Knowledge shared by our community

Scaling To The Extreme

Plixi, a company that allowed people to put photos on Twitter, experienced outages on their web servers due to high traffic. After a period of investigation, they discovered the problem was due to disk reads locking up. With the help of Rackspace and Fusion-io, they were able to install four servers with the fastest hard-drives in the world, which solved the problem. The lesson learned was that it was important for the CTO to understand the whole stack and collaborate with vendors to find a solution.

The First Step Into Management

The author took a role as a team lead, but found that it was not what they wanted to do for the rest of their career. Through this experience, they learned that the role was 80% management and 20% coding, and that if they wanted to focus on coding, they would need to step back. They recommend that everyone try working as a team lead, as it can be a great learning experience.

Communicate Through Trial And Error

A team leader at Datadog was tasked with leading a large project, but the team grew too large and had to be split. Poor communication between the teams resulted in a mess, so the leader decided to schedule a meeting with everyone involved. After experimenting with various approaches, the team found that having a daily half-hour cross-team meeting was the most effective solution. The lesson learned was that managing multiple teams is difficult and sometimes requires trial and error to find the right solution.

How To Use Values For Structured Hiring

At Datadog, the hiring manager interviews were initially unstructured. To ensure that the right people were hired, the company decided to focus on their values and craft questions that would allow them to decide if the candidate would be a good fit. By using the same questions in multiple interviews, they were able to get a benchmark of what a good answer looks like.

How To Develop Managers Through An Internship Program

This article discusses an approach taken by a company to develop managers internally. They created an internship program that gives engineers bitesize pieces of management experience to help them decide if it is something they enjoy. Through this program, engineers learn how to interview, onboard, and mentor interns, as well as how to give and receive feedback. This has been a successful way to develop managers internally, and has also helped engineers learn what they really enjoy.

Training For Delegation

This article outlines the importance of delegating tasks to train staff up, even when there is no urgency. The author learned that it can take two to three times longer to train someone else up than to do the task themselves, and that it is important to start training them up before it becomes urgent. This lesson was learned through the author's experience of taking too long to delegate in the early stages of their career as a manager.

Encourage Female Developers’ Confidence

A CTO at a previous startup was interviewing a software engineer who had been in a male-dominated environment where her ideas were not taken seriously. The CTO decided to give her an offer and a senior developer position, and with some training and encouragement, she was able to gain confidence and become an excellent senior developer. This story highlights the importance of taking a diverse approach to hiring and managing a team.

How to Structure Performance Improvement Plans

Performance improvement plans are essential for teams of five or more, and should be tailored to each individual employee. When setting up a plan, managers should ask employees which areas they can improve on, and encourage them to think about their career goals. For employees who are not performing, plans should be structured and milestone-based. For those wanting to be promoted, managers should be transparent to make it easier for them to achieve their goals.

When Company Growth Work Visibility

As a manager, it is important to stay informed about what other teams are doing and to communicate this to your team. This helps to provide context and prevent rumors from circulating. To stay informed, managers should talk to other managers, encourage cross-team mixing, and keep their team up to date in one-on-ones and team meetings. Transparency is key, even if the manager doesn't know much.

Making Remote Work, Work

Datadog has a distributed team across multiple time zones and cultures, and has implemented strategies such as Slack, Google Docs, Pull Requests, video conferences, and phone booths to facilitate communication. Additionally, they have team members travel to each other's offices to ensure that remote workers are seen as people, rather than just resources. It is important to have enough remote workers to make the system work, and to have someone in the same time zone as you.

The Importance of A Clear Company Culture

Drawboard had not taken their culture seriously from the start, leading to a number of problems. Six months ago, mission and vision statements were introduced, which changed the interview process and allowed for more passionate and energetic hires. Values were also created, which can be used to determine whether a candidate is a good fit. The lesson learned is that mission, vision and value statements are fundamental to the health of an organization.

Managing Negative Employee Behaviors

The VP of Engineering hired someone who was great technically but had negative behaviors towards the team. Initially, the team's complaints were ignored, but this resulted in a drop in productivity and morale. When a similar situation happened again, the VP took action and addressed the issues with the engineer. The engineer acknowledged the unacceptable behavior and the VP is now working with him to look at the company's values. The lesson learned is that even if someone is great technically, if they are not aligned with the team, they need to go. However, it is important to be candid and upfront when there is a problem and to provide training and mentorship to help them improve.

Handling A Security Breach

In July 2016, Datadog's Chief Security Officer discovered an attacker had breached their external security controls and gained access to customers' third-party credentials. With the help of the Datadog team and external resources, they were able to identify the issue and close off the routes the attacker had used. They were also transparent in their communication with customers and implemented changes to their security practices. This incident taught the importance of having a plan in place and using the skills of the team to identify and fix security issues.

Managing A Rockstar’s Ego

A director at a previous company was faced with the challenge of managing a rockstar developer who had acted inappropriately and caused a client to become angry. The director chose to back him up, set him basic tasks, and have check-in intervals with him. By playing to the developer's ego and demonstrating technical proficiency, the director was able to gain the developer's respect and build a solid operational relationship that lasted for a couple of years. This shows that things that feed into rockstar developer's ego can be effective.

Building Remote Relationships

This article discusses the challenges of working remotely and leading teams from a distance. The author took action to build relationships with colleagues by creating a list of people involved in their interests, striking up conversations, and inviting them to remote hangouts. The lesson learned is that while remote work is beneficial, it requires extra effort to build social capital and stay informed of decisions being made.

