/Management

Hard Edges, Soft Middle

- Coleman McCormick tl;dr: Coleman recommends the following management style: having a "hard outer boundary for work with soft requirements on approach." This requires trust in the product and engineering teams to choose approach trade-offs wisely, and allows for some freedom, but the team knows that freedom is not infinite. "The team can explore and experiment to a point, but doesn’t have forever to mess around."

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The Stay Interview Is The Key To Retention Right Now

- Michelle Ma tl;dr: "The stay interview is essentially the opposite of an exit interview." Examples of question: What's your favorite and least favorite thing about working here? What might tempt you to leave? If you could change something about your job, what would it be? What talents are not being used in your current role? What would you like to learn in your current role? 

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Engineering Manager Forum

- Dan Na tl;dr: Independent, cross-functional meetings at Squarespace e.g. Infrastructure Council, Backend Council and Data Council create a "sense of togetherness across an ever-growing engineering organization." Dan started the Engineering Manager Forum and shares his blueprint for how it's run.

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Key Differentiators in Security Automated Platforms: A Series

tl;dr: There are so many compliance platforms on the market, yet not all are created equal. We've compiled a list of the biggest differentiators to look for when choosing an automated compliance platform. Learn how these features can make a huge impact on your business.

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9 Multipliers For Boosting Your Team’s Productivity

- AbdulFattah Popoola tl;dr: The first 3 are: (1) Observability: covers the spectrum of logging, metrics, distributed tracing, telemetry, alerting, etc. (2) Estimate how long it takes your team to go through the CBTD (code-build-test-debug) loop and ask yourself what that numbers tell you. (3) Flaky tests erode trust and breed learned helplessness.

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Data To Engineers Ratio: US vs Europe

- Mikkel Dengsøe tl;dr: "The median data to engineers ratio for the US companies I looked at is 1:7 compared to 1:4 for European companies. And the design to engineers ratio is 1:9 for both groups. This post gives some answers to why this is but also leaves some questions unanswered."

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Know How Your Org Works (Or How To Become A More Effective Engineer)

- Cindy Sridharan tl;dr: Knowing how your org works can be: (1) Knowing what technical skill you need to invest effort into that will actually be rewarded. (2) How to build lasting relationships with other people on your team or organization that will ultimately dictate the success of a project. (3) How to effectively pitch projects or improvements and see these through to completion. (4) How to navigate ambiguity, and more. 

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Managing Managers: Words of Wisdom from Experienced Engineering Executives

- Daniel Korn tl;dr: As Daniel transitioned into a new role managing managers, he sought wisdom from several, experienced executives, askin them 4 questions: (1) What worked for you and helped you succeed? (2) Have you experienced failure? What would you have done differently? (3) Were there any resources you found helpful as you grew into the role (4) What piece of advice would you give your past self before entering the role?

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DevSecOps Maturity Model White Paper

tl;dr: A blueprint for assessing and advancing your organization’s DevSecOps practices to detect vulnerabilities and deliver digital services with more confidence.

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Hunting Tech Debt Via Org Charts

- Marianne Bellotti tl;dr: "The types of problems organizations have are heavily influenced by their incentive structure." Marianne describes the types of problems you'll find in various org structures i.e. in engineering led orgs, orgs where engineering reports to product, or security, or in flat orgs. She concludes "the best organizations at managing technical debt tend to be the ones that have a thoughtful process in place to adjudicate competing incentives."

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