Knowledge shared by our community

Landing a Management Position without Recent Experience

After transitioning from engineer to manager, the author found it difficult to land a job in management due to lack of recent experience. To prepare, they took courses on Coursera and read books to refresh their skills and knowledge. They tailored their resume to highlight their management experience and eventually landed a job at a startup. Continuing education is recommended to handle management situations and build confidence.

How to Produce Impact as a New Engineer

Working with complex problems can be rewarding and help you learn and grow. When joining a new team, it is important to be aware of the culture and dynamics and focus on how you can contribute and learn. Career development involves taking on more responsibility and gaining new perspectives. MVPs should be kept small and use quality code with tests to ensure long-term success.

How Hiring Teams and Candidates can Minimize Stress During an Interview

This article provides tips for both interviewers and interviewees to ensure a successful interview experience. For interviewers, it is important to give breaks between interviews and to provide a choice between a live coding session and a take-home project. For interviewees, it is important to approach the interview like a meeting, to take a few minutes to gather thoughts, to be honest and to ask questions. It is also important to be prepared for technical questions.

Learning How to Delegate When You Become a Manager

This article discusses the difficulty of transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager, and the importance of learning to delegate tasks to your team. It emphasizes the need to trust your team and to understand that your role as a manager is different from that of an individual contributor. The article also provides tips on how to practice self-restraint and to let go of the urge to do everything yourself.

Managing with Empathy Amidst a Pandemic

Working remotely during the pandemic has been a challenge for many managers. To help their teams, managers need to prioritize their team's needs, practice honesty and transparency, and use tools to over-communicate. This will help to maintain trust with upper management and ensure that teams can still be productive while working remotely.

Typical Challenge of Scaling Teams: What to Do When Your Process Doesn’t Scale

When rapidly scaling a team, there are many challenges that must be addressed. To ensure success, it is important to listen and observe when people come across stumbling blocks, delegate responsibilities, and make transparent and informed decisions. Additionally, the 70:20:10 model can be used to shape challenges related to scaling.

Pivoting a Product Market Fit

After joining a company that was struggling to find the correct product-market fit, the author experimented with different installment options and found that impressions increased significantly. After shutting down for two months to replatform and rebuild the product, the company relaunched and found success. The author then had to wear many hats, from developing code to managing vendors and people, and eventually handing off roles to others as the company grew.

Discovering Non-Traditional Pathways to Success

This is the story of a software engineering intern who, without a college degree, worked his way up to become the CTO/co-founder of a startup. He began tinkering with technology in middle school and continued to develop his skills in high school and college. He joined a startup through an online tech group and worked with the CEO to develop a product that would give users cashback rewards for paying with their bank. Through many iterations, he grew into the team lead position and eventually the VP of engineering, helping to manage the product and find the right product-market fit.

Taking Healthy Risks in your Career

This is the story of a mobile software engineer who has been in the industry for over 10 years. He was not sure what he wanted to do in life, but he knew what he didn't want to do. He took a chance on mobile software development and was lucky to find a role despite the recession. He then made the jump to become a manager and recently started his own company, Upspeed. His key takeaways are to not have everything figured out, know your core strengths, and open yourself up to new experiences.

Building a Remote Team: Focusing on the Hiring Pipeline

When building a team in a new location, it is important to consider the optimal team capacity, local leadership, hiring people with the right temperament, and monitoring the onboarding process. Additionally, streamlining the hiring process by having a pool of interviewers and closely monitoring the cycle time of the process can help ensure success. Cultural differences should also be taken into account when creating a hiring strategy.

Creating Impact as One of the First Hires in a Startup

This article recounts the experience of joining a startup as the seventh employee and becoming a VP of engineering. It highlights the importance of self-awareness and adaptability when joining a startup, as well as the benefits of understanding the inner workings of a company. It also emphasizes the importance of being financially responsible when considering a startup job.

A First-Time Managers Guide to Performance Management

This article discusses the challenges of transitioning from a colleague to a manager. It outlines the importance of taking a consultative approach prior to transitioning and how to navigate interpersonal relationships with team members. It also provides tips for first-time managers on how to create high-performing teams and judge reports based on job descriptions.

Growing Your Team Effectively

When scaling an engineering team, it is important to consider the challenges that come with it. When two teams were asked to grow, the output decreased due to a lack of test engineers and a new Product Manager. To solve the issue, a Senior PM was asked to mentor the PM, the roles and responsibilities of the team members were redesigned, and the engineers helped test each other's work. In the long-term, hiring alignment should be discussed and a proper growth plan should be established. Communication is key and upfront discussions should be had to ensure the team is structured properly.

Company Growth: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

This article discusses how a company grew from a few engineers in San Francisco to diverse engineering teams across different continents. It also outlines the challenges that came with the growth, such as teams making decisions that prioritized their own success, lack of clear guidelines, and issues with cross-team collaboration. To address these issues, the company updated their hiring and performance review processes to emphasize company values, created technology pillars and principles, and introduced programs like recorded lunch and learn sessions. The article also provides lessons learned, such as the importance of introducing processes to ensure everyone is on the same page, inviting managers and engineers to provide feedback, and managing different opinions when discussing values and direction.

Bring It All Together: How to Implement Processes in a Nutshell

When a company is small, it is important to establish specific frameworks and strategies to add method to the madness. To do this, squads were created with a product manager, engineering manager, data analyst, and designer. The charter was then established to define expectations and goals. A regular cadence was set up for sprint planning, grooming, demo sessions, and daily standups. Tools were used for knowledge management and a product roadmap was created to provide a clear picture of features. The outcome was positive as teams now understand the value of interdependency and collaboration. Everyone should be involved in the change management process.

