Knowledge shared by our community

Reducing significant inherited technical debt

When inheriting a new team and codebase, it is important to address the underlying cultural issues that lead to technical debt. This may require difficult conversations with senior members of the organization to change bad habits. Additionally, it is important to find a balance between innovation and technical debt, as it may be in the best financial interest of the company.

Ensuring a happy, productive culture and prevent burnout

This article explores tactics to ensure team members stay happy and productive in a startup environment. It focuses on giving autonomy to team members, educating them on increasing efficiency, and motivating through praise rather than fear. It also looks at the "5 Love Languages" to identify which forms of praise and appreciation resonate with individuals. The article emphasizes the importance of creating an empathetic environment in which people feel comfortable being vulnerable and open about their emotions.

Scaling a remote team from 4 to 40

This article outlines the steps taken by an engineer to scale and grow an engineering team abroad. The engineer focused on listening to the team's concerns, identifying issues in the codebase, and fostering a more personal connection with the team. Through mentoring and post-mortem sessions, the team grew happier and more autonomous. The article emphasizes the importance of connecting with the team on a personal level and working hard to gain their trust and respect.

Finding the right team structure and organization

As the company grew from 10 to 200, it became clear that the existing processes were no longer effective. To address this, the team implemented daily stand-ups, retrospectives, post-mortems, 1-on-1s, and affinity diagram brainstorming sessions. They also switched to Spotify's "Squads" system. It is important to have a persistent feedback mechanism and regular open dialog with the team to identify and implement better processes as the company scales.

How to increase your team’s diversity

This article discusses the difficulty of making a team diverse after it has already been established. It explains the steps taken to increase diversity, such as implementing a diversity slate system inspired by the Rooney Rule, and reaching out to minority groups through conferences and sponsorships. The article emphasizes the importance of being mindful of who is hired when first setting up a team, as it pays off in the long run. As a result of these efforts, 55% of the team's recruits are now women.

Successful Performance Reviews

Performance reviews are a necessary but time-consuming task for managers. At Mobiquity, the process starts in February with gathering feedback from people who have worked with the employee being evaluated. This is followed by an in-person appraisal which takes an hour. The lesson learned is to ensure the review is based on job performance and not personal relationships.

Convincing Leadership to Perform Code Analysis

This article describes how the author was able to successfully implement static code analysis software at their company, Mobiquity, by demonstrating the value of the software with data. By showing the difference between a project with and without the software, the author was able to get buy-in from management and mandate code analysis company-wide. The lesson learned is that data is key when trying to make a change in an organization.

Introducing a New Project Management Methodology

A software development team at the University of Florida was having difficulty delivering features and software on time and within budget, so the Manager researched and implemented Agile Scrum methodology. They used paper for their first two projects, and then found software to match their process. After three months, they settled on Jira, which was flexible and had other products they needed. The Manager learned to do research before changing methodologies, and to be patient when implementing the new process.

Setting Up Clear Career Paths

In the Fall of 2017, a career ladder was designed to provide two distinct paths for both managers and technical employees that were equivalent in terms of respect, authority, and compensation. The process of writing the descriptions, getting feedback, and addressing individual feedback took some time, but the feedback was positive and the introduction of a career path took about three months to roll out.

Effective One-on-Ones

When a manager at Mortar Data had an employee ready to quit, they realized they needed to restructure their one-on-one meetings. They implemented the "Update, Vent, and Disaster" approach, which involves understanding how the other person is feeling with respect to their work and the company, and getting stories from them that they wouldn't ordinarily tell. They also made the meetings less formal, and gave the employee the space to talk about their feelings. This allowed the manager to better understand their employees and address any issues they were facing.

Overhauling An Interview Process

When the author began working at Segment.com as an Engineering Manager, they had to hire quickly but the engineers were not good at conducting interviews. The author partnered closely with recruiters, used Greenhouse software, and gathered data on the existing interview process. They removed irrelevant interviews, documented technical exercises, and gave applicants take-home tests. They also performed two major technical interviews onsite. The author learned that it is important to partner closely with recruiters and to look critically at the interview process.

Contributing Effectively As a Newly Hired Manager or Head of Engineering

When transitioning into a new management role at a company, it is important to build trust and rapport with peers and reports. One way to do this is to set up one-on-one meetings with as many people in the organization as possible. Additionally, when faced with challenges, it is important to use first principles to solve them, rather than relying on cookie-cutter solutions. This approach worked well for the author when transitioning into a new role at drive.ai, and resulted in the successful planning and execution of an offsite for the engineering team.

How To Utilize Core Company Values

HackerRank needed to improve their company communication and hired a value-fit panel to come up with core values. After several iterations, the panel agreed on four values: customer delight, data over opinion, giver, and ambition. After interviewing candidates, they realized extreme ownership was a better fit. By using these values to inform their hiring process, they have ensured everyone in the company resonates with their core values. The lesson learned is that if you don't ensure cultural and value-based fit, you'll have no control over what the culture of your company is going to be.

Hiring Engineers When You Don’t Have An Engineering Team

This article discusses the challenges of hiring engineers for a US-based engineering team for HackerRank. The author suggests focusing on people applying for roles, setting up a pipeline with predefined guidelines, and networking to find the right candidates. Additionally, the author emphasizes the importance of having job guidelines and an efficient recruitment pipeline. Lastly, the author suggests focusing on candidates who are already engaged with the company's mission.

Guiding Engineers With Their Career Path

A software engineer was not performing at his usual level and was considering quitting. His manager held a meeting to understand the situation and provide advice. The manager suggested that the engineer should stick it out and deliver concrete results for the team over the next few months, and if he still wanted to leave after that, he could do so feeling good about himself. The lesson learned was to understand what employees are going through and be upfront about the reality that everyone can leave, but provide context about similar experiences.

