Software Lead Weekly Software Lead Weekly

On Being A Senior Engineer
15 minutes read.

Already shared this post with my team, and kind of wishing I had it available 6-7 years back, to guide me in my own journey at the time. Spare some quality time and read it, it's one of the best posts I have read this year.

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When You Walk Away From Your Laptop and Forget Your Headphones Are Still Plugged In
1 minutes read.

As always, something to start the weekend with a huge smile on your face. Happens to me almost on a daily basis.

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How Are You Structuring Your Startup?
3 minutes read.

Are you experimenting with the way you build your team and organization just as much as you're doing with your product? "Why would you want to re-create the exact monster you just left? [...] The recurring theme I’ve seen is that no one stops to ask "why do we do it that way?" when it comes to their organization. They’re amazing at asking "why do we do it that way?" when it comes to product."

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How Our Engineering Environments Are Killing Diversity (And How We Can Fix It)
40 minutes read.

I just recently discovered Kate Heddleston's writing and this talk by her will give you a lot of great points to think about on building a healthy environment. The on-boarding and team debt were my favorite parts. My recommendation: download it as audio and listen to it on your commute to work.

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Rethinking the Org Chart: Areas of Responsibility (AoRs)
4 minutes read.

I'm reading a lot lately around the idea of scaling an engineering team without forcing the traditional management layers, and concepts such as AoR are an interesting path to explore.

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Defending Your Time
5 minutes read.

Some great insights here on how to manage your own time. My favorite part was "Estimates are not deadlines". Such an important lesson here, but mostly when it comes with the following: "Resist the temptation to promise the world, and disappear into a cave for two weeks." -- estimations and deadlines are critical to have, but should not be a one-time event. It's perfectly fine to make adjustments as we go, but we need to get better at communicating changes and learning from them, rather than avoiding estimations or deadlines altogether.

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This Is How Effective CTOs Embrace Change
12 minutes read.

The role of a CTO in scaling the business changes drastically over time. I still remember the great article by Greg Brockman from Stripe I've shared a few months back, and how he described the phases he went thru. Evan Cooke from Twilio shares his insights, based on his experience on how to stay effective while the company is evolving and the business is scaling. Even if you're short on time, you must read "Root Cause 2: You misunderstand the needs of your company"

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@holman: Support a healthy remote work culture in your company by naming all your repos completely unpronounceable but easy to type names. #lifehack

@joshelman: Good reminders this week that the best teams focus on creating more opportunities to learn what is right vs focusing on who is right