Rafe Colburn on sharing with your candidates the interview structure and topics covered in each interview: "If an interview can be spoiled, it means that the answers can be memorized. Questions that can be answered by reciting a set of memorized facts are bad interview questions. Your interview questions should require people to work through problems or describe and analyze their personal experiences."

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.

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Senior Infrastructure Engineer @ Forter
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Peopleware

🎯 My Framework to Build New Habits and Get Things Done
8 minutes read.

Joan Gamell shares a framework worth experimenting with if you want to try forming new habits. There are many ways to achieve it, so I like sharing a variety of options. I loved this one as I could relate to it so badly: "After figuring the details of the system out, as a highly-functional perfectionist, I felt very tempted to come up with a grand and overblown design for a new web app to track my progress. I am glad I didn’t, as I would still be stuck in a bad case of design paralysis thinking on what is the best and trendiest programming language to build the app in."

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.


Stepping Stones Not Milestones
8 minutes read.

James Cowling defines a Stepping Stone in a way that could keep us focused on delivering value and reducing risk. I often use the term Stopping Point - where you can hold the project and put it aside, with minimal effort to "reload context" (a few hours) when you need to continue working on it. It helps setting goals in a way that are complete and stand by themselves. I feel that looking at milestones the way James defined them as Stepping Stones can help you lead the project with good visibility while building confidence with your team.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.


How to Say No: Templates to Help You Say No in Any Situation
5 minutes read.

So simple yet elegant and inspiring - steal a few templates and use them if you want to say no and focus on your work politely.

Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.

And finally, inspiring tweets...

@david_perell: End meetings with five minutes of silent writing time. Answer the following questions: ∙ What are my top takeaways? ∙ What are the next steps? ∙ What questions do I still have? Resist the urge to jump to the next activity.

@GiladPeleg: Always remember you were at least once on the other side of the interview, act in accordance with how you would like to be treated.



p.s. if you're interested in joining SWLW's Slack channel, simply reply to this email and let me know.

p.s.2 are you leading a team of engineers? Write your Manager Readme or get my book Leading Snowflakes: The New Engineering Manager's Handbook.

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Keep reading, keep learning.
-- Oren Ellenbogen.