No Meetings, No Deadlines, No Full-Time Employees
- Sahil Lavingia tl;dr: "We got here on accident, not some grand plan." After laying off his employees, Sahil cared more about "freedom" instituting "a no-meeting, no-deadline" culture. He hired contractors who "saved the company." This way of working has grown to 25 contractors and $11 million in annualized revenue.featured in #221
10x Developer: Work -> Knowledge -> Work
- Jessica Kerr tl;dr: "The most productive developer on a team is usually the one with the most knowledge of the system." This compounds - knowledgable developers are chosen for more tasks and accrue more knowledge. To counter this, assign work to the least busy person for training, use pair and ensemble programming.featured in #221
An Inside Look At How Figma Ships Product
- Yuhki Yamashita tl;dr: Yuhki guides us through a new product roadmap doc and process. Meetings start with a silent review of the doc. Then the team (1) vote for certain topics to be discussed, (2) reflect on recent launches, (3) team leads complete weekly updates, (4) wins are celebrated.featured in #221
Nine Leadership Lessons 2020 Gave Us
- Ally MacDonald tl;dr: (1) Prepare for and adapt to increased turbulence. (2) Reorient your road map With sensemaking. (3) Put care at the center of leadership, and more.featured in #221
Manager OKRs, Maker OKRs: How Early Stage Startups Should Think About Goal-Setting
- Hunter Walk tl;dr: Many startups adopt Google's quarterly goal setting. This puts makers (engineers) on a managers schedule. A startup should (1) focus on what's being built in month ahead, (2) work towards a product vision a year from now and (3) maintain a "narrow grasp on what you actually want to measure quarterly."featured in #220
So You Want To Be An Engineering Manager
- Sergii Zhuk tl;dr: Sergii shares his views on "how engineering management is different from software engineering, and what success look like." You don't code anymore. You become the "people person," and your focus is the growth of others, the product, hiring and selling, and time management.featured in #219
featured in #219
Driving Cultural Change Through Software Choices
- Camille Fournier tl;dr: To change engineering values as a leader, you need to change what you reward and focus on. This can be slow and has negative consequences e.g. some feel their skill are less relevant. As a platform engineer, you can find tools that bake in and support the values you want to be taken seriously.featured in #218
Toxic And Woke Engineering Orgs
- Marianne Bellotti tl;dr: Given many tech companies push social impact ideals, Marianne feels it's important to understand internal, external and interpersonal boundaries of her reports. "It is so easy to violate or indeed completely throw out appropriate boundaries" when the cause is important.featured in #218
Common Performance Review Biases: How To Spot And Counter Them
- Gergely Orosz tl;dr: Performance review feedback should be specific. If it's too generic e.g. "you're overly cautious" or speculative e.g. "you could have done this", you should ask for examples. Gergely outlines eight biases he's experienced, such as recency, strictness and leniency.featured in #217