Ensuring Engineering Teams Feel Heard

TaskEasy had a team of 25 engineers and two senior managers, but due to poor planning and communication, morale and productivity were low and four employees left in two months. The CEO stepped in and the CTO was moved to another role, while the senior manager was promoted to Director of Engineering. The Director of Engineering implemented team verticals, with engineering managers and four to five team members, and addressed the issues engineers were facing. Through listening to team members and brainstorming, a two-step plan was created to improve morale and productivity. The lesson learned was that change could have been enacted sooner if the Director of Engineering had presented proposals to more parties and taken responsibility for the issues. Additionally, team members have good ideas and the role of the engineering manager is to support and enable them.

Lessons From Working As A New Remote Team Lead

This article is about a software engineer who was offered a team lead position while also transitioning to working remotely. The engineer had to figure out how to manage a team spread across different time zones. To improve communication, the engineer moved the stand-up meeting to an asynchronous Slack channel and introduced a half-hourly daily meeting to allow team members to check in and get to know each other. The article emphasizes the importance of preparation for managers, as they may face new management problems that they have never had to deal with before.

Agreeing on Plans for Delivery

This article discusses the problem of reconciling top-down planning from the CEO with the engineers' goals. The solution was to have the engineers present their goals to the whole company, and then present them to the leadership team. This resulted in an organization that was aligned from head to toe and very motivated. The lesson learned is that it is important to ensure that the people doing the work understand why the work is important, so they can remain motivated.

Shaping An Engineering Organization

When an organization grows, it must decide how to shape its engineering teams. Two options are assigning Dev Leads to groups of four to five, or building teams of four to seven engineers that are self-reliant and can touch any area of the stack. The latter option was chosen, resulting in faster velocity, cleaner code, and well-regarded features. However, it requires hiring generalist engineers, which some may not enjoy. It is important to think about this issue early on and adjust the interview process accordingly.

Hiring For An Unfamiliar Skillset

This article discusses the challenges of hiring engineers for a hardware startup. It outlines the steps taken to source and interview candidates, such as talking to mentors and leveraging external recruiters. It also highlights the importance of designing a process that simulates real work and assessing a candidate's technical strengths to guard against unconscious bias.

Reducing significant inherited technical debt

When inheriting a new team and codebase, it is important to address the underlying cultural issues that lead to technical debt. This may require difficult conversations with senior members of the organization to change bad habits. Additionally, it is important to find a balance between innovation and technical debt, as it may be in the best financial interest of the company.

Ensuring a happy, productive culture and prevent burnout

This article explores tactics to ensure team members stay happy and productive in a startup environment. It focuses on giving autonomy to team members, educating them on increasing efficiency, and motivating through praise rather than fear. It also looks at the "5 Love Languages" to identify which forms of praise and appreciation resonate with individuals. The article emphasizes the importance of creating an empathetic environment in which people feel comfortable being vulnerable and open about their emotions.

Scaling a remote team from 4 to 40

This article outlines the steps taken by an engineer to scale and grow an engineering team abroad. The engineer focused on listening to the team's concerns, identifying issues in the codebase, and fostering a more personal connection with the team. Through mentoring and post-mortem sessions, the team grew happier and more autonomous. The article emphasizes the importance of connecting with the team on a personal level and working hard to gain their trust and respect.

Finding the right team structure and organization

As the company grew from 10 to 200, it became clear that the existing processes were no longer effective. To address this, the team implemented daily stand-ups, retrospectives, post-mortems, 1-on-1s, and affinity diagram brainstorming sessions. They also switched to Spotify's "Squads" system. It is important to have a persistent feedback mechanism and regular open dialog with the team to identify and implement better processes as the company scales.

How to increase your team’s diversity

This article discusses the difficulty of making a team diverse after it has already been established. It explains the steps taken to increase diversity, such as implementing a diversity slate system inspired by the Rooney Rule, and reaching out to minority groups through conferences and sponsorships. The article emphasizes the importance of being mindful of who is hired when first setting up a team, as it pays off in the long run. As a result of these efforts, 55% of the team's recruits are now women.

Successful Performance Reviews

Performance reviews are a necessary but time-consuming task for managers. At Mobiquity, the process starts in February with gathering feedback from people who have worked with the employee being evaluated. This is followed by an in-person appraisal which takes an hour. The lesson learned is to ensure the review is based on job performance and not personal relationships.

Convincing Leadership to Perform Code Analysis

This article describes how the author was able to successfully implement static code analysis software at their company, Mobiquity, by demonstrating the value of the software with data. By showing the difference between a project with and without the software, the author was able to get buy-in from management and mandate code analysis company-wide. The lesson learned is that data is key when trying to make a change in an organization.

Introducing a New Project Management Methodology

A software development team at the University of Florida was having difficulty delivering features and software on time and within budget, so the Manager researched and implemented Agile Scrum methodology. They used paper for their first two projects, and then found software to match their process. After three months, they settled on Jira, which was flexible and had other products they needed. The Manager learned to do research before changing methodologies, and to be patient when implementing the new process.

Setting Up Clear Career Paths

In the Fall of 2017, a career ladder was designed to provide two distinct paths for both managers and technical employees that were equivalent in terms of respect, authority, and compensation. The process of writing the descriptions, getting feedback, and addressing individual feedback took some time, but the feedback was positive and the introduction of a career path took about three months to roll out.

Effective One-on-Ones

When a manager at Mortar Data had an employee ready to quit, they realized they needed to restructure their one-on-one meetings. They implemented the "Update, Vent, and Disaster" approach, which involves understanding how the other person is feeling with respect to their work and the company, and getting stories from them that they wouldn't ordinarily tell. They also made the meetings less formal, and gave the employee the space to talk about their feelings. This allowed the manager to better understand their employees and address any issues they were facing.

Overhauling An Interview Process

When the author began working at Segment.com as an Engineering Manager, they had to hire quickly but the engineers were not good at conducting interviews. The author partnered closely with recruiters, used Greenhouse software, and gathered data on the existing interview process. They removed irrelevant interviews, documented technical exercises, and gave applicants take-home tests. They also performed two major technical interviews onsite. The author learned that it is important to partner closely with recruiters and to look critically at the interview process.