Aligning Hiring Panels as a New Manager

As a new manager, it can be difficult to hire for a team and evaluate existing hiring practices. My philosophy is to think about what data a hiring board should collect about a candidate and set up the hiring process like a set of experiments. Each part of the hiring process should produce high-value, unique signals for the hiring decision. It is important to provide feedback to team members who are not great interviewers and to create a single document that can be shared with everyone on the hiring panel. During the panel debriefs, leaders should provide feedback to the group and critique specific questions rather than interviewing skills.

Common Management Challenges and How to Overcome Them

As a senior director managing directors and senior engineering managers, the most challenging part is helping managers delegate and align with the organization's strategy. To increase a manager's confidence, it is important to recognize the challenges and address them by balancing mistakes and learning, navigating the political nature of the organization, and delegating responsibilities and building trust.

Additive Hiring: Looking Beyond Common Technical Interview Practices

Technical skills are important for day-to-day work, but what is more important is what a candidate can bring to the team that doesn’t currently exist. When hiring, focus on the candidate's ability to bring a calming influence to the team, as well as their "hungry, humble, and smart" qualities. Interviewers should look for what the candidate can add to the team, rather than just checking boxes.

Three Steps to Implement a Performance Improvement Plan for an Underperforming Employee

As an engineering manager, it is the responsibility to identify and work with underperforming ICs. The root cause of underperformance is often a lack of alignment between what is expected from the organization and what is delivered by the engineer. To bridge the gap between the individual and business needs, the engineering manager should use empathy and transparency to create a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). The PIP should include metrics to measure success, daily standups, and authenticity. Separation should only be taken as a last resort.

The Evolution of a Startup Co-Founder

When transitioning from a tech giant to co-founding a startup, the role of CTO evolves logarithmically with the growth of the company. In the early stages, the CTO should focus on creating a minimum viable product, hiring a few other coders, and forming an opinion on engineering rhythm. As the team grows, the CTO should focus on team structure, people management, and steering the organization. It is important to be flexible and ready to adjust as the role of CTO evolves with the growth of the company.

Landing a Management Position without Recent Experience

After transitioning from engineer to manager, the author found it difficult to land a job in management due to lack of recent experience. To prepare, they took courses on Coursera and read books to refresh their skills and knowledge. They tailored their resume to highlight their management experience and eventually landed a job at a startup. Continuing education is recommended to handle management situations and build confidence.

How to Produce Impact as a New Engineer

Working with complex problems can be rewarding and help you learn and grow. When joining a new team, it is important to be aware of the culture and dynamics and focus on how you can contribute and learn. Career development involves taking on more responsibility and gaining new perspectives. MVPs should be kept small and use quality code with tests to ensure long-term success.

How Hiring Teams and Candidates can Minimize Stress During an Interview

This article provides tips for both interviewers and interviewees to ensure a successful interview experience. For interviewers, it is important to give breaks between interviews and to provide a choice between a live coding session and a take-home project. For interviewees, it is important to approach the interview like a meeting, to take a few minutes to gather thoughts, to be honest and to ask questions. It is also important to be prepared for technical questions.

Learning How to Delegate When You Become a Manager

This article discusses the difficulty of transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager, and the importance of learning to delegate tasks to your team. It emphasizes the need to trust your team and to understand that your role as a manager is different from that of an individual contributor. The article also provides tips on how to practice self-restraint and to let go of the urge to do everything yourself.

Managing with Empathy Amidst a Pandemic

Working remotely during the pandemic has been a challenge for many managers. To help their teams, managers need to prioritize their team's needs, practice honesty and transparency, and use tools to over-communicate. This will help to maintain trust with upper management and ensure that teams can still be productive while working remotely.

Typical Challenge of Scaling Teams: What to Do When Your Process Doesn’t Scale

When rapidly scaling a team, there are many challenges that must be addressed. To ensure success, it is important to listen and observe when people come across stumbling blocks, delegate responsibilities, and make transparent and informed decisions. Additionally, the 70:20:10 model can be used to shape challenges related to scaling.

Pivoting a Product Market Fit

After joining a company that was struggling to find the correct product-market fit, the author experimented with different installment options and found that impressions increased significantly. After shutting down for two months to replatform and rebuild the product, the company relaunched and found success. The author then had to wear many hats, from developing code to managing vendors and people, and eventually handing off roles to others as the company grew.

Discovering Non-Traditional Pathways to Success

This is the story of a software engineering intern who, without a college degree, worked his way up to become the CTO/co-founder of a startup. He began tinkering with technology in middle school and continued to develop his skills in high school and college. He joined a startup through an online tech group and worked with the CEO to develop a product that would give users cashback rewards for paying with their bank. Through many iterations, he grew into the team lead position and eventually the VP of engineering, helping to manage the product and find the right product-market fit.

Taking Healthy Risks in your Career

This is the story of a mobile software engineer who has been in the industry for over 10 years. He was not sure what he wanted to do in life, but he knew what he didn't want to do. He took a chance on mobile software development and was lucky to find a role despite the recession. He then made the jump to become a manager and recently started his own company, Upspeed. His key takeaways are to not have everything figured out, know your core strengths, and open yourself up to new experiences.

Building a Remote Team: Focusing on the Hiring Pipeline

When building a team in a new location, it is important to consider the optimal team capacity, local leadership, hiring people with the right temperament, and monitoring the onboarding process. Additionally, streamlining the hiring process by having a pool of interviewers and closely monitoring the cycle time of the process can help ensure success. Cultural differences should also be taken into account when creating a hiring strategy.

Creating Impact as One of the First Hires in a Startup

This article recounts the experience of joining a startup as the seventh employee and becoming a VP of engineering. It highlights the importance of self-awareness and adaptability when joining a startup, as well as the benefits of understanding the inner workings of a company. It also emphasizes the importance of being financially responsible when considering a startup job.

