/Management

A Practical Guide To Executive Presence: Earning Respect

tl;dr: “It can be somewhat circular, but one of the best ways to build executive presence is for other executives to obviously care about what you have to say. This time, we’re going to dive into the behaviors that earn respect from other executives – the traits that help make them allies, and that prevent them from resenting you or taking you for granted.”

featured in #568

How We Choose Technologies

- Ian Vanagas tl;dr: “Our solution is trust and feedback over process and letting product teams own the process from beginning to end. We can't tell you what technologies to use, or the perfect way to pick them, but this is how our company of ~60, remote and async people does it.”

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An Engineering Manager Challenge

- Ted Neward tl;dr: Ted shares his answer to the following interview question: "You're the tech lead and your team is getting stretched thin. You decide to add resources but you can afford 1 senior full-stack developer or 2 junior full-stack devs. Which do you choose and why?" 

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The Developer's Guide To Notification System Tooling In 2025

- Chris Bell tl;dr: “If you opened this blog post, you’re probably about to wade into the complicated ecosystem of notification and customer engagement tooling. It can feel like a daunting task. Not to fear, in this post we’re here to walk you through the basics of notification systems and the ecosystem of tools, frameworks, and vendors that surround them.”

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How To Get More Headcount

- Will Larson tl;dr: “The solution here is obvious, always make sure you agree on the problem and general solution, and provide evidence the team is working well. These can be an appendix of a document or appendix slides, and should take little to no time to prepare as the first two are core decisions for your team, and the later is a set of metrics or plans that you should already be maintaining as part of operating your team.”

featured in #567

Engineering Management Basics

- Francisco Trindade tl;dr: Instead, when helping ICs transition to management, I have focused on introducing the basics of engineering management. That’s because the basics will: (1) Provide the manager a structure to apply to their role initially, creating more stability and space for them to learn. (2) Create stability in the team, avoiding initial problems and crises that could destabilize and complicate the manager’s role. (3) Provide guidelines and principles the manager can apply to everyday situations, improving their chance of success.

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On Good Software Engineers

- Candost Dagdeviren tl;dr: “Setting expectations for software engineers is tricky for all managers. Every company has different needs and a different structure, tech stack, and culture. Whenever someone joins a team, one of the manager’s challenges is aligning the organization’s expectations with those of the new joiner. As there’s no universal guidance on this subject, I set out to find a simple definition that would help managers frame the fundamental things they expect from software engineers.”

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5 Frameworks To Master Communication And Influence As An Engineer

- Jordan Cutler Wes Kao tl;dr: Wes and Jordan discuss the following frameworks: (1) Reduce cognitive load using phrases like “For example”, “Action Items”, “Action Needed”, “Next Steps,” etc... (2) MP-CB: Main point, context below. (3) Anticipate the objection. (4) CEDAF for delegating tasks. (5) QBQ: Question behind the question. 

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Dumb Leadership Mistakes I’ve Made

- Laura Tacho tl;dr: (1) Dismissing intuition. (2) Data-driven theater. (3) Trying to be smart instead of making other people smart. (4) Not utilizing experts soon enough. (5) Not realizing that I’m not an engineering leader.

featured in #565

Radiate Intent

- Lee Byron tl;dr: “This is classic advice when operating in a large organization. There’s a problem to be solved, you have a bold solution in mind and everything necessary to take action, but there will be very real costs felt broadly. You think the tradeoff is worth it, but will your team or higher-ups agree?”

featured in #565