Contributing Effectively As a Newly Hired Manager or Head of Engineering

When transitioning into a new management role at a company, it is important to build trust and rapport with peers and reports. One way to do this is to set up one-on-one meetings with as many people in the organization as possible. Additionally, when faced with challenges, it is important to use first principles to solve them, rather than relying on cookie-cutter solutions. This approach worked well for the author when transitioning into a new role at drive.ai, and resulted in the successful planning and execution of an offsite for the engineering team.

How To Utilize Core Company Values

HackerRank needed to improve their company communication and hired a value-fit panel to come up with core values. After several iterations, the panel agreed on four values: customer delight, data over opinion, giver, and ambition. After interviewing candidates, they realized extreme ownership was a better fit. By using these values to inform their hiring process, they have ensured everyone in the company resonates with their core values. The lesson learned is that if you don't ensure cultural and value-based fit, you'll have no control over what the culture of your company is going to be.

Hiring Engineers When You Don’t Have An Engineering Team

This article discusses the challenges of hiring engineers for a US-based engineering team for HackerRank. The author suggests focusing on people applying for roles, setting up a pipeline with predefined guidelines, and networking to find the right candidates. Additionally, the author emphasizes the importance of having job guidelines and an efficient recruitment pipeline. Lastly, the author suggests focusing on candidates who are already engaged with the company's mission.

Guiding Engineers With Their Career Path

A software engineer was not performing at his usual level and was considering quitting. His manager held a meeting to understand the situation and provide advice. The manager suggested that the engineer should stick it out and deliver concrete results for the team over the next few months, and if he still wanted to leave after that, he could do so feeling good about himself. The lesson learned was to understand what employees are going through and be upfront about the reality that everyone can leave, but provide context about similar experiences.

Ensuring Engineering Teams Feel Heard

TaskEasy had a team of 25 engineers and two senior managers, but due to poor planning and communication, morale and productivity were low and four employees left in two months. The CEO stepped in and the CTO was moved to another role, while the senior manager was promoted to Director of Engineering. The Director of Engineering implemented team verticals, with engineering managers and four to five team members, and addressed the issues engineers were facing. Through listening to team members and brainstorming, a two-step plan was created to improve morale and productivity. The lesson learned was that change could have been enacted sooner if the Director of Engineering had presented proposals to more parties and taken responsibility for the issues. Additionally, team members have good ideas and the role of the engineering manager is to support and enable them.

Lessons From Working As A New Remote Team Lead

This article is about a software engineer who was offered a team lead position while also transitioning to working remotely. The engineer had to figure out how to manage a team spread across different time zones. To improve communication, the engineer moved the stand-up meeting to an asynchronous Slack channel and introduced a half-hourly daily meeting to allow team members to check in and get to know each other. The article emphasizes the importance of preparation for managers, as they may face new management problems that they have never had to deal with before.

Agreeing on Plans for Delivery

This article discusses the problem of reconciling top-down planning from the CEO with the engineers' goals. The solution was to have the engineers present their goals to the whole company, and then present them to the leadership team. This resulted in an organization that was aligned from head to toe and very motivated. The lesson learned is that it is important to ensure that the people doing the work understand why the work is important, so they can remain motivated.

Shaping An Engineering Organization

When an organization grows, it must decide how to shape its engineering teams. Two options are assigning Dev Leads to groups of four to five, or building teams of four to seven engineers that are self-reliant and can touch any area of the stack. The latter option was chosen, resulting in faster velocity, cleaner code, and well-regarded features. However, it requires hiring generalist engineers, which some may not enjoy. It is important to think about this issue early on and adjust the interview process accordingly.

Hiring For An Unfamiliar Skillset

This article discusses the challenges of hiring engineers for a hardware startup. It outlines the steps taken to source and interview candidates, such as talking to mentors and leveraging external recruiters. It also highlights the importance of designing a process that simulates real work and assessing a candidate's technical strengths to guard against unconscious bias.

Reducing significant inherited technical debt

When inheriting a new team and codebase, it is important to address the underlying cultural issues that lead to technical debt. This may require difficult conversations with senior members of the organization to change bad habits. Additionally, it is important to find a balance between innovation and technical debt, as it may be in the best financial interest of the company.

Ensuring a happy, productive culture and prevent burnout

This article explores tactics to ensure team members stay happy and productive in a startup environment. It focuses on giving autonomy to team members, educating them on increasing efficiency, and motivating through praise rather than fear. It also looks at the "5 Love Languages" to identify which forms of praise and appreciation resonate with individuals. The article emphasizes the importance of creating an empathetic environment in which people feel comfortable being vulnerable and open about their emotions.

Scaling a remote team from 4 to 40

This article outlines the steps taken by an engineer to scale and grow an engineering team abroad. The engineer focused on listening to the team's concerns, identifying issues in the codebase, and fostering a more personal connection with the team. Through mentoring and post-mortem sessions, the team grew happier and more autonomous. The article emphasizes the importance of connecting with the team on a personal level and working hard to gain their trust and respect.

Finding the right team structure and organization

As the company grew from 10 to 200, it became clear that the existing processes were no longer effective. To address this, the team implemented daily stand-ups, retrospectives, post-mortems, 1-on-1s, and affinity diagram brainstorming sessions. They also switched to Spotify's "Squads" system. It is important to have a persistent feedback mechanism and regular open dialog with the team to identify and implement better processes as the company scales.

How to increase your team’s diversity

This article discusses the difficulty of making a team diverse after it has already been established. It explains the steps taken to increase diversity, such as implementing a diversity slate system inspired by the Rooney Rule, and reaching out to minority groups through conferences and sponsorships. The article emphasizes the importance of being mindful of who is hired when first setting up a team, as it pays off in the long run. As a result of these efforts, 55% of the team's recruits are now women.