A First-Time Managers Guide to Performance Management

This article discusses the challenges of transitioning from a colleague to a manager. It outlines the importance of taking a consultative approach prior to transitioning and how to navigate interpersonal relationships with team members. It also provides tips for first-time managers on how to create high-performing teams and judge reports based on job descriptions.

Growing Your Team Effectively

When scaling an engineering team, it is important to consider the challenges that come with it. When two teams were asked to grow, the output decreased due to a lack of test engineers and a new Product Manager. To solve the issue, a Senior PM was asked to mentor the PM, the roles and responsibilities of the team members were redesigned, and the engineers helped test each other's work. In the long-term, hiring alignment should be discussed and a proper growth plan should be established. Communication is key and upfront discussions should be had to ensure the team is structured properly.

Company Growth: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

This article discusses how a company grew from a few engineers in San Francisco to diverse engineering teams across different continents. It also outlines the challenges that came with the growth, such as teams making decisions that prioritized their own success, lack of clear guidelines, and issues with cross-team collaboration. To address these issues, the company updated their hiring and performance review processes to emphasize company values, created technology pillars and principles, and introduced programs like recorded lunch and learn sessions. The article also provides lessons learned, such as the importance of introducing processes to ensure everyone is on the same page, inviting managers and engineers to provide feedback, and managing different opinions when discussing values and direction.

Bring It All Together: How to Implement Processes in a Nutshell

When a company is small, it is important to establish specific frameworks and strategies to add method to the madness. To do this, squads were created with a product manager, engineering manager, data analyst, and designer. The charter was then established to define expectations and goals. A regular cadence was set up for sprint planning, grooming, demo sessions, and daily standups. Tools were used for knowledge management and a product roadmap was created to provide a clear picture of features. The outcome was positive as teams now understand the value of interdependency and collaboration. Everyone should be involved in the change management process.

Aligning Hiring Panels as a New Manager

As a new manager, it can be difficult to hire for a team and evaluate existing hiring practices. My philosophy is to think about what data a hiring board should collect about a candidate and set up the hiring process like a set of experiments. Each part of the hiring process should produce high-value, unique signals for the hiring decision. It is important to provide feedback to team members who are not great interviewers and to create a single document that can be shared with everyone on the hiring panel. During the panel debriefs, leaders should provide feedback to the group and critique specific questions rather than interviewing skills.

Common Management Challenges and How to Overcome Them

As a senior director managing directors and senior engineering managers, the most challenging part is helping managers delegate and align with the organization's strategy. To increase a manager's confidence, it is important to recognize the challenges and address them by balancing mistakes and learning, navigating the political nature of the organization, and delegating responsibilities and building trust.

Additive Hiring: Looking Beyond Common Technical Interview Practices

Technical skills are important for day-to-day work, but what is more important is what a candidate can bring to the team that doesn’t currently exist. When hiring, focus on the candidate's ability to bring a calming influence to the team, as well as their "hungry, humble, and smart" qualities. Interviewers should look for what the candidate can add to the team, rather than just checking boxes.

Three Steps to Implement a Performance Improvement Plan for an Underperforming Employee

As an engineering manager, it is the responsibility to identify and work with underperforming ICs. The root cause of underperformance is often a lack of alignment between what is expected from the organization and what is delivered by the engineer. To bridge the gap between the individual and business needs, the engineering manager should use empathy and transparency to create a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). The PIP should include metrics to measure success, daily standups, and authenticity. Separation should only be taken as a last resort.

The Evolution of a Startup Co-Founder

When transitioning from a tech giant to co-founding a startup, the role of CTO evolves logarithmically with the growth of the company. In the early stages, the CTO should focus on creating a minimum viable product, hiring a few other coders, and forming an opinion on engineering rhythm. As the team grows, the CTO should focus on team structure, people management, and steering the organization. It is important to be flexible and ready to adjust as the role of CTO evolves with the growth of the company.

Landing a Management Position without Recent Experience

After transitioning from engineer to manager, the author found it difficult to land a job in management due to lack of recent experience. To prepare, they took courses on Coursera and read books to refresh their skills and knowledge. They tailored their resume to highlight their management experience and eventually landed a job at a startup. Continuing education is recommended to handle management situations and build confidence.

How to Produce Impact as a New Engineer

Working with complex problems can be rewarding and help you learn and grow. When joining a new team, it is important to be aware of the culture and dynamics and focus on how you can contribute and learn. Career development involves taking on more responsibility and gaining new perspectives. MVPs should be kept small and use quality code with tests to ensure long-term success.

How Hiring Teams and Candidates can Minimize Stress During an Interview

This article provides tips for both interviewers and interviewees to ensure a successful interview experience. For interviewers, it is important to give breaks between interviews and to provide a choice between a live coding session and a take-home project. For interviewees, it is important to approach the interview like a meeting, to take a few minutes to gather thoughts, to be honest and to ask questions. It is also important to be prepared for technical questions.

Learning How to Delegate When You Become a Manager

This article discusses the difficulty of transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager, and the importance of learning to delegate tasks to your team. It emphasizes the need to trust your team and to understand that your role as a manager is different from that of an individual contributor. The article also provides tips on how to practice self-restraint and to let go of the urge to do everything yourself.

Managing with Empathy Amidst a Pandemic

Working remotely during the pandemic has been a challenge for many managers. To help their teams, managers need to prioritize their team's needs, practice honesty and transparency, and use tools to over-communicate. This will help to maintain trust with upper management and ensure that teams can still be productive while working remotely.

Typical Challenge of Scaling Teams: What to Do When Your Process Doesn’t Scale

When rapidly scaling a team, there are many challenges that must be addressed. To ensure success, it is important to listen and observe when people come across stumbling blocks, delegate responsibilities, and make transparent and informed decisions. Additionally, the 70:20:10 model can be used to shape challenges related to scaling.