Proving Yourself When Onboarding

When hiring a new Engineering Manager, it is important to set clear expectations that they will be coding for 3-6 months before transitioning into a tech lead and then management role. This helps to build trust in the team and ensure the manager is familiar with the organization. This approach has been successful in helping new managers gain trust from the team and eventually revamp engineering processes.

A Plan For Creating a More Inclusive Culture

This article discusses a program set up by the author to improve diversity and inclusion in their company. The program consists of micro-actions (15 minute activities) and macro-actions (1-3 hour activities) to demonstrate an attempt at making a more diverse and inclusive culture. The author has seen some micro-wins, such as sourcing female candidates and attending events, and has learned that this approach helps to keep diversity and inclusion at the top of everyone's minds.

Scaling Organizational Skills

This article discusses the importance of organization and prioritization when managing a workload. It outlines the steps taken by the author to organize their work, such as writing down a list of tasks and blocking out time for work. It also emphasizes the importance of finding a balance between getting things done and culling tasks that no longer matter.

Lessons From Allowing Remote Work

This article discusses the lessons learned from two cases where employees whose performance was unproven wanted to work remotely. Ultimately, it was agreed to, but the employees ended up parting ways three to six months later. It was difficult to determine whether the employees were producing productive code, but it was noticed that those who were underperforming never produced much code. The article concludes that remote work works well for employees who have already been working well in the office, as they know what quality work looks like, have relationships with others, and can easily communicate with others.

We’re Going On A Bug Hunt!

When the Senior Director of Engineering at Model N joined, the QA team was using an ancient tool and had no idea how many bugs were in the system. To solve this, the Senior Director bought a new tool and organized a bug hunt with the team, during which they closed 350 bugs in one day. This motivated the team and increased their productivity by 300%. This experience taught the Senior Director that getting people together on a small but clear project can help motivate employees and create a sense of purpose.

Scaling To The Extreme

Plixi, a company that allowed people to put photos on Twitter, experienced outages on their web servers due to high traffic. After a period of investigation, they discovered the problem was due to disk reads locking up. With the help of Rackspace and Fusion-io, they were able to install four servers with the fastest hard-drives in the world, which solved the problem. The lesson learned was that it was important for the CTO to understand the whole stack and collaborate with vendors to find a solution.

The First Step Into Management

The author took a role as a team lead, but found that it was not what they wanted to do for the rest of their career. Through this experience, they learned that the role was 80% management and 20% coding, and that if they wanted to focus on coding, they would need to step back. They recommend that everyone try working as a team lead, as it can be a great learning experience.

Communicate Through Trial And Error

A team leader at Datadog was tasked with leading a large project, but the team grew too large and had to be split. Poor communication between the teams resulted in a mess, so the leader decided to schedule a meeting with everyone involved. After experimenting with various approaches, the team found that having a daily half-hour cross-team meeting was the most effective solution. The lesson learned was that managing multiple teams is difficult and sometimes requires trial and error to find the right solution.

How To Use Values For Structured Hiring

At Datadog, the hiring manager interviews were initially unstructured. To ensure that the right people were hired, the company decided to focus on their values and craft questions that would allow them to decide if the candidate would be a good fit. By using the same questions in multiple interviews, they were able to get a benchmark of what a good answer looks like.

How To Develop Managers Through An Internship Program

This article discusses an approach taken by a company to develop managers internally. They created an internship program that gives engineers bitesize pieces of management experience to help them decide if it is something they enjoy. Through this program, engineers learn how to interview, onboard, and mentor interns, as well as how to give and receive feedback. This has been a successful way to develop managers internally, and has also helped engineers learn what they really enjoy.

Training For Delegation

This article outlines the importance of delegating tasks to train staff up, even when there is no urgency. The author learned that it can take two to three times longer to train someone else up than to do the task themselves, and that it is important to start training them up before it becomes urgent. This lesson was learned through the author's experience of taking too long to delegate in the early stages of their career as a manager.

Encourage Female Developers’ Confidence

A CTO at a previous startup was interviewing a software engineer who had been in a male-dominated environment where her ideas were not taken seriously. The CTO decided to give her an offer and a senior developer position, and with some training and encouragement, she was able to gain confidence and become an excellent senior developer. This story highlights the importance of taking a diverse approach to hiring and managing a team.

How to Structure Performance Improvement Plans

Performance improvement plans are essential for teams of five or more, and should be tailored to each individual employee. When setting up a plan, managers should ask employees which areas they can improve on, and encourage them to think about their career goals. For employees who are not performing, plans should be structured and milestone-based. For those wanting to be promoted, managers should be transparent to make it easier for them to achieve their goals.

When Company Growth Work Visibility

As a manager, it is important to stay informed about what other teams are doing and to communicate this to your team. This helps to provide context and prevent rumors from circulating. To stay informed, managers should talk to other managers, encourage cross-team mixing, and keep their team up to date in one-on-ones and team meetings. Transparency is key, even if the manager doesn't know much.

Making Remote Work, Work

Datadog has a distributed team across multiple time zones and cultures, and has implemented strategies such as Slack, Google Docs, Pull Requests, video conferences, and phone booths to facilitate communication. Additionally, they have team members travel to each other's offices to ensure that remote workers are seen as people, rather than just resources. It is important to have enough remote workers to make the system work, and to have someone in the same time zone as you.