Successful Performance Reviews

Performance reviews are a necessary but time-consuming task for managers. At Mobiquity, the process starts in February with gathering feedback from people who have worked with the employee being evaluated. This is followed by an in-person appraisal which takes an hour. The lesson learned is to ensure the review is based on job performance and not personal relationships.

Convincing Leadership to Perform Code Analysis

This article describes how the author was able to successfully implement static code analysis software at their company, Mobiquity, by demonstrating the value of the software with data. By showing the difference between a project with and without the software, the author was able to get buy-in from management and mandate code analysis company-wide. The lesson learned is that data is key when trying to make a change in an organization.

Introducing a New Project Management Methodology

A software development team at the University of Florida was having difficulty delivering features and software on time and within budget, so the Manager researched and implemented Agile Scrum methodology. They used paper for their first two projects, and then found software to match their process. After three months, they settled on Jira, which was flexible and had other products they needed. The Manager learned to do research before changing methodologies, and to be patient when implementing the new process.

Setting Up Clear Career Paths

In the Fall of 2017, a career ladder was designed to provide two distinct paths for both managers and technical employees that were equivalent in terms of respect, authority, and compensation. The process of writing the descriptions, getting feedback, and addressing individual feedback took some time, but the feedback was positive and the introduction of a career path took about three months to roll out.

Effective One-on-Ones

When a manager at Mortar Data had an employee ready to quit, they realized they needed to restructure their one-on-one meetings. They implemented the "Update, Vent, and Disaster" approach, which involves understanding how the other person is feeling with respect to their work and the company, and getting stories from them that they wouldn't ordinarily tell. They also made the meetings less formal, and gave the employee the space to talk about their feelings. This allowed the manager to better understand their employees and address any issues they were facing.

Overhauling An Interview Process

When the author began working at Segment.com as an Engineering Manager, they had to hire quickly but the engineers were not good at conducting interviews. The author partnered closely with recruiters, used Greenhouse software, and gathered data on the existing interview process. They removed irrelevant interviews, documented technical exercises, and gave applicants take-home tests. They also performed two major technical interviews onsite. The author learned that it is important to partner closely with recruiters and to look critically at the interview process.

Contributing Effectively As a Newly Hired Manager or Head of Engineering

When transitioning into a new management role at a company, it is important to build trust and rapport with peers and reports. One way to do this is to set up one-on-one meetings with as many people in the organization as possible. Additionally, when faced with challenges, it is important to use first principles to solve them, rather than relying on cookie-cutter solutions. This approach worked well for the author when transitioning into a new role at drive.ai, and resulted in the successful planning and execution of an offsite for the engineering team.

How To Utilize Core Company Values

HackerRank needed to improve their company communication and hired a value-fit panel to come up with core values. After several iterations, the panel agreed on four values: customer delight, data over opinion, giver, and ambition. After interviewing candidates, they realized extreme ownership was a better fit. By using these values to inform their hiring process, they have ensured everyone in the company resonates with their core values. The lesson learned is that if you don't ensure cultural and value-based fit, you'll have no control over what the culture of your company is going to be.

Hiring Engineers When You Don’t Have An Engineering Team

This article discusses the challenges of hiring engineers for a US-based engineering team for HackerRank. The author suggests focusing on people applying for roles, setting up a pipeline with predefined guidelines, and networking to find the right candidates. Additionally, the author emphasizes the importance of having job guidelines and an efficient recruitment pipeline. Lastly, the author suggests focusing on candidates who are already engaged with the company's mission.

Guiding Engineers With Their Career Path

A software engineer was not performing at his usual level and was considering quitting. His manager held a meeting to understand the situation and provide advice. The manager suggested that the engineer should stick it out and deliver concrete results for the team over the next few months, and if he still wanted to leave after that, he could do so feeling good about himself. The lesson learned was to understand what employees are going through and be upfront about the reality that everyone can leave, but provide context about similar experiences.

Ensuring Engineering Teams Feel Heard

TaskEasy had a team of 25 engineers and two senior managers, but due to poor planning and communication, morale and productivity were low and four employees left in two months. The CEO stepped in and the CTO was moved to another role, while the senior manager was promoted to Director of Engineering. The Director of Engineering implemented team verticals, with engineering managers and four to five team members, and addressed the issues engineers were facing. Through listening to team members and brainstorming, a two-step plan was created to improve morale and productivity. The lesson learned was that change could have been enacted sooner if the Director of Engineering had presented proposals to more parties and taken responsibility for the issues. Additionally, team members have good ideas and the role of the engineering manager is to support and enable them.

Lessons From Working As A New Remote Team Lead

This article is about a software engineer who was offered a team lead position while also transitioning to working remotely. The engineer had to figure out how to manage a team spread across different time zones. To improve communication, the engineer moved the stand-up meeting to an asynchronous Slack channel and introduced a half-hourly daily meeting to allow team members to check in and get to know each other. The article emphasizes the importance of preparation for managers, as they may face new management problems that they have never had to deal with before.

Agreeing on Plans for Delivery

This article discusses the problem of reconciling top-down planning from the CEO with the engineers' goals. The solution was to have the engineers present their goals to the whole company, and then present them to the leadership team. This resulted in an organization that was aligned from head to toe and very motivated. The lesson learned is that it is important to ensure that the people doing the work understand why the work is important, so they can remain motivated.

Shaping An Engineering Organization

When an organization grows, it must decide how to shape its engineering teams. Two options are assigning Dev Leads to groups of four to five, or building teams of four to seven engineers that are self-reliant and can touch any area of the stack. The latter option was chosen, resulting in faster velocity, cleaner code, and well-regarded features. However, it requires hiring generalist engineers, which some may not enjoy. It is important to think about this issue early on and adjust the interview process accordingly.

Hiring For An Unfamiliar Skillset

This article discusses the challenges of hiring engineers for a hardware startup. It outlines the steps taken to source and interview candidates, such as talking to mentors and leveraging external recruiters. It also highlights the importance of designing a process that simulates real work and assessing a candidate's technical strengths to guard against unconscious bias.