Pivoting a Product Market Fit

After joining a company that was struggling to find the correct product-market fit, the author experimented with different installment options and found that impressions increased significantly. After shutting down for two months to replatform and rebuild the product, the company relaunched and found success. The author then had to wear many hats, from developing code to managing vendors and people, and eventually handing off roles to others as the company grew.

Discovering Non-Traditional Pathways to Success

This is the story of a software engineering intern who, without a college degree, worked his way up to become the CTO/co-founder of a startup. He began tinkering with technology in middle school and continued to develop his skills in high school and college. He joined a startup through an online tech group and worked with the CEO to develop a product that would give users cashback rewards for paying with their bank. Through many iterations, he grew into the team lead position and eventually the VP of engineering, helping to manage the product and find the right product-market fit.

Taking Healthy Risks in your Career

This is the story of a mobile software engineer who has been in the industry for over 10 years. He was not sure what he wanted to do in life, but he knew what he didn't want to do. He took a chance on mobile software development and was lucky to find a role despite the recession. He then made the jump to become a manager and recently started his own company, Upspeed. His key takeaways are to not have everything figured out, know your core strengths, and open yourself up to new experiences.

Building a Remote Team: Focusing on the Hiring Pipeline

When building a team in a new location, it is important to consider the optimal team capacity, local leadership, hiring people with the right temperament, and monitoring the onboarding process. Additionally, streamlining the hiring process by having a pool of interviewers and closely monitoring the cycle time of the process can help ensure success. Cultural differences should also be taken into account when creating a hiring strategy.

Creating Impact as One of the First Hires in a Startup

This article recounts the experience of joining a startup as the seventh employee and becoming a VP of engineering. It highlights the importance of self-awareness and adaptability when joining a startup, as well as the benefits of understanding the inner workings of a company. It also emphasizes the importance of being financially responsible when considering a startup job.

A First-Time Managers Guide to Performance Management

This article discusses the challenges of transitioning from a colleague to a manager. It outlines the importance of taking a consultative approach prior to transitioning and how to navigate interpersonal relationships with team members. It also provides tips for first-time managers on how to create high-performing teams and judge reports based on job descriptions.

Growing Your Team Effectively

When scaling an engineering team, it is important to consider the challenges that come with it. When two teams were asked to grow, the output decreased due to a lack of test engineers and a new Product Manager. To solve the issue, a Senior PM was asked to mentor the PM, the roles and responsibilities of the team members were redesigned, and the engineers helped test each other's work. In the long-term, hiring alignment should be discussed and a proper growth plan should be established. Communication is key and upfront discussions should be had to ensure the team is structured properly.

Company Growth: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

This article discusses how a company grew from a few engineers in San Francisco to diverse engineering teams across different continents. It also outlines the challenges that came with the growth, such as teams making decisions that prioritized their own success, lack of clear guidelines, and issues with cross-team collaboration. To address these issues, the company updated their hiring and performance review processes to emphasize company values, created technology pillars and principles, and introduced programs like recorded lunch and learn sessions. The article also provides lessons learned, such as the importance of introducing processes to ensure everyone is on the same page, inviting managers and engineers to provide feedback, and managing different opinions when discussing values and direction.

Bring It All Together: How to Implement Processes in a Nutshell

When a company is small, it is important to establish specific frameworks and strategies to add method to the madness. To do this, squads were created with a product manager, engineering manager, data analyst, and designer. The charter was then established to define expectations and goals. A regular cadence was set up for sprint planning, grooming, demo sessions, and daily standups. Tools were used for knowledge management and a product roadmap was created to provide a clear picture of features. The outcome was positive as teams now understand the value of interdependency and collaboration. Everyone should be involved in the change management process.

Aligning Hiring Panels as a New Manager

As a new manager, it can be difficult to hire for a team and evaluate existing hiring practices. My philosophy is to think about what data a hiring board should collect about a candidate and set up the hiring process like a set of experiments. Each part of the hiring process should produce high-value, unique signals for the hiring decision. It is important to provide feedback to team members who are not great interviewers and to create a single document that can be shared with everyone on the hiring panel. During the panel debriefs, leaders should provide feedback to the group and critique specific questions rather than interviewing skills.

Common Management Challenges and How to Overcome Them

As a senior director managing directors and senior engineering managers, the most challenging part is helping managers delegate and align with the organization's strategy. To increase a manager's confidence, it is important to recognize the challenges and address them by balancing mistakes and learning, navigating the political nature of the organization, and delegating responsibilities and building trust.

Additive Hiring: Looking Beyond Common Technical Interview Practices

Technical skills are important for day-to-day work, but what is more important is what a candidate can bring to the team that doesn’t currently exist. When hiring, focus on the candidate's ability to bring a calming influence to the team, as well as their "hungry, humble, and smart" qualities. Interviewers should look for what the candidate can add to the team, rather than just checking boxes.

Three Steps to Implement a Performance Improvement Plan for an Underperforming Employee

As an engineering manager, it is the responsibility to identify and work with underperforming ICs. The root cause of underperformance is often a lack of alignment between what is expected from the organization and what is delivered by the engineer. To bridge the gap between the individual and business needs, the engineering manager should use empathy and transparency to create a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). The PIP should include metrics to measure success, daily standups, and authenticity. Separation should only be taken as a last resort.

The Evolution of a Startup Co-Founder

When transitioning from a tech giant to co-founding a startup, the role of CTO evolves logarithmically with the growth of the company. In the early stages, the CTO should focus on creating a minimum viable product, hiring a few other coders, and forming an opinion on engineering rhythm. As the team grows, the CTO should focus on team structure, people management, and steering the organization. It is important to be flexible and ready to adjust as the role of CTO evolves with the growth of the company.

