Software Lead Weekly Software Lead Weekly

We Don’t Sell Saddles Here
12 minutes read.

Wow. This is all I can say about this internal memo sent to the team behind Slack (one of the hottest startups in SF). The ability to sell the vision internally and to be brave enough to chase a huge goal with that conviction is truly inspiring. This memo also shows the power of writing and sharing your thoughts to build a sustainable unfair advantage. I'm talking about hiring. Just imagine how a potential candidate reads this memo.

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Syntax Highlighting
1 minutes read.

I kind of like the idea of giving one inspiring post and one to make you laugh (let me know if it's not funny, I dare you :)). This time, a geek joke. If you don't get it, just forward it to your engineering team. They'll appreciate your sense of humor.

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Scaling Agile at Gilt
8 minutes read.

Having over 100 engineers, it's always interesting to see different approaches on scaling agile concepts to keep innovation, autonomy and productivity high. Gilt's effort to invest the time and effort in building tools to enable autonomy is key to scale the engineering organization. Without that, there will be a lot of "there used to be fun working here, I remember I could simply deploy things the same day the feature was ready".

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"Note and Vote": How Google Ventures Avoids Groupthink in Meetings
4 minutes read.

Epic post, just couldn't resist putting this here - "Meetings want to suck. Two of their favorite suckiness tactics are group brainstorming and group negotiation. Give them half a chance, and they’ll waste your time, sap your energy, and leave you with poor ideas and a watered-down decision. But meetings don't have to be that way."

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Don’t Die of Consumption, Learn by Writing
6 minutes read.

This post is really important, even more so if you're a leader (by title or not) in your organization or community. Setting a habit of writing, even if it's only for yourself, leads to asking better questions. It helps you focus on why you're doing certain things in a certain way. It enables self-retrospection of your believes over time. It keeps you humble, as you are constantly reminded of how much you still need to learn. It helps to scale the team, as your expectations are visible to others, keeping you honest. Learn by writing.

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21 Lessons Learned From 16 Years of Hustling
10 minutes read.

If you don't know Amy Hoy, I highly suggest you to follow her if you enjoy reading about building a business, getting things done, focusing on the customers and thinking out of the box. Amy is a huge inspiration for me, and this post summarize why she is so unique and talented, in her own special way.

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The Not to Do List
4 minutes read.

This is an interesting idea to "free up mental RAM" as Steli Efti calls it. What I enjoyed most is applying this idea and create an anti-roadmap for your product. Deciding what not to do is the best way to figure out your most important priorities, as it leaves you know room to add another "small task" to the backlog.

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@dharmesh: Your probability of success is proportional to the number of people that want you to succeed. Work to keep increasing that number.

@dcancel: Always optimize picking the right team over picking the right job.