Reducing significant inherited technical debt

When inheriting a new team and codebase, it is important to address the underlying cultural issues that lead to technical debt. This may require difficult conversations with senior members of the organization to change bad habits. Additionally, it is important to find a balance between innovation and technical debt, as it may be in the best financial interest of the company.

Ensuring a happy, productive culture and prevent burnout

This article explores tactics to ensure team members stay happy and productive in a startup environment. It focuses on giving autonomy to team members, educating them on increasing efficiency, and motivating through praise rather than fear. It also looks at the "5 Love Languages" to identify which forms of praise and appreciation resonate with individuals. The article emphasizes the importance of creating an empathetic environment in which people feel comfortable being vulnerable and open about their emotions.

Scaling a remote team from 4 to 40

This article outlines the steps taken by an engineer to scale and grow an engineering team abroad. The engineer focused on listening to the team's concerns, identifying issues in the codebase, and fostering a more personal connection with the team. Through mentoring and post-mortem sessions, the team grew happier and more autonomous. The article emphasizes the importance of connecting with the team on a personal level and working hard to gain their trust and respect.

Finding the right team structure and organization

As the company grew from 10 to 200, it became clear that the existing processes were no longer effective. To address this, the team implemented daily stand-ups, retrospectives, post-mortems, 1-on-1s, and affinity diagram brainstorming sessions. They also switched to Spotify's "Squads" system. It is important to have a persistent feedback mechanism and regular open dialog with the team to identify and implement better processes as the company scales.

How to increase your team’s diversity

This article discusses the difficulty of making a team diverse after it has already been established. It explains the steps taken to increase diversity, such as implementing a diversity slate system inspired by the Rooney Rule, and reaching out to minority groups through conferences and sponsorships. The article emphasizes the importance of being mindful of who is hired when first setting up a team, as it pays off in the long run. As a result of these efforts, 55% of the team's recruits are now women.

Successful Performance Reviews

Performance reviews are a necessary but time-consuming task for managers. At Mobiquity, the process starts in February with gathering feedback from people who have worked with the employee being evaluated. This is followed by an in-person appraisal which takes an hour. The lesson learned is to ensure the review is based on job performance and not personal relationships.

Convincing Leadership to Perform Code Analysis

This article describes how the author was able to successfully implement static code analysis software at their company, Mobiquity, by demonstrating the value of the software with data. By showing the difference between a project with and without the software, the author was able to get buy-in from management and mandate code analysis company-wide. The lesson learned is that data is key when trying to make a change in an organization.

Introducing a New Project Management Methodology

A software development team at the University of Florida was having difficulty delivering features and software on time and within budget, so the Manager researched and implemented Agile Scrum methodology. They used paper for their first two projects, and then found software to match their process. After three months, they settled on Jira, which was flexible and had other products they needed. The Manager learned to do research before changing methodologies, and to be patient when implementing the new process.

Setting Up Clear Career Paths

In the Fall of 2017, a career ladder was designed to provide two distinct paths for both managers and technical employees that were equivalent in terms of respect, authority, and compensation. The process of writing the descriptions, getting feedback, and addressing individual feedback took some time, but the feedback was positive and the introduction of a career path took about three months to roll out.

Effective One-on-Ones

When a manager at Mortar Data had an employee ready to quit, they realized they needed to restructure their one-on-one meetings. They implemented the "Update, Vent, and Disaster" approach, which involves understanding how the other person is feeling with respect to their work and the company, and getting stories from them that they wouldn't ordinarily tell. They also made the meetings less formal, and gave the employee the space to talk about their feelings. This allowed the manager to better understand their employees and address any issues they were facing.

Overhauling An Interview Process

When the author began working at Segment.com as an Engineering Manager, they had to hire quickly but the engineers were not good at conducting interviews. The author partnered closely with recruiters, used Greenhouse software, and gathered data on the existing interview process. They removed irrelevant interviews, documented technical exercises, and gave applicants take-home tests. They also performed two major technical interviews onsite. The author learned that it is important to partner closely with recruiters and to look critically at the interview process.

Contributing Effectively As a Newly Hired Manager or Head of Engineering

When transitioning into a new management role at a company, it is important to build trust and rapport with peers and reports. One way to do this is to set up one-on-one meetings with as many people in the organization as possible. Additionally, when faced with challenges, it is important to use first principles to solve them, rather than relying on cookie-cutter solutions. This approach worked well for the author when transitioning into a new role at drive.ai, and resulted in the successful planning and execution of an offsite for the engineering team.

How To Utilize Core Company Values

HackerRank needed to improve their company communication and hired a value-fit panel to come up with core values. After several iterations, the panel agreed on four values: customer delight, data over opinion, giver, and ambition. After interviewing candidates, they realized extreme ownership was a better fit. By using these values to inform their hiring process, they have ensured everyone in the company resonates with their core values. The lesson learned is that if you don't ensure cultural and value-based fit, you'll have no control over what the culture of your company is going to be.

Hiring Engineers When You Don’t Have An Engineering Team

This article discusses the challenges of hiring engineers for a US-based engineering team for HackerRank. The author suggests focusing on people applying for roles, setting up a pipeline with predefined guidelines, and networking to find the right candidates. Additionally, the author emphasizes the importance of having job guidelines and an efficient recruitment pipeline. Lastly, the author suggests focusing on candidates who are already engaged with the company's mission.

Guiding Engineers With Their Career Path

A software engineer was not performing at his usual level and was considering quitting. His manager held a meeting to understand the situation and provide advice. The manager suggested that the engineer should stick it out and deliver concrete results for the team over the next few months, and if he still wanted to leave after that, he could do so feeling good about himself. The lesson learned was to understand what employees are going through and be upfront about the reality that everyone can leave, but provide context about similar experiences.