The Importance of A Clear Company Culture

Drawboard had not taken their culture seriously from the start, leading to a number of problems. Six months ago, mission and vision statements were introduced, which changed the interview process and allowed for more passionate and energetic hires. Values were also created, which can be used to determine whether a candidate is a good fit. The lesson learned is that mission, vision and value statements are fundamental to the health of an organization.

Managing Negative Employee Behaviors

The VP of Engineering hired someone who was great technically but had negative behaviors towards the team. Initially, the team's complaints were ignored, but this resulted in a drop in productivity and morale. When a similar situation happened again, the VP took action and addressed the issues with the engineer. The engineer acknowledged the unacceptable behavior and the VP is now working with him to look at the company's values. The lesson learned is that even if someone is great technically, if they are not aligned with the team, they need to go. However, it is important to be candid and upfront when there is a problem and to provide training and mentorship to help them improve.

Handling A Security Breach

In July 2016, Datadog's Chief Security Officer discovered an attacker had breached their external security controls and gained access to customers' third-party credentials. With the help of the Datadog team and external resources, they were able to identify the issue and close off the routes the attacker had used. They were also transparent in their communication with customers and implemented changes to their security practices. This incident taught the importance of having a plan in place and using the skills of the team to identify and fix security issues.

Managing A Rockstar’s Ego

A director at a previous company was faced with the challenge of managing a rockstar developer who had acted inappropriately and caused a client to become angry. The director chose to back him up, set him basic tasks, and have check-in intervals with him. By playing to the developer's ego and demonstrating technical proficiency, the director was able to gain the developer's respect and build a solid operational relationship that lasted for a couple of years. This shows that things that feed into rockstar developer's ego can be effective.

Building Remote Relationships

This article discusses the challenges of working remotely and leading teams from a distance. The author took action to build relationships with colleagues by creating a list of people involved in their interests, striking up conversations, and inviting them to remote hangouts. The lesson learned is that while remote work is beneficial, it requires extra effort to build social capital and stay informed of decisions being made.

Proving Yourself When Onboarding

When hiring a new Engineering Manager, it is important to set clear expectations that they will be coding for 3-6 months before transitioning into a tech lead and then management role. This helps to build trust in the team and ensure the manager is familiar with the organization. This approach has been successful in helping new managers gain trust from the team and eventually revamp engineering processes.

A Plan For Creating a More Inclusive Culture

This article discusses a program set up by the author to improve diversity and inclusion in their company. The program consists of micro-actions (15 minute activities) and macro-actions (1-3 hour activities) to demonstrate an attempt at making a more diverse and inclusive culture. The author has seen some micro-wins, such as sourcing female candidates and attending events, and has learned that this approach helps to keep diversity and inclusion at the top of everyone's minds.

Scaling Organizational Skills

This article discusses the importance of organization and prioritization when managing a workload. It outlines the steps taken by the author to organize their work, such as writing down a list of tasks and blocking out time for work. It also emphasizes the importance of finding a balance between getting things done and culling tasks that no longer matter.

Lessons From Allowing Remote Work

This article discusses the lessons learned from two cases where employees whose performance was unproven wanted to work remotely. Ultimately, it was agreed to, but the employees ended up parting ways three to six months later. It was difficult to determine whether the employees were producing productive code, but it was noticed that those who were underperforming never produced much code. The article concludes that remote work works well for employees who have already been working well in the office, as they know what quality work looks like, have relationships with others, and can easily communicate with others.

We’re Going On A Bug Hunt!

When the Senior Director of Engineering at Model N joined, the QA team was using an ancient tool and had no idea how many bugs were in the system. To solve this, the Senior Director bought a new tool and organized a bug hunt with the team, during which they closed 350 bugs in one day. This motivated the team and increased their productivity by 300%. This experience taught the Senior Director that getting people together on a small but clear project can help motivate employees and create a sense of purpose.

Scaling To The Extreme

Plixi, a company that allowed people to put photos on Twitter, experienced outages on their web servers due to high traffic. After a period of investigation, they discovered the problem was due to disk reads locking up. With the help of Rackspace and Fusion-io, they were able to install four servers with the fastest hard-drives in the world, which solved the problem. The lesson learned was that it was important for the CTO to understand the whole stack and collaborate with vendors to find a solution.

The First Step Into Management

The author took a role as a team lead, but found that it was not what they wanted to do for the rest of their career. Through this experience, they learned that the role was 80% management and 20% coding, and that if they wanted to focus on coding, they would need to step back. They recommend that everyone try working as a team lead, as it can be a great learning experience.

Communicate Through Trial And Error

A team leader at Datadog was tasked with leading a large project, but the team grew too large and had to be split. Poor communication between the teams resulted in a mess, so the leader decided to schedule a meeting with everyone involved. After experimenting with various approaches, the team found that having a daily half-hour cross-team meeting was the most effective solution. The lesson learned was that managing multiple teams is difficult and sometimes requires trial and error to find the right solution.

How To Use Values For Structured Hiring

At Datadog, the hiring manager interviews were initially unstructured. To ensure that the right people were hired, the company decided to focus on their values and craft questions that would allow them to decide if the candidate would be a good fit. By using the same questions in multiple interviews, they were able to get a benchmark of what a good answer looks like.

How To Develop Managers Through An Internship Program

This article discusses an approach taken by a company to develop managers internally. They created an internship program that gives engineers bitesize pieces of management experience to help them decide if it is something they enjoy. Through this program, engineers learn how to interview, onboard, and mentor interns, as well as how to give and receive feedback. This has been a successful way to develop managers internally, and has also helped engineers learn what they really enjoy.

