SWLW #420: Reading books vs. articles, Good engineering strategy is boring, 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

​​How Do You Balance Reading Books vs. Articles
6 minutes read.

HackerNews thread that will make you think about the content you consume, and how it fits your personal growth. Great books can open your mind to ideas and frameworks current projects you're working on won't push you to learn. This is critical as you want to grow faster than the day-to-day demands of you.

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

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Culture

Data Engineer Invited to a Data Science Brownbag
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.


No, Engineers Don't Suck at Time Estimates
5 minutes read.

I agree with Avishai Ish-Shalom's that estimations, like any bet with partial data, is a question of probability (confidence level). I also agree that managers and project managers can make it worse sum it all together. But - I'd claim that engineers (myself included) can significantly improve at time estimations. To increase the confidence level of being right on my estimation, I need to analyze the risks and work behind it until my confidence level is above 90-95%, and I can clearly explain it to others. This often includes boring and tedious work, like breaking the 2 days effort into 6 tasks and see which one of them holds risks or uncertainty. Writing code feels like progress, where investing more time in planning feels like a waste. We should focus on getting better at figuring out why we estimated poorly and change how we work.

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


I've Spoken to 1,500+ People About Remote Work in the Last 9 Months. A Few Predictions of What Is Likely to Emerge Before 2030 (Thread)
5 minutes read.

Interesting observations by Chris Herd on where the next 10 years might shift and the opportunities it will open. Some started before covid-19 and accelerating drastically now. Tools for better project management (focused on the individual and not the manager or team) and technical writing (promoting your ideas) would be interesting to watch.

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


Scaling the Startup Mountain
8 minutes read.

Alex Hardy shares his lessons learned building a company, experiencing the ups & downs, and what he took from that ride. It's amazing sometimes what you can do to amaze your team or your customers. This mindset is powerful and goes well with "do things that don't scale": "Forget the 80/20 rule (80% of the output for 20% of the effort). You should look for your 99/1. [...] This is not to say you can build a company off of smoke and mirrors alone, but don’t assume that effort equals impact. Find the right lipstick and find the right pig."

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

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Peopleware

Evolution of My Role as a Founder CTO
8 minutes read.

Miguel Carranza provides a fascinating view into what's keeping him up at night and how his role changed every year as they scaled the company. Asking yourself every year "where can I make the biggest impact?" and "what do I enjoy doing that it almost feels as if I'm not working?" can assist with picking the areas to focus on.

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


Write Five, Then Synthesize: Good Engineering Strategy Is Boring
8 minutes read.

"To write an engineering strategy, write five design documents, and pull the similarities out. That’s your engineering strategy. To write an engineering vision, write five engineering strategies, and forecast their implications two years into the future. That’s your engineering vision." -- Will Larson offers another helpful framework to consider how to form your engineering strategy. It can be around a specific domain or how the entire group is shipping software.

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

And finally, inspiring tweets...

@TaylorPearsonMe: Dependencies are the enemy of speed.

@holman: Company-wide reorgs are the “let’s just rewrite the whole codebase, that’ll surely fix everything!”, but for management.



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 and my work by becoming a SWLW Patron. Thank you ❤️




Keep reading, keep learning.
-- Oren Ellenbogen.