Software Lead Weekly Software Lead Weekly

Tesla's Master Plan, Part Deux
6 minutes read.

The depth of thought behind Elon Musk's plan is remarkable, so does his unique ability to imagine the future he wants to create (10 years ago!) and execute fearlessly, step by step: "What really matters to accelerate a sustainable future is being able to scale up production volume as quickly as possible. That is why Tesla engineering has transitioned to focus heavily on designing the machine that makes the machine -- turning the factory itself into a product." -- If you're looking for inspirational read for the weekend, it doesn't get any better than that!

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Over-Engineering in One Photo
1 minutes read.

My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face.

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Diversity Is a Broken Product in Tech. FIX IT.
7 minutes read.

Facebook got a lot of heat this week due to blaming the (lack of) talent pipeline as a reason for Facebook's lack of diversity. Bo Ren, an ex-Facebook Product Manager, shares her view and why the gap is so big. Our industry has so much more to do in order to fix this problem.

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A List of Post-Mortems!
5 minutes read.

If you're looking for ideas on how to summarize postmortems (better naming would be BetterNext, but that's just me), this is everything that you need. Share it with your teammates and discuss which format can fit your style.

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Everything Is Important
3 minutes read.

I love this state of mind by Gregg Bernstein, listening carefully by respecting the importance of every dialogue: "I approach my interviews with the mindset that everything is important, until proven otherwise. [...] By embracing optimism, we invest in the belief that what’s in front of us holds meaning... The best case scenario to assuming importance is that we gain wisdom and empathy."

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If It Feels Awkward, It's Good
5 minutes read.

"If you are uncomfortable about it, it means you will work hard to justify your promotion." -- Tom Bartel with another great post. I'd change the word promotion to transition, as I'm not sure everyone would see it as a promotion. Working hard to prove your value in this new role of leading the team rather than producing code is exactly what should keep you focused. Your job changed, your mission changed and there is nothing wrong with feeling uncomfortable and even awkward about it. It's a lonely ride, shared by many.

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Technical Interviews - A Revised Process
6 minutes read.

Allison McMillan calls it like it is: "Companies always say that they just want to hire people they know can solve problems and can learn. From what I’ve heard, most technical challenges don’t really accomplish this." -- Great tips on how you can structure the interview differently, to actually learn more about the candidate's ability to be a good fit. My favorite which I often use: "Breaking apart a problem or feature" and "Provide an explanation for something."

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How to Be a Wizard Programmer (notes)
3 minutes read.

Julia Evans's notes on how to become a better programmer (wizard level takes time) is a great read, with amazing style. If you'll navigate to the middle of the Twitter thread, you'll see a link to her public directory on Dropbox where you can read a few more wonderful notes by Julia.

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@kartar: One thing leaders rarely discuss is that, despite being surrounded by people, it’s one of the loneliest jobs.

@aaronmblevin: my kingdom for the ability to check my chair settings into a git repository