Training For Delegation

This article outlines the importance of delegating tasks to train staff up, even when there is no urgency. The author learned that it can take two to three times longer to train someone else up than to do the task themselves, and that it is important to start training them up before it becomes urgent. This lesson was learned through the author's experience of taking too long to delegate in the early stages of their career as a manager.

Encourage Female Developers’ Confidence

A CTO at a previous startup was interviewing a software engineer who had been in a male-dominated environment where her ideas were not taken seriously. The CTO decided to give her an offer and a senior developer position, and with some training and encouragement, she was able to gain confidence and become an excellent senior developer. This story highlights the importance of taking a diverse approach to hiring and managing a team.

How to Structure Performance Improvement Plans

Performance improvement plans are essential for teams of five or more, and should be tailored to each individual employee. When setting up a plan, managers should ask employees which areas they can improve on, and encourage them to think about their career goals. For employees who are not performing, plans should be structured and milestone-based. For those wanting to be promoted, managers should be transparent to make it easier for them to achieve their goals.

When Company Growth Work Visibility

As a manager, it is important to stay informed about what other teams are doing and to communicate this to your team. This helps to provide context and prevent rumors from circulating. To stay informed, managers should talk to other managers, encourage cross-team mixing, and keep their team up to date in one-on-ones and team meetings. Transparency is key, even if the manager doesn't know much.

Making Remote Work, Work

Datadog has a distributed team across multiple time zones and cultures, and has implemented strategies such as Slack, Google Docs, Pull Requests, video conferences, and phone booths to facilitate communication. Additionally, they have team members travel to each other's offices to ensure that remote workers are seen as people, rather than just resources. It is important to have enough remote workers to make the system work, and to have someone in the same time zone as you.

The Importance of A Clear Company Culture

Drawboard had not taken their culture seriously from the start, leading to a number of problems. Six months ago, mission and vision statements were introduced, which changed the interview process and allowed for more passionate and energetic hires. Values were also created, which can be used to determine whether a candidate is a good fit. The lesson learned is that mission, vision and value statements are fundamental to the health of an organization.

Managing Negative Employee Behaviors

The VP of Engineering hired someone who was great technically but had negative behaviors towards the team. Initially, the team's complaints were ignored, but this resulted in a drop in productivity and morale. When a similar situation happened again, the VP took action and addressed the issues with the engineer. The engineer acknowledged the unacceptable behavior and the VP is now working with him to look at the company's values. The lesson learned is that even if someone is great technically, if they are not aligned with the team, they need to go. However, it is important to be candid and upfront when there is a problem and to provide training and mentorship to help them improve.

Handling A Security Breach

In July 2016, Datadog's Chief Security Officer discovered an attacker had breached their external security controls and gained access to customers' third-party credentials. With the help of the Datadog team and external resources, they were able to identify the issue and close off the routes the attacker had used. They were also transparent in their communication with customers and implemented changes to their security practices. This incident taught the importance of having a plan in place and using the skills of the team to identify and fix security issues.

Managing A Rockstar’s Ego

A director at a previous company was faced with the challenge of managing a rockstar developer who had acted inappropriately and caused a client to become angry. The director chose to back him up, set him basic tasks, and have check-in intervals with him. By playing to the developer's ego and demonstrating technical proficiency, the director was able to gain the developer's respect and build a solid operational relationship that lasted for a couple of years. This shows that things that feed into rockstar developer's ego can be effective.

Building Remote Relationships

This article discusses the challenges of working remotely and leading teams from a distance. The author took action to build relationships with colleagues by creating a list of people involved in their interests, striking up conversations, and inviting them to remote hangouts. The lesson learned is that while remote work is beneficial, it requires extra effort to build social capital and stay informed of decisions being made.

Proving Yourself When Onboarding

When hiring a new Engineering Manager, it is important to set clear expectations that they will be coding for 3-6 months before transitioning into a tech lead and then management role. This helps to build trust in the team and ensure the manager is familiar with the organization. This approach has been successful in helping new managers gain trust from the team and eventually revamp engineering processes.

A Plan For Creating a More Inclusive Culture

This article discusses a program set up by the author to improve diversity and inclusion in their company. The program consists of micro-actions (15 minute activities) and macro-actions (1-3 hour activities) to demonstrate an attempt at making a more diverse and inclusive culture. The author has seen some micro-wins, such as sourcing female candidates and attending events, and has learned that this approach helps to keep diversity and inclusion at the top of everyone's minds.

Scaling Organizational Skills

This article discusses the importance of organization and prioritization when managing a workload. It outlines the steps taken by the author to organize their work, such as writing down a list of tasks and blocking out time for work. It also emphasizes the importance of finding a balance between getting things done and culling tasks that no longer matter.

Lessons From Allowing Remote Work

This article discusses the lessons learned from two cases where employees whose performance was unproven wanted to work remotely. Ultimately, it was agreed to, but the employees ended up parting ways three to six months later. It was difficult to determine whether the employees were producing productive code, but it was noticed that those who were underperforming never produced much code. The article concludes that remote work works well for employees who have already been working well in the office, as they know what quality work looks like, have relationships with others, and can easily communicate with others.

We’re Going On A Bug Hunt!

When the Senior Director of Engineering at Model N joined, the QA team was using an ancient tool and had no idea how many bugs were in the system. To solve this, the Senior Director bought a new tool and organized a bug hunt with the team, during which they closed 350 bugs in one day. This motivated the team and increased their productivity by 300%. This experience taught the Senior Director that getting people together on a small but clear project can help motivate employees and create a sense of purpose.

