Software Lead Weekly Software Lead Weekly

I've Got Your Talent, Right Here.
4 minutes read.

"In my experience, the people that do tend to become star performers are those for whom the new job represents some kind of logical career progression – or a change of direction." -- Mitch Sullivan is spot on. Always understand what is it that the candidate wants to achieve, and how does it fit what the role requires. Talent should manifest in challenges the candidate had before.

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The Deal Is Basically Closed, We Just Need to Quickly Run It by Our Lawyers..
1 minutes read.

My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face, even in this difficult time.

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Shifting Engineering Right: What Security Engineers Can Learn From DevSecOps
6 minutes read.

Security is a core component in today's world. Companies pay attention to it as it has a business impact - signing new customers (good luck answering RFPs without good security stand), and reducing risk for the company (e.g. data breach). Leif Dreizler shares how to get security engineers more involved in the software development processes.

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The Elusive Pursuit of Getting It (all) Done
4 minutes read.

Learning to define and be okay with your "good enough" comes with age and experience. Relentless prioritization and awareness of Present Bias are essential, but dealing with the inner monkey who wants to chase it all is brutal. With 3 kids, "good enough" is everywhere: as a husband, a father, at work, with my side projects and dreams. I'm still working on it.

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How Do Accurately Assess a Senior Engineers Skill in 30-45 Minutes Without Pattern Matching or Relying on Bias? (Spoiler Alert: I Don't Think You Can) (Thread)
4 minutes read.

Bryan Liles asked a great question that spawned an excellent discussion. For me, I try to see if they understand the fundamentals of a technology they claim to know well. Then I want to see how they lead a project, covering the process they use, e.g. starting with requirements/pains, having multiple solutions, knowing the tradeoffs, conducting pre-mortem and BetterNext, etc. But I agree with Bryan, avoiding pattern matching is like trying to avoid biases. Knowing them feels like you can do better, but we rarely do.

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How to Successfully Join a Company as Engineering Manager
5 minutes read.

Joining a team as a manager is hard. You want to help, but it's hard to tell when is it the right time to make a change. Daniel Korn shares his experience so you could use his insights during the onboarding phase. This one is critical to set early on: "I advise asking your manager about her or his expectations of you right off the bat and to review them together."

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Healthy Goals
4 minutes read.

John Cutler wrote one of my favorite posts on how to pick goals. The first one on the list is by far the most important to me: "Encourage sustainability. Less crunch-time"

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Leadership Soft Skills: Master Your Own Mind to Lead Your Team to Success
64 minutes read.

I highly recommend listening to the interview with Gergely Hodicska on your next "audio time" (commuting to the office? is that happening now?). Gergely covers many areas we all deal with as leaders, being insightful as always.

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@jackbutcher: Easy to find people with shared values in the outcome, hard to find people with shared values in the process.

@rickasaurus: A true sign of a great dev early-mid career is caring deeply about technical debt. A true sign of coming out of the other side is using technical debt strategically and not freaking out about it. The best devs understand that they're a business first.