/Management

Akin's Laws Of Spacecraft Design

- Matt Rickard tl;dr: The article presents 45 laws by David Akin, Professor of Aerospace Engineering, including: (1) Engineering is done with numbers. Analysis without numbers is only an opinion. (2). To design a spacecraft right takes an infinite amount of effort. This is why it's a good idea to design them to operate when some things are wrong. (3). Design is an iterative process. The necessary number of iterations is one more than the number you have currently done. This is true at any point in time. (4). Your best design efforts will inevitably wind up being useless in the final design. Learn to live with the disappointment. (5). Three points determine a curve.

featured in #443

Time Demands On Leaders

- Mike Fisher tl;dr: Mike delves into the challenges technology leaders face in carving out time for deep thinking, essential for tasks like strategic visioning or major architectural changes. The article explores innovative leadership structures, like Telstra's division into 'leaders of work' and 'leaders of people' and the U.S. military's pairing of commissioned and noncommissioned officers. For tech leaders, a proposed approach is pairing an engineering manager with an architect or tech lead. Mike explores the potential benefit of shared leadership responsibilities, allowing for both transactional interactions and deep strategic thinking.

featured in #442

What Makes A Strategy Great

- Jason Cohen tl;dr: Jason discusses the following characteristics of a great strategy: (1) Simple: Reshapes complexity to be manageable and actionable. (2) Candid: Dares to spotlight the most difficult truths. (3) Decisive: Asserts clear decisions and accepts their consequences. (4) Leveraged: Magnifies strengths into durable competitive advantage. (5) Asymmetric: Defeats uncertainty with higher upside than downside. (6) Futuristic: Solves for the long-term.

featured in #442

Why Outsource Your Auth System And How To Sell The Decision To Your Company

- Joe Stech tl;dr: Build vs Buy. Open source vs commercial. You are often asked to determine the right options for your organization, whether it's new tooling, infrastructure, or critical security components. Wouldn't it be awesome if you had a blueprint to follow? Check out these considerations that are tied to selecting an authentication solution, but have been used by other engineering leaders recently in build vs buy decisions they have on their radar. 

featured in #442

How Games Typically Get Built

- Gergely Orosz tl;dr: Insights into the world of game development, contrasting it with traditional software development. Game development involves programmers, designers, artists, animators, writers, and sound designers. Games typically undergo a prototype stage, followed by full production, where multiple teams work in parallel, often leading to integration challenges. The game development life cycle consists of three main phases: pre-production, production, and release. Gergely emphasizes that while game development borrows practices from software development, such as TDD and agile methodologies, it requires adaptations to fit the unique challenges of the medium.

featured in #442

Moving From IC To Engineering Manager

tl;dr: Best practices for transitioning from an IC to an engineering manager. Good reasons for the transition include a love for solving people problems and managing projects, while bad reasons include seeking more authority or escaping boredom. Necessary skills include communication, durability, technical competence, patience, and urgency. The article warns against the "Team Lead" role as a transitional step, as it often leads to failure, and advises starting new managers with "training wheels" to guide them through difficult situations. The emphasis is on ensuring the right motivations, skills, and support for a successful transition.

featured in #441

How To Communicate When Trust Is Low (Without Digging Yourself Into A Deeper Hole)

- Charity Majors tl;dr: Charity emphasizes the importance of small, positive interactions and offers specific tactics to rebuild trust. These include speaking tentatively, sounding friendly, taking time to compose oneself, communicating positive intent, and seeking clarity. The author shares personal experiences and insights, highlighting the need to over-communicate and overcompensate to avoid misinterpretations that can further erode trust. One strategy is the emphasis on engineering positive interactions, even artificially, to maintain a healthy relationship balance.

featured in #441

How Clerk Rolls Infra For Auth & User Management

tl;dr: The complex infrastructure required to build and operate an authentication system. It contrasts self-hosted authentication, where developers manage the infrastructure, with a hosted authentication solution, where all auth-related responsibilities are delegated to a specialized service. The article details the components and integrations involved, including the use of cloud services and third-party platforms like Sendgrid and Twilio. The hosted system ensures secure, scalable, and responsive authentication, with options for developers to bring their own infrastructure or configuration.

featured in #441

How To Create Compound Efficiencies In Engineering

tl;dr: The article covers the shift towards efficiency in engineering in 2023 and outlines three compound efficiencies: real-time visibility into metrics, automating pull requests & code reviews, and protecting developer focus. By layering these efficiencies, teams can achieve elite performance. Sustainable efficiency in software engineering isn't about one-time decisions but building organizational habits that compound over time, leading to significant improvements in quality, speed, and business impact.

featured in #440

The Best Approach I've Seen For Hiring New Engineers

- Jade Rubick tl;dr: A successful example of new engineer hiring through the "Ignite" program. In this program, junior engineers are hired to work on real company problems in groups, join different teams for several weeks, and then are placed on a permanent team. The program is effective in training and integrating junior engineers into the company's processes, providing a positive experience for them. Thoughtful management and structured onboarding can lead to more effective junior engineers, and the lessons from this program can be applied to companies of various sizes, especially those hiring 20-30 engineers annually.

featured in #440