Scaling To The Extreme

Plixi, a company that allowed people to put photos on Twitter, experienced outages on their web servers due to high traffic. After a period of investigation, they discovered the problem was due to disk reads locking up. With the help of Rackspace and Fusion-io, they were able to install four servers with the fastest hard-drives in the world, which solved the problem. The lesson learned was that it was important for the CTO to understand the whole stack and collaborate with vendors to find a solution.

The First Step Into Management

The author took a role as a team lead, but found that it was not what they wanted to do for the rest of their career. Through this experience, they learned that the role was 80% management and 20% coding, and that if they wanted to focus on coding, they would need to step back. They recommend that everyone try working as a team lead, as it can be a great learning experience.

Communicate Through Trial And Error

A team leader at Datadog was tasked with leading a large project, but the team grew too large and had to be split. Poor communication between the teams resulted in a mess, so the leader decided to schedule a meeting with everyone involved. After experimenting with various approaches, the team found that having a daily half-hour cross-team meeting was the most effective solution. The lesson learned was that managing multiple teams is difficult and sometimes requires trial and error to find the right solution.

How To Use Values For Structured Hiring

At Datadog, the hiring manager interviews were initially unstructured. To ensure that the right people were hired, the company decided to focus on their values and craft questions that would allow them to decide if the candidate would be a good fit. By using the same questions in multiple interviews, they were able to get a benchmark of what a good answer looks like.

How To Develop Managers Through An Internship Program

This article discusses an approach taken by a company to develop managers internally. They created an internship program that gives engineers bitesize pieces of management experience to help them decide if it is something they enjoy. Through this program, engineers learn how to interview, onboard, and mentor interns, as well as how to give and receive feedback. This has been a successful way to develop managers internally, and has also helped engineers learn what they really enjoy.

Training For Delegation

This article outlines the importance of delegating tasks to train staff up, even when there is no urgency. The author learned that it can take two to three times longer to train someone else up than to do the task themselves, and that it is important to start training them up before it becomes urgent. This lesson was learned through the author's experience of taking too long to delegate in the early stages of their career as a manager.

Encourage Female Developers’ Confidence

A CTO at a previous startup was interviewing a software engineer who had been in a male-dominated environment where her ideas were not taken seriously. The CTO decided to give her an offer and a senior developer position, and with some training and encouragement, she was able to gain confidence and become an excellent senior developer. This story highlights the importance of taking a diverse approach to hiring and managing a team.

How to Structure Performance Improvement Plans

Performance improvement plans are essential for teams of five or more, and should be tailored to each individual employee. When setting up a plan, managers should ask employees which areas they can improve on, and encourage them to think about their career goals. For employees who are not performing, plans should be structured and milestone-based. For those wanting to be promoted, managers should be transparent to make it easier for them to achieve their goals.

When Company Growth Work Visibility

As a manager, it is important to stay informed about what other teams are doing and to communicate this to your team. This helps to provide context and prevent rumors from circulating. To stay informed, managers should talk to other managers, encourage cross-team mixing, and keep their team up to date in one-on-ones and team meetings. Transparency is key, even if the manager doesn't know much.

Making Remote Work, Work

Datadog has a distributed team across multiple time zones and cultures, and has implemented strategies such as Slack, Google Docs, Pull Requests, video conferences, and phone booths to facilitate communication. Additionally, they have team members travel to each other's offices to ensure that remote workers are seen as people, rather than just resources. It is important to have enough remote workers to make the system work, and to have someone in the same time zone as you.

The Importance of A Clear Company Culture

Drawboard had not taken their culture seriously from the start, leading to a number of problems. Six months ago, mission and vision statements were introduced, which changed the interview process and allowed for more passionate and energetic hires. Values were also created, which can be used to determine whether a candidate is a good fit. The lesson learned is that mission, vision and value statements are fundamental to the health of an organization.

Managing Negative Employee Behaviors

The VP of Engineering hired someone who was great technically but had negative behaviors towards the team. Initially, the team's complaints were ignored, but this resulted in a drop in productivity and morale. When a similar situation happened again, the VP took action and addressed the issues with the engineer. The engineer acknowledged the unacceptable behavior and the VP is now working with him to look at the company's values. The lesson learned is that even if someone is great technically, if they are not aligned with the team, they need to go. However, it is important to be candid and upfront when there is a problem and to provide training and mentorship to help them improve.

Handling A Security Breach

In July 2016, Datadog's Chief Security Officer discovered an attacker had breached their external security controls and gained access to customers' third-party credentials. With the help of the Datadog team and external resources, they were able to identify the issue and close off the routes the attacker had used. They were also transparent in their communication with customers and implemented changes to their security practices. This incident taught the importance of having a plan in place and using the skills of the team to identify and fix security issues.

Managing A Rockstar’s Ego

A director at a previous company was faced with the challenge of managing a rockstar developer who had acted inappropriately and caused a client to become angry. The director chose to back him up, set him basic tasks, and have check-in intervals with him. By playing to the developer's ego and demonstrating technical proficiency, the director was able to gain the developer's respect and build a solid operational relationship that lasted for a couple of years. This shows that things that feed into rockstar developer's ego can be effective.

Building Remote Relationships

This article discusses the challenges of working remotely and leading teams from a distance. The author took action to build relationships with colleagues by creating a list of people involved in their interests, striking up conversations, and inviting them to remote hangouts. The lesson learned is that while remote work is beneficial, it requires extra effort to build social capital and stay informed of decisions being made.