Ensuring Engineering Teams Feel Heard

TaskEasy had a team of 25 engineers and two senior managers, but due to poor planning and communication, morale and productivity were low and four employees left in two months. The CEO stepped in and the CTO was moved to another role, while the senior manager was promoted to Director of Engineering. The Director of Engineering implemented team verticals, with engineering managers and four to five team members, and addressed the issues engineers were facing. Through listening to team members and brainstorming, a two-step plan was created to improve morale and productivity. The lesson learned was that change could have been enacted sooner if the Director of Engineering had presented proposals to more parties and taken responsibility for the issues. Additionally, team members have good ideas and the role of the engineering manager is to support and enable them.

Lessons From Working As A New Remote Team Lead

This article is about a software engineer who was offered a team lead position while also transitioning to working remotely. The engineer had to figure out how to manage a team spread across different time zones. To improve communication, the engineer moved the stand-up meeting to an asynchronous Slack channel and introduced a half-hourly daily meeting to allow team members to check in and get to know each other. The article emphasizes the importance of preparation for managers, as they may face new management problems that they have never had to deal with before.

Agreeing on Plans for Delivery

This article discusses the problem of reconciling top-down planning from the CEO with the engineers' goals. The solution was to have the engineers present their goals to the whole company, and then present them to the leadership team. This resulted in an organization that was aligned from head to toe and very motivated. The lesson learned is that it is important to ensure that the people doing the work understand why the work is important, so they can remain motivated.

Shaping An Engineering Organization

When an organization grows, it must decide how to shape its engineering teams. Two options are assigning Dev Leads to groups of four to five, or building teams of four to seven engineers that are self-reliant and can touch any area of the stack. The latter option was chosen, resulting in faster velocity, cleaner code, and well-regarded features. However, it requires hiring generalist engineers, which some may not enjoy. It is important to think about this issue early on and adjust the interview process accordingly.

Hiring For An Unfamiliar Skillset

This article discusses the challenges of hiring engineers for a hardware startup. It outlines the steps taken to source and interview candidates, such as talking to mentors and leveraging external recruiters. It also highlights the importance of designing a process that simulates real work and assessing a candidate's technical strengths to guard against unconscious bias.

Reducing significant inherited technical debt

When inheriting a new team and codebase, it is important to address the underlying cultural issues that lead to technical debt. This may require difficult conversations with senior members of the organization to change bad habits. Additionally, it is important to find a balance between innovation and technical debt, as it may be in the best financial interest of the company.

Ensuring a happy, productive culture and prevent burnout

This article explores tactics to ensure team members stay happy and productive in a startup environment. It focuses on giving autonomy to team members, educating them on increasing efficiency, and motivating through praise rather than fear. It also looks at the "5 Love Languages" to identify which forms of praise and appreciation resonate with individuals. The article emphasizes the importance of creating an empathetic environment in which people feel comfortable being vulnerable and open about their emotions.

Scaling a remote team from 4 to 40

This article outlines the steps taken by an engineer to scale and grow an engineering team abroad. The engineer focused on listening to the team's concerns, identifying issues in the codebase, and fostering a more personal connection with the team. Through mentoring and post-mortem sessions, the team grew happier and more autonomous. The article emphasizes the importance of connecting with the team on a personal level and working hard to gain their trust and respect.

Finding the right team structure and organization

As the company grew from 10 to 200, it became clear that the existing processes were no longer effective. To address this, the team implemented daily stand-ups, retrospectives, post-mortems, 1-on-1s, and affinity diagram brainstorming sessions. They also switched to Spotify's "Squads" system. It is important to have a persistent feedback mechanism and regular open dialog with the team to identify and implement better processes as the company scales.

How to increase your team’s diversity

This article discusses the difficulty of making a team diverse after it has already been established. It explains the steps taken to increase diversity, such as implementing a diversity slate system inspired by the Rooney Rule, and reaching out to minority groups through conferences and sponsorships. The article emphasizes the importance of being mindful of who is hired when first setting up a team, as it pays off in the long run. As a result of these efforts, 55% of the team's recruits are now women.

Successful Performance Reviews

Performance reviews are a necessary but time-consuming task for managers. At Mobiquity, the process starts in February with gathering feedback from people who have worked with the employee being evaluated. This is followed by an in-person appraisal which takes an hour. The lesson learned is to ensure the review is based on job performance and not personal relationships.

Convincing Leadership to Perform Code Analysis

This article describes how the author was able to successfully implement static code analysis software at their company, Mobiquity, by demonstrating the value of the software with data. By showing the difference between a project with and without the software, the author was able to get buy-in from management and mandate code analysis company-wide. The lesson learned is that data is key when trying to make a change in an organization.

Introducing a New Project Management Methodology

A software development team at the University of Florida was having difficulty delivering features and software on time and within budget, so the Manager researched and implemented Agile Scrum methodology. They used paper for their first two projects, and then found software to match their process. After three months, they settled on Jira, which was flexible and had other products they needed. The Manager learned to do research before changing methodologies, and to be patient when implementing the new process.

Setting Up Clear Career Paths

In the Fall of 2017, a career ladder was designed to provide two distinct paths for both managers and technical employees that were equivalent in terms of respect, authority, and compensation. The process of writing the descriptions, getting feedback, and addressing individual feedback took some time, but the feedback was positive and the introduction of a career path took about three months to roll out.

Effective One-on-Ones

When a manager at Mortar Data had an employee ready to quit, they realized they needed to restructure their one-on-one meetings. They implemented the "Update, Vent, and Disaster" approach, which involves understanding how the other person is feeling with respect to their work and the company, and getting stories from them that they wouldn't ordinarily tell. They also made the meetings less formal, and gave the employee the space to talk about their feelings. This allowed the manager to better understand their employees and address any issues they were facing.

Overhauling An Interview Process

When the author began working at Segment.com as an Engineering Manager, they had to hire quickly but the engineers were not good at conducting interviews. The author partnered closely with recruiters, used Greenhouse software, and gathered data on the existing interview process. They removed irrelevant interviews, documented technical exercises, and gave applicants take-home tests. They also performed two major technical interviews onsite. The author learned that it is important to partner closely with recruiters and to look critically at the interview process.

