SWLW #476: Know how your org works, Hard edges soft middle, and more.

Heya and happy Friday,

As always, below you can read my best findings for the week. If you want to support my work or join SWLW community - scroll down to the bottom of the email to see how.
 

This Week's Favorite

​​Know How Your Org Works (Or How to Become a More Effective Engineer)
14 minutes read.

Cindy Sridharan shares her perspective as an IC on figuring out how to make a more significant impact by better understanding the organization: "One of the most effective things you can do to be successful at your job is to understand how your organization works." -- check the questions Cindy shares and figure out what's relevant to your organization in terms of size and maturity. Write a few down somewhere and talk about it with your peers and direct manager. Any insight they can share?

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Culture

Bootstrapped Startup Founder Mentality
1 minute read.

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

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Hard Edges, Soft Middle
5 minutes read.

Coleman McCormick with a beautiful framing he took from Shape Up book (by the team at Basecamp) and how to leverage it to set up more effective work between product and engineering. This is spot-on: "Boundaries allow us to focus on fewer possibilities and give greater useful, serious attention to fewer options. [...] Premature marriage to specific tactics pins you to the ground at the time when you need some space to explore."

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From Elon Musk: “The Most Common Error of a Smart Engineer Is to Optimize a Thing That Should Not Exist” (Video)
2 minutes read.

Tyler Tringas posted a short video of Elon Musk that I enjoyed. How much of it is relevant to what your team is doing now? Your company? Which questions can you use to figure out if you're asking the right questions to begin with? Very "meta" of me, I know.

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The 7 Code Review Manners
3 minutes read.

Reut Sharabani's tips on conducting effective Code Reviews should be a must-read in your onboarding material for new engineers and managers.

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Jobs [sponsored]

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Peopleware

Hugging the X-Axis
11 minutes read.

David Perell wrote an inspiring post I cannot recommend enough. These takeaways are golden: "I now want multi-decade friendships and a professional life where I can build things that compound in value at an exponential rate; I want a place I call home and a large family I can share that home with; and I want to become an expert in the ideas that resonate with me most instead of suffering from shiny object syndrome." and "People with Personal Monopolies choose their own limitations. What looks narrow to another person ends up feeling expansive to them. Through commitment, they step off the X-Axis and unlock a new world of potential."

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Intentionally Unoptimized
3 minutes read.

"It’s sort of subtle, but also crucially important, to prioritize leaving your most important metrics intentionally unoptimized. [...] Don’t let data drive you. Use it as a fallible indicator of progress towards the ineffable quality of a meaningful impact." -- Buster Benson with a good reminder that we should be careful with what we decide to measure and optimize. Vanity metrics are a powerful drug.

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What Is “Seeing the Matrix” for A Product Leader?
7 minutes read.

Scott Belsky with many gems I found intriguing to think about. Not only from a product perspective but also from a brand perspective. Building a solid narrative helps not only to convince customers but also to attract and retain strong talent: "You should never outsource your story or any component of your competitive advantage." I also strongly agree and love this insight when considering your MVP and GTM: "Every MVP drops a heavy anchor in the sea of possibility, and it becomes exponentially harder to explore new terrain once you start digesting data and iterating."

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And finally, inspiring tweets...

@levie: Remember: users do not care about your architecture. They care about your value proposition. Every ounce of friction from an architecture choice that shows up in UX, or limits scale, or increases cost, or slows down velocity, will eventually be a disadvantage.

@ShaneAParrish: Short-term results come from intensity. Long-term results come from consistency.



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Keep reading, keep learning.
-- Oren Ellenbogen.