Proving Yourself When Onboarding

When hiring a new Engineering Manager, it is important to set clear expectations that they will be coding for 3-6 months before transitioning into a tech lead and then management role. This helps to build trust in the team and ensure the manager is familiar with the organization. This approach has been successful in helping new managers gain trust from the team and eventually revamp engineering processes.

A Plan For Creating a More Inclusive Culture

This article discusses a program set up by the author to improve diversity and inclusion in their company. The program consists of micro-actions (15 minute activities) and macro-actions (1-3 hour activities) to demonstrate an attempt at making a more diverse and inclusive culture. The author has seen some micro-wins, such as sourcing female candidates and attending events, and has learned that this approach helps to keep diversity and inclusion at the top of everyone's minds.

Scaling Organizational Skills

This article discusses the importance of organization and prioritization when managing a workload. It outlines the steps taken by the author to organize their work, such as writing down a list of tasks and blocking out time for work. It also emphasizes the importance of finding a balance between getting things done and culling tasks that no longer matter.

Lessons From Allowing Remote Work

This article discusses the lessons learned from two cases where employees whose performance was unproven wanted to work remotely. Ultimately, it was agreed to, but the employees ended up parting ways three to six months later. It was difficult to determine whether the employees were producing productive code, but it was noticed that those who were underperforming never produced much code. The article concludes that remote work works well for employees who have already been working well in the office, as they know what quality work looks like, have relationships with others, and can easily communicate with others.

We’re Going On A Bug Hunt!

When the Senior Director of Engineering at Model N joined, the QA team was using an ancient tool and had no idea how many bugs were in the system. To solve this, the Senior Director bought a new tool and organized a bug hunt with the team, during which they closed 350 bugs in one day. This motivated the team and increased their productivity by 300%. This experience taught the Senior Director that getting people together on a small but clear project can help motivate employees and create a sense of purpose.

Scaling To The Extreme

Plixi, a company that allowed people to put photos on Twitter, experienced outages on their web servers due to high traffic. After a period of investigation, they discovered the problem was due to disk reads locking up. With the help of Rackspace and Fusion-io, they were able to install four servers with the fastest hard-drives in the world, which solved the problem. The lesson learned was that it was important for the CTO to understand the whole stack and collaborate with vendors to find a solution.

The First Step Into Management

The author took a role as a team lead, but found that it was not what they wanted to do for the rest of their career. Through this experience, they learned that the role was 80% management and 20% coding, and that if they wanted to focus on coding, they would need to step back. They recommend that everyone try working as a team lead, as it can be a great learning experience.

Communicate Through Trial And Error

A team leader at Datadog was tasked with leading a large project, but the team grew too large and had to be split. Poor communication between the teams resulted in a mess, so the leader decided to schedule a meeting with everyone involved. After experimenting with various approaches, the team found that having a daily half-hour cross-team meeting was the most effective solution. The lesson learned was that managing multiple teams is difficult and sometimes requires trial and error to find the right solution.

How To Use Values For Structured Hiring

At Datadog, the hiring manager interviews were initially unstructured. To ensure that the right people were hired, the company decided to focus on their values and craft questions that would allow them to decide if the candidate would be a good fit. By using the same questions in multiple interviews, they were able to get a benchmark of what a good answer looks like.

How To Develop Managers Through An Internship Program

This article discusses an approach taken by a company to develop managers internally. They created an internship program that gives engineers bitesize pieces of management experience to help them decide if it is something they enjoy. Through this program, engineers learn how to interview, onboard, and mentor interns, as well as how to give and receive feedback. This has been a successful way to develop managers internally, and has also helped engineers learn what they really enjoy.

Training For Delegation

This article outlines the importance of delegating tasks to train staff up, even when there is no urgency. The author learned that it can take two to three times longer to train someone else up than to do the task themselves, and that it is important to start training them up before it becomes urgent. This lesson was learned through the author's experience of taking too long to delegate in the early stages of their career as a manager.

Encourage Female Developers’ Confidence

A CTO at a previous startup was interviewing a software engineer who had been in a male-dominated environment where her ideas were not taken seriously. The CTO decided to give her an offer and a senior developer position, and with some training and encouragement, she was able to gain confidence and become an excellent senior developer. This story highlights the importance of taking a diverse approach to hiring and managing a team.

How to Structure Performance Improvement Plans

Performance improvement plans are essential for teams of five or more, and should be tailored to each individual employee. When setting up a plan, managers should ask employees which areas they can improve on, and encourage them to think about their career goals. For employees who are not performing, plans should be structured and milestone-based. For those wanting to be promoted, managers should be transparent to make it easier for them to achieve their goals.

When Company Growth Work Visibility

As a manager, it is important to stay informed about what other teams are doing and to communicate this to your team. This helps to provide context and prevent rumors from circulating. To stay informed, managers should talk to other managers, encourage cross-team mixing, and keep their team up to date in one-on-ones and team meetings. Transparency is key, even if the manager doesn't know much.

Making Remote Work, Work

Datadog has a distributed team across multiple time zones and cultures, and has implemented strategies such as Slack, Google Docs, Pull Requests, video conferences, and phone booths to facilitate communication. Additionally, they have team members travel to each other's offices to ensure that remote workers are seen as people, rather than just resources. It is important to have enough remote workers to make the system work, and to have someone in the same time zone as you.

The Importance of A Clear Company Culture

Drawboard had not taken their culture seriously from the start, leading to a number of problems. Six months ago, mission and vision statements were introduced, which changed the interview process and allowed for more passionate and energetic hires. Values were also created, which can be used to determine whether a candidate is a good fit. The lesson learned is that mission, vision and value statements are fundamental to the health of an organization.

