Software Lead Weekly Software Lead Weekly

10 Lessons on Culture and Hiring From Netflix’s Patty McCord
6 minutes read.

Patty's candor and understanding of the HR role in the organization is rare in our industry. Her statements "Companies don’t exist to make employees happy." and "Builders are rarely the best maintainers." are spot on: Companies are not families and understanding that makers are different than menders can change the way you hire people for your team.

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

I Present: My Average Day.
1 minutes read.

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.

Great Development Teams Have a Culture of Discipline
3 minutes read.

Erran Berger (VP Eng at LinkedIn) explain why you need to focus on the way the team works before you focus on the features they build. This observation is key: "Attack Each Problem You Face With A Tremendous Sense of Urgency" -- avoid the Broken Window syndrome and focus on explicit communication with feedback on the way people tackle those problems.

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

Software Entropy Explained: Causes, Effects, and Remedies
12 minutes read.

"if an organization only attempts to combat software entropy once it has become the dominant risk in a project, it will sadly find that its efforts are in vain. Awareness of software entropy is therefore most useful when its extent is low and the adverse effects minimal." -- This is why teams have to figure out a way to work effectively and keep the system in good health (e.g. no Broken Windows). Time to replace "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" with "Improve it, even if it's not broken yet."

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

Building a Delivery Team
6 minutes read.

Bill DeRusha (from edX team) covers many ways to explicitly set a healthy communication between engineering and product. The topic around "Team Focus" is great as it answers "Why is that important?" that can produce the required sense of urgency for the team to work together and deliver value.

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

"Do We All Agree" Is a Terrible Question
1 minutes read.

Couldn't say it any better than Hunter Walk: "But the best leaders are not concerned with consensus. They know that ultimately there’s a decider. Everyone has a chance to express opinion but if you look for consensus you get watered down BS"

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

Mindful Communication in Code Reviews (PDF)
7 minutes read.

Share this PDF internally with your team and have a discussion about it with your Senior Engineers. Their ability to provide mindful Code Reviews will help the team feel safe when being challenged. It would help to build trust and willingness to argue without feeling threatened.

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

Product Manager Skills by Seniority Level — A Deep Breakdown
4 minutes read.

I've seen many Career Ladders aimed for Software Engineers. Brent Tworetzky offers a similar breakdown, with the skills and responsibilities for Product Managers for different levels. Use it internally if you consider understanding how promotion looks like for your PMs.

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

@lukew: Your biggest risk isn’t occasional failure it’s sustained mediocrity.

@mrb_bk: The worst thing about a bad manager isn't the horrible day-to-day experience, it's how lasting the damage is, how hard it is to shake.