Landing a Management Position without Recent Experience

After transitioning from engineer to manager, the author found it difficult to land a job in management due to lack of recent experience. To prepare, they took courses on Coursera and read books to refresh their skills and knowledge. They tailored their resume to highlight their management experience and eventually landed a job at a startup. Continuing education is recommended to handle management situations and build confidence.

How to Produce Impact as a New Engineer

Working with complex problems can be rewarding and help you learn and grow. When joining a new team, it is important to be aware of the culture and dynamics and focus on how you can contribute and learn. Career development involves taking on more responsibility and gaining new perspectives. MVPs should be kept small and use quality code with tests to ensure long-term success.

How Hiring Teams and Candidates can Minimize Stress During an Interview

This article provides tips for both interviewers and interviewees to ensure a successful interview experience. For interviewers, it is important to give breaks between interviews and to provide a choice between a live coding session and a take-home project. For interviewees, it is important to approach the interview like a meeting, to take a few minutes to gather thoughts, to be honest and to ask questions. It is also important to be prepared for technical questions.

Learning How to Delegate When You Become a Manager

This article discusses the difficulty of transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager, and the importance of learning to delegate tasks to your team. It emphasizes the need to trust your team and to understand that your role as a manager is different from that of an individual contributor. The article also provides tips on how to practice self-restraint and to let go of the urge to do everything yourself.

Managing with Empathy Amidst a Pandemic

Working remotely during the pandemic has been a challenge for many managers. To help their teams, managers need to prioritize their team's needs, practice honesty and transparency, and use tools to over-communicate. This will help to maintain trust with upper management and ensure that teams can still be productive while working remotely.

Typical Challenge of Scaling Teams: What to Do When Your Process Doesn’t Scale

When rapidly scaling a team, there are many challenges that must be addressed. To ensure success, it is important to listen and observe when people come across stumbling blocks, delegate responsibilities, and make transparent and informed decisions. Additionally, the 70:20:10 model can be used to shape challenges related to scaling.

Pivoting a Product Market Fit

After joining a company that was struggling to find the correct product-market fit, the author experimented with different installment options and found that impressions increased significantly. After shutting down for two months to replatform and rebuild the product, the company relaunched and found success. The author then had to wear many hats, from developing code to managing vendors and people, and eventually handing off roles to others as the company grew.

Discovering Non-Traditional Pathways to Success

This is the story of a software engineering intern who, without a college degree, worked his way up to become the CTO/co-founder of a startup. He began tinkering with technology in middle school and continued to develop his skills in high school and college. He joined a startup through an online tech group and worked with the CEO to develop a product that would give users cashback rewards for paying with their bank. Through many iterations, he grew into the team lead position and eventually the VP of engineering, helping to manage the product and find the right product-market fit.

Taking Healthy Risks in your Career

This is the story of a mobile software engineer who has been in the industry for over 10 years. He was not sure what he wanted to do in life, but he knew what he didn't want to do. He took a chance on mobile software development and was lucky to find a role despite the recession. He then made the jump to become a manager and recently started his own company, Upspeed. His key takeaways are to not have everything figured out, know your core strengths, and open yourself up to new experiences.

Building a Remote Team: Focusing on the Hiring Pipeline

When building a team in a new location, it is important to consider the optimal team capacity, local leadership, hiring people with the right temperament, and monitoring the onboarding process. Additionally, streamlining the hiring process by having a pool of interviewers and closely monitoring the cycle time of the process can help ensure success. Cultural differences should also be taken into account when creating a hiring strategy.

Creating Impact as One of the First Hires in a Startup

This article recounts the experience of joining a startup as the seventh employee and becoming a VP of engineering. It highlights the importance of self-awareness and adaptability when joining a startup, as well as the benefits of understanding the inner workings of a company. It also emphasizes the importance of being financially responsible when considering a startup job.

A First-Time Managers Guide to Performance Management

This article discusses the challenges of transitioning from a colleague to a manager. It outlines the importance of taking a consultative approach prior to transitioning and how to navigate interpersonal relationships with team members. It also provides tips for first-time managers on how to create high-performing teams and judge reports based on job descriptions.

Growing Your Team Effectively

When scaling an engineering team, it is important to consider the challenges that come with it. When two teams were asked to grow, the output decreased due to a lack of test engineers and a new Product Manager. To solve the issue, a Senior PM was asked to mentor the PM, the roles and responsibilities of the team members were redesigned, and the engineers helped test each other's work. In the long-term, hiring alignment should be discussed and a proper growth plan should be established. Communication is key and upfront discussions should be had to ensure the team is structured properly.

Company Growth: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

This article discusses how a company grew from a few engineers in San Francisco to diverse engineering teams across different continents. It also outlines the challenges that came with the growth, such as teams making decisions that prioritized their own success, lack of clear guidelines, and issues with cross-team collaboration. To address these issues, the company updated their hiring and performance review processes to emphasize company values, created technology pillars and principles, and introduced programs like recorded lunch and learn sessions. The article also provides lessons learned, such as the importance of introducing processes to ensure everyone is on the same page, inviting managers and engineers to provide feedback, and managing different opinions when discussing values and direction.

Bring It All Together: How to Implement Processes in a Nutshell

When a company is small, it is important to establish specific frameworks and strategies to add method to the madness. To do this, squads were created with a product manager, engineering manager, data analyst, and designer. The charter was then established to define expectations and goals. A regular cadence was set up for sprint planning, grooming, demo sessions, and daily standups. Tools were used for knowledge management and a product roadmap was created to provide a clear picture of features. The outcome was positive as teams now understand the value of interdependency and collaboration. Everyone should be involved in the change management process.