Managing Negative Employee Behaviors

The VP of Engineering hired someone who was great technically but had negative behaviors towards the team. Initially, the team's complaints were ignored, but this resulted in a drop in productivity and morale. When a similar situation happened again, the VP took action and addressed the issues with the engineer. The engineer acknowledged the unacceptable behavior and the VP is now working with him to look at the company's values. The lesson learned is that even if someone is great technically, if they are not aligned with the team, they need to go. However, it is important to be candid and upfront when there is a problem and to provide training and mentorship to help them improve.

Handling A Security Breach

In July 2016, Datadog's Chief Security Officer discovered an attacker had breached their external security controls and gained access to customers' third-party credentials. With the help of the Datadog team and external resources, they were able to identify the issue and close off the routes the attacker had used. They were also transparent in their communication with customers and implemented changes to their security practices. This incident taught the importance of having a plan in place and using the skills of the team to identify and fix security issues.

Managing A Rockstar’s Ego

A director at a previous company was faced with the challenge of managing a rockstar developer who had acted inappropriately and caused a client to become angry. The director chose to back him up, set him basic tasks, and have check-in intervals with him. By playing to the developer's ego and demonstrating technical proficiency, the director was able to gain the developer's respect and build a solid operational relationship that lasted for a couple of years. This shows that things that feed into rockstar developer's ego can be effective.

Building Remote Relationships

This article discusses the challenges of working remotely and leading teams from a distance. The author took action to build relationships with colleagues by creating a list of people involved in their interests, striking up conversations, and inviting them to remote hangouts. The lesson learned is that while remote work is beneficial, it requires extra effort to build social capital and stay informed of decisions being made.

Proving Yourself When Onboarding

When hiring a new Engineering Manager, it is important to set clear expectations that they will be coding for 3-6 months before transitioning into a tech lead and then management role. This helps to build trust in the team and ensure the manager is familiar with the organization. This approach has been successful in helping new managers gain trust from the team and eventually revamp engineering processes.

A Plan For Creating a More Inclusive Culture

This article discusses a program set up by the author to improve diversity and inclusion in their company. The program consists of micro-actions (15 minute activities) and macro-actions (1-3 hour activities) to demonstrate an attempt at making a more diverse and inclusive culture. The author has seen some micro-wins, such as sourcing female candidates and attending events, and has learned that this approach helps to keep diversity and inclusion at the top of everyone's minds.

Scaling Organizational Skills

This article discusses the importance of organization and prioritization when managing a workload. It outlines the steps taken by the author to organize their work, such as writing down a list of tasks and blocking out time for work. It also emphasizes the importance of finding a balance between getting things done and culling tasks that no longer matter.

Lessons From Allowing Remote Work

This article discusses the lessons learned from two cases where employees whose performance was unproven wanted to work remotely. Ultimately, it was agreed to, but the employees ended up parting ways three to six months later. It was difficult to determine whether the employees were producing productive code, but it was noticed that those who were underperforming never produced much code. The article concludes that remote work works well for employees who have already been working well in the office, as they know what quality work looks like, have relationships with others, and can easily communicate with others.

We’re Going On A Bug Hunt!

When the Senior Director of Engineering at Model N joined, the QA team was using an ancient tool and had no idea how many bugs were in the system. To solve this, the Senior Director bought a new tool and organized a bug hunt with the team, during which they closed 350 bugs in one day. This motivated the team and increased their productivity by 300%. This experience taught the Senior Director that getting people together on a small but clear project can help motivate employees and create a sense of purpose.

Scaling To The Extreme

Plixi, a company that allowed people to put photos on Twitter, experienced outages on their web servers due to high traffic. After a period of investigation, they discovered the problem was due to disk reads locking up. With the help of Rackspace and Fusion-io, they were able to install four servers with the fastest hard-drives in the world, which solved the problem. The lesson learned was that it was important for the CTO to understand the whole stack and collaborate with vendors to find a solution.

The First Step Into Management

The author took a role as a team lead, but found that it was not what they wanted to do for the rest of their career. Through this experience, they learned that the role was 80% management and 20% coding, and that if they wanted to focus on coding, they would need to step back. They recommend that everyone try working as a team lead, as it can be a great learning experience.

Communicate Through Trial And Error

A team leader at Datadog was tasked with leading a large project, but the team grew too large and had to be split. Poor communication between the teams resulted in a mess, so the leader decided to schedule a meeting with everyone involved. After experimenting with various approaches, the team found that having a daily half-hour cross-team meeting was the most effective solution. The lesson learned was that managing multiple teams is difficult and sometimes requires trial and error to find the right solution.

How To Use Values For Structured Hiring

At Datadog, the hiring manager interviews were initially unstructured. To ensure that the right people were hired, the company decided to focus on their values and craft questions that would allow them to decide if the candidate would be a good fit. By using the same questions in multiple interviews, they were able to get a benchmark of what a good answer looks like.

How To Develop Managers Through An Internship Program

This article discusses an approach taken by a company to develop managers internally. They created an internship program that gives engineers bitesize pieces of management experience to help them decide if it is something they enjoy. Through this program, engineers learn how to interview, onboard, and mentor interns, as well as how to give and receive feedback. This has been a successful way to develop managers internally, and has also helped engineers learn what they really enjoy.

