Engineering Manager

What Makes the Perfect One-on-One?

This article discusses how to effectively manage a small team by having frequent one-on-ones, creating transparency, and delegating resources. It also emphasizes the importance of understanding each team member's motivations, providing a safe space for them to express their feelings, and helping them to manage their time and resources in order to reach their career goals.

Effective Hiring Practices: Asking the Right Questions

Finding the right talent for a job requires asking the right questions and conducting interviews in a way that makes candidates feel comfortable. It is important to look for a technical fit, but also a match in values and learning potential. To gain insight during interviews, it is recommended to take several unorthodox approaches, such as identifying and double-downing on risky matters, prompting candidates with open-ended topics, focusing on fewer topics in detail, asking how they would hire for the role, and encouraging them to come up with a question. Additionally, feedback should be asked for in order to improve the interview process.

On The Contrary: Q&A with Seth Kimmel of Contrary Capital

The author has a long history in the tech industry, from programming in BASIC to working in hardware engineering and software engineering. They moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-1990s and experienced the Dot Com Boom and Bust. Despite the downturn, the area has proven resilient and is now a hub for tech startups. The author has learned lessons from mentors and experienced leaders, and has developed strategies for building software at scale. They have also embraced the "remote-first" approach to working due to the pandemic, and are now tapping into the global talent pool to find tech talent.

Building trust in remote working

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced many companies to switch to remote work, which has posed many challenges. To address these issues, the author implemented strategies such as setting strategic goals, taking constant feedback, and creating fun activities to keep team members motivated. Additionally, they focused on connecting with team members on a personal level to ensure that no one felt isolated. These strategies have helped the author to better manage their remote team and have taught them the importance of flexibility and trust.

Practice Makes Perfect: How to Run a Game Day

This article discusses the problem of giving engineers more autonomy to control and deploy their services to production. It then outlines the actions taken to address this issue, such as providing access to monitoring tools, onboarding and advanced training, and running game days to simulate failure and test system responses. Finally, it highlights the lessons learned from this process, such as the importance of the human aspect, the need to look for solutions from different perspectives, the value of the feedback loop, and the fun and challenge of chaos engineering.

Transitioning From Vice President of Engineering to CTO

When the pandemic hit, the author had to take on the role of CTO remotely. To make the transition successful, they reached out to mentors and peers for advice, and took the time to understand the role internally and externally. They also built feedback loops and used video chats to make up for lost time with team members. In the end, they were able to prove themselves and build trust with their peers.