Aligning Hiring Panels as a New Manager

As a new manager, it can be difficult to hire for a team and evaluate existing hiring practices. My philosophy is to think about what data a hiring board should collect about a candidate and set up the hiring process like a set of experiments. Each part of the hiring process should produce high-value, unique signals for the hiring decision. It is important to provide feedback to team members who are not great interviewers and to create a single document that can be shared with everyone on the hiring panel. During the panel debriefs, leaders should provide feedback to the group and critique specific questions rather than interviewing skills.

Common Management Challenges and How to Overcome Them

As a senior director managing directors and senior engineering managers, the most challenging part is helping managers delegate and align with the organization's strategy. To increase a manager's confidence, it is important to recognize the challenges and address them by balancing mistakes and learning, navigating the political nature of the organization, and delegating responsibilities and building trust.

Additive Hiring: Looking Beyond Common Technical Interview Practices

Technical skills are important for day-to-day work, but what is more important is what a candidate can bring to the team that doesn’t currently exist. When hiring, focus on the candidate's ability to bring a calming influence to the team, as well as their "hungry, humble, and smart" qualities. Interviewers should look for what the candidate can add to the team, rather than just checking boxes.

Three Steps to Implement a Performance Improvement Plan for an Underperforming Employee

As an engineering manager, it is the responsibility to identify and work with underperforming ICs. The root cause of underperformance is often a lack of alignment between what is expected from the organization and what is delivered by the engineer. To bridge the gap between the individual and business needs, the engineering manager should use empathy and transparency to create a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). The PIP should include metrics to measure success, daily standups, and authenticity. Separation should only be taken as a last resort.

The Evolution of a Startup Co-Founder

When transitioning from a tech giant to co-founding a startup, the role of CTO evolves logarithmically with the growth of the company. In the early stages, the CTO should focus on creating a minimum viable product, hiring a few other coders, and forming an opinion on engineering rhythm. As the team grows, the CTO should focus on team structure, people management, and steering the organization. It is important to be flexible and ready to adjust as the role of CTO evolves with the growth of the company.

Landing a Management Position without Recent Experience

After transitioning from engineer to manager, the author found it difficult to land a job in management due to lack of recent experience. To prepare, they took courses on Coursera and read books to refresh their skills and knowledge. They tailored their resume to highlight their management experience and eventually landed a job at a startup. Continuing education is recommended to handle management situations and build confidence.

How to Produce Impact as a New Engineer

Working with complex problems can be rewarding and help you learn and grow. When joining a new team, it is important to be aware of the culture and dynamics and focus on how you can contribute and learn. Career development involves taking on more responsibility and gaining new perspectives. MVPs should be kept small and use quality code with tests to ensure long-term success.

How Hiring Teams and Candidates can Minimize Stress During an Interview

This article provides tips for both interviewers and interviewees to ensure a successful interview experience. For interviewers, it is important to give breaks between interviews and to provide a choice between a live coding session and a take-home project. For interviewees, it is important to approach the interview like a meeting, to take a few minutes to gather thoughts, to be honest and to ask questions. It is also important to be prepared for technical questions.

Learning How to Delegate When You Become a Manager

This article discusses the difficulty of transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager, and the importance of learning to delegate tasks to your team. It emphasizes the need to trust your team and to understand that your role as a manager is different from that of an individual contributor. The article also provides tips on how to practice self-restraint and to let go of the urge to do everything yourself.

Managing with Empathy Amidst a Pandemic

Working remotely during the pandemic has been a challenge for many managers. To help their teams, managers need to prioritize their team's needs, practice honesty and transparency, and use tools to over-communicate. This will help to maintain trust with upper management and ensure that teams can still be productive while working remotely.

Typical Challenge of Scaling Teams: What to Do When Your Process Doesn’t Scale

When rapidly scaling a team, there are many challenges that must be addressed. To ensure success, it is important to listen and observe when people come across stumbling blocks, delegate responsibilities, and make transparent and informed decisions. Additionally, the 70:20:10 model can be used to shape challenges related to scaling.

Pivoting a Product Market Fit

After joining a company that was struggling to find the correct product-market fit, the author experimented with different installment options and found that impressions increased significantly. After shutting down for two months to replatform and rebuild the product, the company relaunched and found success. The author then had to wear many hats, from developing code to managing vendors and people, and eventually handing off roles to others as the company grew.

Discovering Non-Traditional Pathways to Success

This is the story of a software engineering intern who, without a college degree, worked his way up to become the CTO/co-founder of a startup. He began tinkering with technology in middle school and continued to develop his skills in high school and college. He joined a startup through an online tech group and worked with the CEO to develop a product that would give users cashback rewards for paying with their bank. Through many iterations, he grew into the team lead position and eventually the VP of engineering, helping to manage the product and find the right product-market fit.

Taking Healthy Risks in your Career

This is the story of a mobile software engineer who has been in the industry for over 10 years. He was not sure what he wanted to do in life, but he knew what he didn't want to do. He took a chance on mobile software development and was lucky to find a role despite the recession. He then made the jump to become a manager and recently started his own company, Upspeed. His key takeaways are to not have everything figured out, know your core strengths, and open yourself up to new experiences.

Building a Remote Team: Focusing on the Hiring Pipeline

When building a team in a new location, it is important to consider the optimal team capacity, local leadership, hiring people with the right temperament, and monitoring the onboarding process. Additionally, streamlining the hiring process by having a pool of interviewers and closely monitoring the cycle time of the process can help ensure success. Cultural differences should also be taken into account when creating a hiring strategy.

Creating Impact as One of the First Hires in a Startup

This article recounts the experience of joining a startup as the seventh employee and becoming a VP of engineering. It highlights the importance of self-awareness and adaptability when joining a startup, as well as the benefits of understanding the inner workings of a company. It also emphasizes the importance of being financially responsible when considering a startup job.