Training For Delegation

This article outlines the importance of delegating tasks to train staff up, even when there is no urgency. The author learned that it can take two to three times longer to train someone else up than to do the task themselves, and that it is important to start training them up before it becomes urgent. This lesson was learned through the author's experience of taking too long to delegate in the early stages of their career as a manager.

Encourage Female Developers’ Confidence

A CTO at a previous startup was interviewing a software engineer who had been in a male-dominated environment where her ideas were not taken seriously. The CTO decided to give her an offer and a senior developer position, and with some training and encouragement, she was able to gain confidence and become an excellent senior developer. This story highlights the importance of taking a diverse approach to hiring and managing a team.

How to Structure Performance Improvement Plans

Performance improvement plans are essential for teams of five or more, and should be tailored to each individual employee. When setting up a plan, managers should ask employees which areas they can improve on, and encourage them to think about their career goals. For employees who are not performing, plans should be structured and milestone-based. For those wanting to be promoted, managers should be transparent to make it easier for them to achieve their goals.

When Company Growth Work Visibility

As a manager, it is important to stay informed about what other teams are doing and to communicate this to your team. This helps to provide context and prevent rumors from circulating. To stay informed, managers should talk to other managers, encourage cross-team mixing, and keep their team up to date in one-on-ones and team meetings. Transparency is key, even if the manager doesn't know much.

Making Remote Work, Work

Datadog has a distributed team across multiple time zones and cultures, and has implemented strategies such as Slack, Google Docs, Pull Requests, video conferences, and phone booths to facilitate communication. Additionally, they have team members travel to each other's offices to ensure that remote workers are seen as people, rather than just resources. It is important to have enough remote workers to make the system work, and to have someone in the same time zone as you.

The Importance of A Clear Company Culture

Drawboard had not taken their culture seriously from the start, leading to a number of problems. Six months ago, mission and vision statements were introduced, which changed the interview process and allowed for more passionate and energetic hires. Values were also created, which can be used to determine whether a candidate is a good fit. The lesson learned is that mission, vision and value statements are fundamental to the health of an organization.

Managing Negative Employee Behaviors

The VP of Engineering hired someone who was great technically but had negative behaviors towards the team. Initially, the team's complaints were ignored, but this resulted in a drop in productivity and morale. When a similar situation happened again, the VP took action and addressed the issues with the engineer. The engineer acknowledged the unacceptable behavior and the VP is now working with him to look at the company's values. The lesson learned is that even if someone is great technically, if they are not aligned with the team, they need to go. However, it is important to be candid and upfront when there is a problem and to provide training and mentorship to help them improve.

Handling A Security Breach

In July 2016, Datadog's Chief Security Officer discovered an attacker had breached their external security controls and gained access to customers' third-party credentials. With the help of the Datadog team and external resources, they were able to identify the issue and close off the routes the attacker had used. They were also transparent in their communication with customers and implemented changes to their security practices. This incident taught the importance of having a plan in place and using the skills of the team to identify and fix security issues.

Managing A Rockstar’s Ego

A director at a previous company was faced with the challenge of managing a rockstar developer who had acted inappropriately and caused a client to become angry. The director chose to back him up, set him basic tasks, and have check-in intervals with him. By playing to the developer's ego and demonstrating technical proficiency, the director was able to gain the developer's respect and build a solid operational relationship that lasted for a couple of years. This shows that things that feed into rockstar developer's ego can be effective.

Building Remote Relationships

This article discusses the challenges of working remotely and leading teams from a distance. The author took action to build relationships with colleagues by creating a list of people involved in their interests, striking up conversations, and inviting them to remote hangouts. The lesson learned is that while remote work is beneficial, it requires extra effort to build social capital and stay informed of decisions being made.

Proving Yourself When Onboarding

When hiring a new Engineering Manager, it is important to set clear expectations that they will be coding for 3-6 months before transitioning into a tech lead and then management role. This helps to build trust in the team and ensure the manager is familiar with the organization. This approach has been successful in helping new managers gain trust from the team and eventually revamp engineering processes.

A Plan For Creating a More Inclusive Culture

This article discusses a program set up by the author to improve diversity and inclusion in their company. The program consists of micro-actions (15 minute activities) and macro-actions (1-3 hour activities) to demonstrate an attempt at making a more diverse and inclusive culture. The author has seen some micro-wins, such as sourcing female candidates and attending events, and has learned that this approach helps to keep diversity and inclusion at the top of everyone's minds.

Scaling Organizational Skills

This article discusses the importance of organization and prioritization when managing a workload. It outlines the steps taken by the author to organize their work, such as writing down a list of tasks and blocking out time for work. It also emphasizes the importance of finding a balance between getting things done and culling tasks that no longer matter.

Lessons From Allowing Remote Work

This article discusses the lessons learned from two cases where employees whose performance was unproven wanted to work remotely. Ultimately, it was agreed to, but the employees ended up parting ways three to six months later. It was difficult to determine whether the employees were producing productive code, but it was noticed that those who were underperforming never produced much code. The article concludes that remote work works well for employees who have already been working well in the office, as they know what quality work looks like, have relationships with others, and can easily communicate with others.

We’re Going On A Bug Hunt!

When the Senior Director of Engineering at Model N joined, the QA team was using an ancient tool and had no idea how many bugs were in the system. To solve this, the Senior Director bought a new tool and organized a bug hunt with the team, during which they closed 350 bugs in one day. This motivated the team and increased their productivity by 300%. This experience taught the Senior Director that getting people together on a small but clear project can help motivate employees and create a sense of purpose.