➰ SWLW #408: Understanding by Design, Things to know about Engineering Levels, 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.

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

This Week's Favorite

​​Things to Know About Engineering Levels
7 minutes read.

This post should be a must-read for people in our industry, regardless of their level. It captures the questions you should ask when interviewing for a new company or considering staying there for another year. Charity Majors with so many gems: "is there oxygen at the next level? Does the company need more of the type of engineer you want to be, vs more of the type of engineer you are now?", "When evaluating roles, choose ones where your specialty is part of their mission, or at least key to its execution", "Your relationship with your manager matters. So does your ability to communicate about the work you are doing, its difficulty, its unexpected challenges and triumphs, etc."

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

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Culture

How the Zoom Call Looks
1 minute read.

My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face, even in this difficult time. After enough Zoom meetings I have to admit this is not far from reality.

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


Options, Not Roadmaps
5 minutes read.

"Because we aren’t committing to a roadmap, we aren’t setting expectations. And because we don’t set expectations, we don’t feel guilty when that great idea never gets any build time because we decided something else was more important." -- Ryan Singer from Basecamp explains why they believe in bets (options) over roadmap items. They optimize for sustainability and happiness (expectation setting is critical for that) as a company that has been into project management for about 20 years. Please don't dismiss it too quickly. There is profound truth there, although I'm sure the implementation of it may be difficult.

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


Designing a Candidate-Focused Interview Process
5 minutes read.

Gregory Koberger shares their interviewing process at ReadMe, and you're going to copy a few of their ideas for sure. The onsite webpage, how they write their job description, their Employee Handbook. They made it unique and engaging. This is brilliant: "We have one goal in the interview process: to enable each candidate be the best version of themselves. That doesn’t mean everyone will be the right fit, however we want to make sure nobody feels like they weren’t given the chance to show us their best stuff. [...] A product is only as good as its people, and its people is only as good as its interview process!"

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


Understanding by Design
4 minutes read.

While I’m aware of the concept of Inversion Thinking, this post by Joel Hooks has made me think about how to onboard people successfully. Questions such as how to get them to understand the system (for on-calls, to develop features)? How to make sure they have clarity on how things connect (so they can offer improvements)? How it helps the business (so they can make an impact)? Can we define the outcome that we want to enable before diving into coverage-based and activity-based design? “UbD approaches learning design backwards. This means that we consider the outcomes that learners will achieve, but more importantly we consider how we will assess and prove those outcomes to both learners and others.”

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

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Peopleware

OffBoarding as an Engineering Leader
6 minutes read.

Iccha Sethi shares how she prepared the ground for a smooth transition when leaving her company. As an engineering leader, this can have a lot of impact on many people. Iccha's approach can help mitigate some of that and get the new leader to onboard more successfully. You can use this also when considering changing roles within the company, making sure you have a well-organized team and processes. It can help reduce your direct manager's stress when asking to move to a different role.

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


Building a Second Brain: The Illustrated Notes
8 minutes read.

Maggie Appleton might pick your interest in following Tiago Forte's work on note-taking and improving your learning skills. Maggie's illustrated notes are beautiful to look at and learn from.

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


Book Review: Software Engineering at Google
5 minutes read.

"When designing and implementing a system of any size, it is better to consider the following principles: (1) Time and Change. How long the code will be in production and how often it will be changed over time. This is the first thing to think about when starting any project" -- Oleksandr Romanov shares a few great observations from the book "Software Engineering at Google: Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time" -- which made me add the book to my reading list. Maybe it would be interesting timing for you to consider.

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

And finally, inspiring tweets...

@kimchy: Godwin law of engineering: "as a product discussion grows longer, the probability of it becoming a naming discussion approaches 1"

@JamesClear: The 2-step process for exceptional results: (1) Spend a little time each day thinking about the highest leverage activity available to you. (2) Spend a little time each day working on it.



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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.