A First-Time Managers Guide to Performance Management

This article discusses the challenges of transitioning from a colleague to a manager. It outlines the importance of taking a consultative approach prior to transitioning and how to navigate interpersonal relationships with team members. It also provides tips for first-time managers on how to create high-performing teams and judge reports based on job descriptions.

Growing Your Team Effectively

When scaling an engineering team, it is important to consider the challenges that come with it. When two teams were asked to grow, the output decreased due to a lack of test engineers and a new Product Manager. To solve the issue, a Senior PM was asked to mentor the PM, the roles and responsibilities of the team members were redesigned, and the engineers helped test each other's work. In the long-term, hiring alignment should be discussed and a proper growth plan should be established. Communication is key and upfront discussions should be had to ensure the team is structured properly.

Company Growth: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

This article discusses how a company grew from a few engineers in San Francisco to diverse engineering teams across different continents. It also outlines the challenges that came with the growth, such as teams making decisions that prioritized their own success, lack of clear guidelines, and issues with cross-team collaboration. To address these issues, the company updated their hiring and performance review processes to emphasize company values, created technology pillars and principles, and introduced programs like recorded lunch and learn sessions. The article also provides lessons learned, such as the importance of introducing processes to ensure everyone is on the same page, inviting managers and engineers to provide feedback, and managing different opinions when discussing values and direction.

Bring It All Together: How to Implement Processes in a Nutshell

When a company is small, it is important to establish specific frameworks and strategies to add method to the madness. To do this, squads were created with a product manager, engineering manager, data analyst, and designer. The charter was then established to define expectations and goals. A regular cadence was set up for sprint planning, grooming, demo sessions, and daily standups. Tools were used for knowledge management and a product roadmap was created to provide a clear picture of features. The outcome was positive as teams now understand the value of interdependency and collaboration. Everyone should be involved in the change management process.

Aligning Hiring Panels as a New Manager

As a new manager, it can be difficult to hire for a team and evaluate existing hiring practices. My philosophy is to think about what data a hiring board should collect about a candidate and set up the hiring process like a set of experiments. Each part of the hiring process should produce high-value, unique signals for the hiring decision. It is important to provide feedback to team members who are not great interviewers and to create a single document that can be shared with everyone on the hiring panel. During the panel debriefs, leaders should provide feedback to the group and critique specific questions rather than interviewing skills.

Common Management Challenges and How to Overcome Them

As a senior director managing directors and senior engineering managers, the most challenging part is helping managers delegate and align with the organization's strategy. To increase a manager's confidence, it is important to recognize the challenges and address them by balancing mistakes and learning, navigating the political nature of the organization, and delegating responsibilities and building trust.

Additive Hiring: Looking Beyond Common Technical Interview Practices

Technical skills are important for day-to-day work, but what is more important is what a candidate can bring to the team that doesn’t currently exist. When hiring, focus on the candidate's ability to bring a calming influence to the team, as well as their "hungry, humble, and smart" qualities. Interviewers should look for what the candidate can add to the team, rather than just checking boxes.

Three Steps to Implement a Performance Improvement Plan for an Underperforming Employee

As an engineering manager, it is the responsibility to identify and work with underperforming ICs. The root cause of underperformance is often a lack of alignment between what is expected from the organization and what is delivered by the engineer. To bridge the gap between the individual and business needs, the engineering manager should use empathy and transparency to create a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). The PIP should include metrics to measure success, daily standups, and authenticity. Separation should only be taken as a last resort.

The Evolution of a Startup Co-Founder

When transitioning from a tech giant to co-founding a startup, the role of CTO evolves logarithmically with the growth of the company. In the early stages, the CTO should focus on creating a minimum viable product, hiring a few other coders, and forming an opinion on engineering rhythm. As the team grows, the CTO should focus on team structure, people management, and steering the organization. It is important to be flexible and ready to adjust as the role of CTO evolves with the growth of the company.

Landing a Management Position without Recent Experience

After transitioning from engineer to manager, the author found it difficult to land a job in management due to lack of recent experience. To prepare, they took courses on Coursera and read books to refresh their skills and knowledge. They tailored their resume to highlight their management experience and eventually landed a job at a startup. Continuing education is recommended to handle management situations and build confidence.

How to Produce Impact as a New Engineer

Working with complex problems can be rewarding and help you learn and grow. When joining a new team, it is important to be aware of the culture and dynamics and focus on how you can contribute and learn. Career development involves taking on more responsibility and gaining new perspectives. MVPs should be kept small and use quality code with tests to ensure long-term success.

How Hiring Teams and Candidates can Minimize Stress During an Interview

This article provides tips for both interviewers and interviewees to ensure a successful interview experience. For interviewers, it is important to give breaks between interviews and to provide a choice between a live coding session and a take-home project. For interviewees, it is important to approach the interview like a meeting, to take a few minutes to gather thoughts, to be honest and to ask questions. It is also important to be prepared for technical questions.

Learning How to Delegate When You Become a Manager

This article discusses the difficulty of transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager, and the importance of learning to delegate tasks to your team. It emphasizes the need to trust your team and to understand that your role as a manager is different from that of an individual contributor. The article also provides tips on how to practice self-restraint and to let go of the urge to do everything yourself.

Managing with Empathy Amidst a Pandemic

Working remotely during the pandemic has been a challenge for many managers. To help their teams, managers need to prioritize their team's needs, practice honesty and transparency, and use tools to over-communicate. This will help to maintain trust with upper management and ensure that teams can still be productive while working remotely.

Typical Challenge of Scaling Teams: What to Do When Your Process Doesn’t Scale

When rapidly scaling a team, there are many challenges that must be addressed. To ensure success, it is important to listen and observe when people come across stumbling blocks, delegate responsibilities, and make transparent and informed decisions. Additionally, the 70:20:10 model can be used to shape challenges related to scaling.