Contributing Effectively As a Newly Hired Manager or Head of Engineering

When transitioning into a new management role at a company, it is important to build trust and rapport with peers and reports. One way to do this is to set up one-on-one meetings with as many people in the organization as possible. Additionally, when faced with challenges, it is important to use first principles to solve them, rather than relying on cookie-cutter solutions. This approach worked well for the author when transitioning into a new role at drive.ai, and resulted in the successful planning and execution of an offsite for the engineering team.

How To Utilize Core Company Values

HackerRank needed to improve their company communication and hired a value-fit panel to come up with core values. After several iterations, the panel agreed on four values: customer delight, data over opinion, giver, and ambition. After interviewing candidates, they realized extreme ownership was a better fit. By using these values to inform their hiring process, they have ensured everyone in the company resonates with their core values. The lesson learned is that if you don't ensure cultural and value-based fit, you'll have no control over what the culture of your company is going to be.

Hiring Engineers When You Don’t Have An Engineering Team

This article discusses the challenges of hiring engineers for a US-based engineering team for HackerRank. The author suggests focusing on people applying for roles, setting up a pipeline with predefined guidelines, and networking to find the right candidates. Additionally, the author emphasizes the importance of having job guidelines and an efficient recruitment pipeline. Lastly, the author suggests focusing on candidates who are already engaged with the company's mission.

Guiding Engineers With Their Career Path

A software engineer was not performing at his usual level and was considering quitting. His manager held a meeting to understand the situation and provide advice. The manager suggested that the engineer should stick it out and deliver concrete results for the team over the next few months, and if he still wanted to leave after that, he could do so feeling good about himself. The lesson learned was to understand what employees are going through and be upfront about the reality that everyone can leave, but provide context about similar experiences.

Ensuring Engineering Teams Feel Heard

TaskEasy had a team of 25 engineers and two senior managers, but due to poor planning and communication, morale and productivity were low and four employees left in two months. The CEO stepped in and the CTO was moved to another role, while the senior manager was promoted to Director of Engineering. The Director of Engineering implemented team verticals, with engineering managers and four to five team members, and addressed the issues engineers were facing. Through listening to team members and brainstorming, a two-step plan was created to improve morale and productivity. The lesson learned was that change could have been enacted sooner if the Director of Engineering had presented proposals to more parties and taken responsibility for the issues. Additionally, team members have good ideas and the role of the engineering manager is to support and enable them.

Lessons From Working As A New Remote Team Lead

This article is about a software engineer who was offered a team lead position while also transitioning to working remotely. The engineer had to figure out how to manage a team spread across different time zones. To improve communication, the engineer moved the stand-up meeting to an asynchronous Slack channel and introduced a half-hourly daily meeting to allow team members to check in and get to know each other. The article emphasizes the importance of preparation for managers, as they may face new management problems that they have never had to deal with before.

Agreeing on Plans for Delivery

This article discusses the problem of reconciling top-down planning from the CEO with the engineers' goals. The solution was to have the engineers present their goals to the whole company, and then present them to the leadership team. This resulted in an organization that was aligned from head to toe and very motivated. The lesson learned is that it is important to ensure that the people doing the work understand why the work is important, so they can remain motivated.

Shaping An Engineering Organization

When an organization grows, it must decide how to shape its engineering teams. Two options are assigning Dev Leads to groups of four to five, or building teams of four to seven engineers that are self-reliant and can touch any area of the stack. The latter option was chosen, resulting in faster velocity, cleaner code, and well-regarded features. However, it requires hiring generalist engineers, which some may not enjoy. It is important to think about this issue early on and adjust the interview process accordingly.

Hiring For An Unfamiliar Skillset

This article discusses the challenges of hiring engineers for a hardware startup. It outlines the steps taken to source and interview candidates, such as talking to mentors and leveraging external recruiters. It also highlights the importance of designing a process that simulates real work and assessing a candidate's technical strengths to guard against unconscious bias.

Reducing significant inherited technical debt

When inheriting a new team and codebase, it is important to address the underlying cultural issues that lead to technical debt. This may require difficult conversations with senior members of the organization to change bad habits. Additionally, it is important to find a balance between innovation and technical debt, as it may be in the best financial interest of the company.

Ensuring a happy, productive culture and prevent burnout

This article explores tactics to ensure team members stay happy and productive in a startup environment. It focuses on giving autonomy to team members, educating them on increasing efficiency, and motivating through praise rather than fear. It also looks at the "5 Love Languages" to identify which forms of praise and appreciation resonate with individuals. The article emphasizes the importance of creating an empathetic environment in which people feel comfortable being vulnerable and open about their emotions.

Scaling a remote team from 4 to 40

This article outlines the steps taken by an engineer to scale and grow an engineering team abroad. The engineer focused on listening to the team's concerns, identifying issues in the codebase, and fostering a more personal connection with the team. Through mentoring and post-mortem sessions, the team grew happier and more autonomous. The article emphasizes the importance of connecting with the team on a personal level and working hard to gain their trust and respect.

Finding the right team structure and organization

As the company grew from 10 to 200, it became clear that the existing processes were no longer effective. To address this, the team implemented daily stand-ups, retrospectives, post-mortems, 1-on-1s, and affinity diagram brainstorming sessions. They also switched to Spotify's "Squads" system. It is important to have a persistent feedback mechanism and regular open dialog with the team to identify and implement better processes as the company scales.

How to increase your team’s diversity

This article discusses the difficulty of making a team diverse after it has already been established. It explains the steps taken to increase diversity, such as implementing a diversity slate system inspired by the Rooney Rule, and reaching out to minority groups through conferences and sponsorships. The article emphasizes the importance of being mindful of who is hired when first setting up a team, as it pays off in the long run. As a result of these efforts, 55% of the team's recruits are now women.

