Software Lead Weekly Software Lead Weekly

Share Your Manager README
4 minutes read.

Matt Newkirk shares his "Manager README" - what others need to know about working with Matt - and this comes just in time for me. I'm working on sharing my own public version of Manager README, and it's great to see others sharing theirs. Here is a challenge for you then, if you're a manager - share your README on our SWLW Slack community (reply to this email and I'll send you an invite). I plan to share mine this weekend.

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When Part of Your Code Doesn’t Have Tests
1 minutes read.

My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face. The fun version of "it works on my computer!"

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Career Structure. It Doesn't Matter. Until It Matters.
6 minutes read.

Figuring out how to build managerial and engineering Career Ladders in the organization is always a challenge. It has to fit the current, of who you have now and what they need, and future culture of the company that you want to have. Adrian Trenaman from Gilt shares their core principles in approaching this task and how they rolled out the transition as the company grew. Can you apply some of the concepts here in your organization?

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How to Establish a High Severity Incident Management Program
8 minutes read.

Tammy Butow with one of the most thorough frameworks for handling incidents in production: data loss, product issue, availability or security risk. Merge it with your current process or use it as is if you don't have one yet. Their RecordSEV tool can save you hours later on doing some analysis on where the team and company should improve.

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Engineering With Stress and Anxiety
3 minutes read.

This is so (so!) important: "Imposter syndrome strikes hardest when we’re actually challenging ourselves... When I am under considerable amounts of stress — when I am challenged, I fall back on the mechanics of how I approach things.... By relieving ourselves of the burden of deciding "how" to approach something, we free ourselves to spend all of our time thinking about the actual problem instead of how to go about solving it." -- having clear frameworks (e.g. questions to ask) for handling with a crisis can push you through the analysis-paralysis phase.

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The Three: "Life Was Different Before I Figured This Out" Lessons
4 minutes read.

Roy Rapoport with three life lessons that he applied in his management style. What I noticed while reading it, is how memorable each story behind each lesson and how vivid it is. We often need to experience something in a very specific way to get it to stick in our head. If you're trying to coach someone else, think of how you can get them to experience the dilemma.

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So You Are a Senior Engineer. Now What?
6 minutes read.

Shem Magnezi shares how Senior Engineers should strive to increase their impact on the team & organization's level. Share it internally with your engineering team and talk about it over lunch or in your 1:1s. Offer guidance on how to apply it to concrete challenges the team is facing now, and share your mutual expectations: what you'd like to see and ask how to assist them in that effort.

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How I Review Code
6 minutes read.

How you review code is critical for the culture you want to have as it covers: how you give feedback? are you holding people accountable (e.g. quality of work, meeting the team's standards)? do you provide emotional and technical support? etc. Above all, remember to be human as cyle wrote it: "Remember that shared, living codebases are often hectic and strange, especially ones that have been around for a decade. Remember that sometimes things are in a rush, so you can only do the best you can."

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@nathanbarry: The number one rule for those creating anything worthwhile: It will take significantly longer than you think.

@neil_killick: If you need to motivate people, you've already lost the battle. Create a motivating environment, hire motivated people and then DON'T DEMOTIVATE THEM.