Software Lead Weekly Software Lead Weekly

Engineering Growth Framework
10 minutes read.

Jamie Talbot from Medium shares their Engineering Growth Framework, and this is one of most thorough approaches I've seen so far. I've spent more than 20 minutes reading and playing with the tools they've released (Snowflake is awesome!). If you care about growth inside your team or org, this post cannot come at a better time.

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Open Source Maintenance
1 minutes read.

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

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Gatekeepers and Gardeners
5 minutes read.

Jared Williams from HubSpot explains when you should demonstrate the behaviors of a "Gatekeeper" and when of a "Gardener." This is helpful for Engineering Managers and Tech Leads who struggle between feeling in control while trying to delegate work to others: "A good leader will understand the right time for gatekeeping and gardening, and determine the right approach for each member of the team based on their individual skills and areas for growth."

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The Depression Thing
13 minutes read.

As always (if you follow Zach), Zach Holman's writing style is pretty unique (read: he writes like he talks. Often it's not clean of cursing.) and you can feel he truly means every single word he writes. Thank you for writing it, Zach. Most people in our industry deal with depression alone, and this post might encourage people to seek other options. This post by Zach and Tim Ferris's "Some Practical Thoughts on Suicide" should open our eyes to people around us.

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How Bingo Saved Our Hiring Team Over 70,000ドル
9 minutes read.

Tamar Tepper from Yotpo shares how her company went "all in" when it comes to recruiting marketing, all to increase referrals from employees. Pay extra attention to the section "Building a great recruitment story" -- I believe this is the most critical part of it, specifically: "Don’t just focus on the prize, make the whole process fun, and keep up an atmosphere of excitement in the office."

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Qualities of an Exceptional Engineering Director? (Thread)
4 minutes read.

Fantastic thread to read as people like Marc Hedlund, Rich Armstrong and many others contribute from their experience. Liked what DeWitt Clinton wrote: "Brevity. Can express themselves clearly with the fewest words possible. Doesn't waste your time, or their own, with voluminous grandstanding. Understands that sometimes the best thing to do is just shut up and listen and let other people fill the space."

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How to Get to the Core
8 minutes read.

Tom Bartel from Trivago will make you rethink your hiring process when it comes to managers. Taking a fake scenario can be stressful, but it's a useful measurement for the type of questions people would use to get to the root cause behind a demonstrated behavior. If you can say this about your new hires, it says a lot about your process: "I am confident that our new Talent Leads are all exceptional listeners."

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The Curious Transition to Becoming an Engineering Manager
5 minutes read.

Jean Hsu tips are, as always, spot on. This observation is one of the hardest parts in being away from code (and our CI systems): "If you don’t recognize that, you’re probably just going to be miserable... The little wins are actually really huge wins. You see a lot of people who have done a few years of management and they’re now interviewing back in IC roles because they can’t handle the subjectivity and the lack of feedback." -- figure out ways for your Engineering Managers to get more feedback about their day to day decisions (or lack of).

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@kelseyhightower: Need a startup idea that will change the world and cause disruption? Start by being kind to those around you. Even works for solo founders.

@eikonne: Many project management approaches view software development as largely deterministic. This leads to disappointment for all involved.