Software Lead Weekly Software Lead Weekly

Don't Call Yourself A Programmer, and Other Career Advice
15 minutes read.

There are very few writers I enjoy reading more than Patrick McKenzie. It has everything you need to build a meaningful career path for yourself, or as Patrick wrote: "This post aspires to be README.txt for your career as a young engineer." -- I've shared it with a good friend who just started his career and I thought you might find it useful as well.

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

Volkswagen Extension Detects When Your Tests Are Being Run in a CI Server, and Makes Them Pass.
1 minutes read.

If the car industry can do it, so can we! My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face.

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

Ditching Flat: How Structure Helped Us Move Faster
6 minutes read.

Honest post from the team at Wistia on why and how they moved from a flat organization to structured one. While I truly believe in setting clear expectations and responsibilities (a struggle I'm dealing with as well), I think we should focus on the results we want to see from it and the structure. It can be achieved in many kind of organizational structures, yes, even a flat one. This is key: "To create the org chart, we had to throw out a stale part of our identity, reflect on what really mattered to us, and come up with something new, based on our principles. It was a painful process, but sometimes that's the only way you can grow."

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

The ‘Oh, Shit!’ Moment When Growth Stops
5 minutes read.

Dealing with a growth plateau is one of the hardest struggles companies are going through (and CEOs in particular) whether you're a small startup or a huge post-IPO enterprise. Jeff Jordan from Andreessen Horowitz offers some practical on how to deal with this situation when it happens, and why you should prepare your team to war rather than trying to hide it.

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

Starting and Running a Company Are Completely Different
3 minutes read.

There is a theme in the posts I've shared today, on figuring out how your job and company evolve over time. Make sure you constantly ask yourself "what changed?" and "where should I focus now?"

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

Venture Dealr
8 minutes read.

I think that everyone should improve their knowledge about the funding and equity of startups. Amazing visualization of how it all works. You should read this post if you are working (or planning to work) in a startup.

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

Ask HN: How to Be a Good Technical Lead?
10 minutes read.

Incredible conversation on Hacker News regarding this difficult question. The first answer is incredibly smart and pragmatic. Just go over the discussion, you'll find many gems in it. Share it with others on your team, and ask them what they'd add to the list based on their experience.

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

Hurry
3 minutes read.

Michael Lopp (aka rands) with an inspiring post, calling us to wake up and take action. Gave me enough energy to complete this week's email and come up with some ideas on how to provide you with more value. Need to experiment.

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

The Role of the CTO by Camille Fournier (Video)
21 minutes read.

The amazing Camille Fournier with another brilliant talk. Plenty of the ideas presented here also apply to VP Engineering and Technical Leads. Your job is always evolving, figure out how you can keep focusing on what really matters as the company evolves.

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

@moishel: Idea: a "meeting budget" per employee that gets depleted for every hour of other people's time they schedule in meetings.

@jasonlk: Flags in the hiring process almost always are things that will be 2-10x worse once you bring on the hire.