Pivoting a Product Market Fit

After joining a company that was struggling to find the correct product-market fit, the author experimented with different installment options and found that impressions increased significantly. After shutting down for two months to replatform and rebuild the product, the company relaunched and found success. The author then had to wear many hats, from developing code to managing vendors and people, and eventually handing off roles to others as the company grew.

Discovering Non-Traditional Pathways to Success

This is the story of a software engineering intern who, without a college degree, worked his way up to become the CTO/co-founder of a startup. He began tinkering with technology in middle school and continued to develop his skills in high school and college. He joined a startup through an online tech group and worked with the CEO to develop a product that would give users cashback rewards for paying with their bank. Through many iterations, he grew into the team lead position and eventually the VP of engineering, helping to manage the product and find the right product-market fit.

Taking Healthy Risks in your Career

This is the story of a mobile software engineer who has been in the industry for over 10 years. He was not sure what he wanted to do in life, but he knew what he didn't want to do. He took a chance on mobile software development and was lucky to find a role despite the recession. He then made the jump to become a manager and recently started his own company, Upspeed. His key takeaways are to not have everything figured out, know your core strengths, and open yourself up to new experiences.

Building a Remote Team: Focusing on the Hiring Pipeline

When building a team in a new location, it is important to consider the optimal team capacity, local leadership, hiring people with the right temperament, and monitoring the onboarding process. Additionally, streamlining the hiring process by having a pool of interviewers and closely monitoring the cycle time of the process can help ensure success. Cultural differences should also be taken into account when creating a hiring strategy.

Creating Impact as One of the First Hires in a Startup

This article recounts the experience of joining a startup as the seventh employee and becoming a VP of engineering. It highlights the importance of self-awareness and adaptability when joining a startup, as well as the benefits of understanding the inner workings of a company. It also emphasizes the importance of being financially responsible when considering a startup job.

A First-Time Managers Guide to Performance Management

This article discusses the challenges of transitioning from a colleague to a manager. It outlines the importance of taking a consultative approach prior to transitioning and how to navigate interpersonal relationships with team members. It also provides tips for first-time managers on how to create high-performing teams and judge reports based on job descriptions.

Growing Your Team Effectively

When scaling an engineering team, it is important to consider the challenges that come with it. When two teams were asked to grow, the output decreased due to a lack of test engineers and a new Product Manager. To solve the issue, a Senior PM was asked to mentor the PM, the roles and responsibilities of the team members were redesigned, and the engineers helped test each other's work. In the long-term, hiring alignment should be discussed and a proper growth plan should be established. Communication is key and upfront discussions should be had to ensure the team is structured properly.

Company Growth: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

This article discusses how a company grew from a few engineers in San Francisco to diverse engineering teams across different continents. It also outlines the challenges that came with the growth, such as teams making decisions that prioritized their own success, lack of clear guidelines, and issues with cross-team collaboration. To address these issues, the company updated their hiring and performance review processes to emphasize company values, created technology pillars and principles, and introduced programs like recorded lunch and learn sessions. The article also provides lessons learned, such as the importance of introducing processes to ensure everyone is on the same page, inviting managers and engineers to provide feedback, and managing different opinions when discussing values and direction.

Bring It All Together: How to Implement Processes in a Nutshell

When a company is small, it is important to establish specific frameworks and strategies to add method to the madness. To do this, squads were created with a product manager, engineering manager, data analyst, and designer. The charter was then established to define expectations and goals. A regular cadence was set up for sprint planning, grooming, demo sessions, and daily standups. Tools were used for knowledge management and a product roadmap was created to provide a clear picture of features. The outcome was positive as teams now understand the value of interdependency and collaboration. Everyone should be involved in the change management process.

Aligning Hiring Panels as a New Manager

As a new manager, it can be difficult to hire for a team and evaluate existing hiring practices. My philosophy is to think about what data a hiring board should collect about a candidate and set up the hiring process like a set of experiments. Each part of the hiring process should produce high-value, unique signals for the hiring decision. It is important to provide feedback to team members who are not great interviewers and to create a single document that can be shared with everyone on the hiring panel. During the panel debriefs, leaders should provide feedback to the group and critique specific questions rather than interviewing skills.

Common Management Challenges and How to Overcome Them

As a senior director managing directors and senior engineering managers, the most challenging part is helping managers delegate and align with the organization's strategy. To increase a manager's confidence, it is important to recognize the challenges and address them by balancing mistakes and learning, navigating the political nature of the organization, and delegating responsibilities and building trust.

Additive Hiring: Looking Beyond Common Technical Interview Practices

Technical skills are important for day-to-day work, but what is more important is what a candidate can bring to the team that doesn’t currently exist. When hiring, focus on the candidate's ability to bring a calming influence to the team, as well as their "hungry, humble, and smart" qualities. Interviewers should look for what the candidate can add to the team, rather than just checking boxes.

Three Steps to Implement a Performance Improvement Plan for an Underperforming Employee

As an engineering manager, it is the responsibility to identify and work with underperforming ICs. The root cause of underperformance is often a lack of alignment between what is expected from the organization and what is delivered by the engineer. To bridge the gap between the individual and business needs, the engineering manager should use empathy and transparency to create a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP). The PIP should include metrics to measure success, daily standups, and authenticity. Separation should only be taken as a last resort.

The Evolution of a Startup Co-Founder

When transitioning from a tech giant to co-founding a startup, the role of CTO evolves logarithmically with the growth of the company. In the early stages, the CTO should focus on creating a minimum viable product, hiring a few other coders, and forming an opinion on engineering rhythm. As the team grows, the CTO should focus on team structure, people management, and steering the organization. It is important to be flexible and ready to adjust as the role of CTO evolves with the growth of the company.