Successful Performance Reviews

Performance reviews are a necessary but time-consuming task for managers. At Mobiquity, the process starts in February with gathering feedback from people who have worked with the employee being evaluated. This is followed by an in-person appraisal which takes an hour. The lesson learned is to ensure the review is based on job performance and not personal relationships.

Convincing Leadership to Perform Code Analysis

This article describes how the author was able to successfully implement static code analysis software at their company, Mobiquity, by demonstrating the value of the software with data. By showing the difference between a project with and without the software, the author was able to get buy-in from management and mandate code analysis company-wide. The lesson learned is that data is key when trying to make a change in an organization.

Introducing a New Project Management Methodology

A software development team at the University of Florida was having difficulty delivering features and software on time and within budget, so the Manager researched and implemented Agile Scrum methodology. They used paper for their first two projects, and then found software to match their process. After three months, they settled on Jira, which was flexible and had other products they needed. The Manager learned to do research before changing methodologies, and to be patient when implementing the new process.

Setting Up Clear Career Paths

In the Fall of 2017, a career ladder was designed to provide two distinct paths for both managers and technical employees that were equivalent in terms of respect, authority, and compensation. The process of writing the descriptions, getting feedback, and addressing individual feedback took some time, but the feedback was positive and the introduction of a career path took about three months to roll out.

Effective One-on-Ones

When a manager at Mortar Data had an employee ready to quit, they realized they needed to restructure their one-on-one meetings. They implemented the "Update, Vent, and Disaster" approach, which involves understanding how the other person is feeling with respect to their work and the company, and getting stories from them that they wouldn't ordinarily tell. They also made the meetings less formal, and gave the employee the space to talk about their feelings. This allowed the manager to better understand their employees and address any issues they were facing.

Overhauling An Interview Process

When the author began working at Segment.com as an Engineering Manager, they had to hire quickly but the engineers were not good at conducting interviews. The author partnered closely with recruiters, used Greenhouse software, and gathered data on the existing interview process. They removed irrelevant interviews, documented technical exercises, and gave applicants take-home tests. They also performed two major technical interviews onsite. The author learned that it is important to partner closely with recruiters and to look critically at the interview process.

Contributing Effectively As a Newly Hired Manager or Head of Engineering

When transitioning into a new management role at a company, it is important to build trust and rapport with peers and reports. One way to do this is to set up one-on-one meetings with as many people in the organization as possible. Additionally, when faced with challenges, it is important to use first principles to solve them, rather than relying on cookie-cutter solutions. This approach worked well for the author when transitioning into a new role at drive.ai, and resulted in the successful planning and execution of an offsite for the engineering team.

How To Utilize Core Company Values

HackerRank needed to improve their company communication and hired a value-fit panel to come up with core values. After several iterations, the panel agreed on four values: customer delight, data over opinion, giver, and ambition. After interviewing candidates, they realized extreme ownership was a better fit. By using these values to inform their hiring process, they have ensured everyone in the company resonates with their core values. The lesson learned is that if you don't ensure cultural and value-based fit, you'll have no control over what the culture of your company is going to be.

Hiring Engineers When You Don’t Have An Engineering Team

This article discusses the challenges of hiring engineers for a US-based engineering team for HackerRank. The author suggests focusing on people applying for roles, setting up a pipeline with predefined guidelines, and networking to find the right candidates. Additionally, the author emphasizes the importance of having job guidelines and an efficient recruitment pipeline. Lastly, the author suggests focusing on candidates who are already engaged with the company's mission.

Guiding Engineers With Their Career Path

A software engineer was not performing at his usual level and was considering quitting. His manager held a meeting to understand the situation and provide advice. The manager suggested that the engineer should stick it out and deliver concrete results for the team over the next few months, and if he still wanted to leave after that, he could do so feeling good about himself. The lesson learned was to understand what employees are going through and be upfront about the reality that everyone can leave, but provide context about similar experiences.

Ensuring Engineering Teams Feel Heard

TaskEasy had a team of 25 engineers and two senior managers, but due to poor planning and communication, morale and productivity were low and four employees left in two months. The CEO stepped in and the CTO was moved to another role, while the senior manager was promoted to Director of Engineering. The Director of Engineering implemented team verticals, with engineering managers and four to five team members, and addressed the issues engineers were facing. Through listening to team members and brainstorming, a two-step plan was created to improve morale and productivity. The lesson learned was that change could have been enacted sooner if the Director of Engineering had presented proposals to more parties and taken responsibility for the issues. Additionally, team members have good ideas and the role of the engineering manager is to support and enable them.

Lessons From Working As A New Remote Team Lead

This article is about a software engineer who was offered a team lead position while also transitioning to working remotely. The engineer had to figure out how to manage a team spread across different time zones. To improve communication, the engineer moved the stand-up meeting to an asynchronous Slack channel and introduced a half-hourly daily meeting to allow team members to check in and get to know each other. The article emphasizes the importance of preparation for managers, as they may face new management problems that they have never had to deal with before.

Agreeing on Plans for Delivery

This article discusses the problem of reconciling top-down planning from the CEO with the engineers' goals. The solution was to have the engineers present their goals to the whole company, and then present them to the leadership team. This resulted in an organization that was aligned from head to toe and very motivated. The lesson learned is that it is important to ensure that the people doing the work understand why the work is important, so they can remain motivated.

Shaping An Engineering Organization

When an organization grows, it must decide how to shape its engineering teams. Two options are assigning Dev Leads to groups of four to five, or building teams of four to seven engineers that are self-reliant and can touch any area of the stack. The latter option was chosen, resulting in faster velocity, cleaner code, and well-regarded features. However, it requires hiring generalist engineers, which some may not enjoy. It is important to think about this issue early on and adjust the interview process accordingly.

Hiring For An Unfamiliar Skillset

This article discusses the challenges of hiring engineers for a hardware startup. It outlines the steps taken to source and interview candidates, such as talking to mentors and leveraging external recruiters. It also highlights the importance of designing a process that simulates real work and assessing a candidate's technical strengths to guard against unconscious bias.