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How to Move From A Hacking Culture To A Software Engineering Culture

When the Mobile team at Zendesk grew from 4 to 15 members, the team's "hacking culture" approach to work became problematic. The manager took action to encourage a more standard process and hired engineers who valued quality engineering and could work fast. This allowed the team to build foundations that would ensure disagreements were handled with engineering values in mind, and that quality was prioritized over speed.

Lessons From Setting Up an Insource Operations Offshore

This article discusses the experience of a CTO at a VC-backed SaaS company who attempted to accelerate their roadmap by offshoring their engineering team. Despite having the right people and culture in place, the team hired too quickly and did not have the right frameworks in place to make the arrangement successful. The cost savings were not realized and the output was significantly lower than expected. The takeaway is to start slowly when setting up an offshore location and to have a strong technical leader in place who understands the organization's culture and technical requirements.

How to manage the ego of a rockstar developer

A rockstar developer was exhibiting negative behavior in the team, such as not listening to other team members and being aggressive when defending his point of view. After investigating the root cause of his behavior, it was discovered that he felt unappreciated and needed to show everyone that he was the smartest person in the room. The manager took action by having a difficult conversation with him, praising him publicly and privately, and pushing for a reevaluation of his compensation. This simple solution was highly effective in fixing the problem.

Reducing Engineer Burnout

An employee came to their manager with burnout due to having too many meetings and not enough time to focus on engineering. The manager and employee worked together to identify what the manager could do to help, such as talking to recruiting and blocking off time for engineering work. The manager also took the initiative to look at the team's calendar each week to ensure they had the capacity to get their work done. This situation demonstrates the importance of managers taking the time to understand their reports' obligations and helping to prevent burnout.

Resolving Conflicts Between Engineers And Designers

When faced with a conflict between an engineer and a designer, the Engineering Manager of Salesforce took action by talking to both parties and getting them to communicate directly. Through code pairing and opening up communication lines, the engineer and designer were able to work together and build a better relationship. The lesson learned is that communication and respect between engineers and designers is key for a successful relationship.

Structuring your time as a new manager

When promoted from Engineering IC to Engineering Manager, the author was thrown in the deep end and had to figure out how to structure their day and allocate their time. They realized they needed to have one-on-ones with their reports and their boss, and made hard decisions about what engineering work to cut back on. This approach gave them a real sense of the conversations they needed to have and allowed them to give engineering work to their team.

Implementing a major platform technology change

The company needed to improve its full-text search platform to allow for near-instantaneous addition and search of new documents. To do this, the engineering manager sponsored a sequence of internal experiments and formed a dedicated Core team. They communicated the technical risks to upper management and implemented the changes in a methodical way, allowing for customers and users to be migrated back to the old system in the event of a catastrophic fail. Through this process, they were able to successfully introduce the new technology.

Resolving conflicts between two top engineers

As VP of Engineering at ebrary, the author faced a conflict between two senior architects over a change implementation for the search stack. To resolve the issue, the author used the Columbo method to ask pertinent questions and drill down to the fundamentals of the disagreement. It was determined that the conflict was not technical, but about ownership, and a solution was reached with compromise for risk reduction. The author learned that it is important to recognize conflicts early on and to guide employees to agreement on the essence of the problem, while preserving authority and responsibility for all parties.

Developing Managers Internally

This article discusses the importance of investing in managers and how to do it correctly. It outlines the steps taken to identify potential managers, mentor and coach them, and invest in them through in-house training and book clubs. The article also highlights the importance of investing in managers to ensure the success of the team and company, as well as the lessons learned from the process.

How to Engage Offshore Engineers

This article discusses the challenges of hiring offshore engineers for an early stage startup with limited funding. The author suggests that by investing time into building the offshore team, and providing them with enough context to understand the product, it is possible to achieve the same quality of work as engineers based in the US.

Scaling Myself

The author recounts their experience of transitioning from a software engineering intern to a leader of multiple teams at Modernizing Medicine. They learned to delegate, inspire, and support their team, as well as become more strategic in their approach. The key lesson is to stay in a constant learning mindset, be open to new challenges, and focus on the team you build around you in order to scale.

Integrating a newly acquired startup into your company

When Salesforce acquired Rypple, a small startup based in Toronto, the two teams had difficulty integrating due to their different cultures. To resolve the conflict, Salesforce sent engineers to Toronto and Rypple's engineers to San Francisco, and they used Scrum teams to cross-pollinate and work remotely. The key lesson learned was that communication, setting expectations, and face-to-face time are essential for successful integration of two companies.

Structuring a Flat Team Effectively

When Signal Sciences grew from 5 to 15 engineers, the team structure had to be changed to maintain camaraderie and reduce silos. The manager created product teams, called "bands", which were independent and sovereign, allowing each engineer to have a sense of ownership and responsibility. When scaling a team, it is important to know the problem set and be willing to try different solutions, as team structure can be iterative.

Focus On Inputs to Reduce Burnout

An engineering team was struggling with burn out due to too many requests coming in at once. The engineering leader took action by talking to the product team and stakeholders, and putting a "work in progress" limit in place. This reduced context switching and stress, and had the added benefit of the company making better business decisions. The lesson learned was that engineering leaders have a responsibility to make their entire team successful.

Managing Engineers Egos During Change

My company recently implemented a formal code review process, but this created tension between a new, more senior engineer and a mid-level engineer who had been at the company for a while. To resolve this, I appointed an arbitrator to look over code reviews and work with the new engineer, and I had individual conversations with both engineers to understand the source of the tension. After having a face-to-face conversation, the code reviews have improved and the pipeline is no longer blocked. This experience taught me the importance of being supportive and communicating expectations when introducing new processes.

How To Effectively Hire And Manage Remote Teams

Signal Sciences faced the challenge of managing a predominantly remote engineering team. To address this, they implemented different communication channels, used Zoom video chat, and brought the whole team together for quarterly reviews and team building activities. They also focused on hiring people who were able to advocate for themselves and gave team members autonomy and ownership over their work. These measures helped ensure the success of their remote employees.

Managing a team of former peers

When transitioning from a peer to a manager, it is important to mark the transition with the people you are managing. Take time to understand their needs and to establish goals and expectations. Find a way to give and get constructive feedback early to build trust. Focus on being helpful and supporting your reports in finding their own solutions.

Increase accountability through commitments and follow-up

This article discusses the actions taken by a small start-up team to increase their productivity. They implemented weekly status meetings, split tasks into two buckets (pledges and goals), and agreed on a single task with the company's top priority each week. The lessons learned from this experience are to write out the plan, make tasks specific and accountable, and question how hard the team is working. This helps to ensure that the team is working together and that commitments are being met.

Convincing Engineers Not to Be Managers

This article discusses a strategy for convincing engineers to think twice before moving into a management role. The author suggests asking questions to ensure the engineer understands the different roles and responsibilities of management, and to assess their appetite for managerial work. In most cases, the engineer will decide that management is not for them and will discuss alternative ways to grow and develop. The author emphasizes that a team lead should be leading because of their ability to inspire people, not because of their position.

Delivering Bad News Clearly to Engineers

When VP of Engineering at Percolate had to make a difficult product decision, the manager of the affected team did not deliver the message in the right tone, resulting in the team panicking and two people leaving the company. The VP learned the importance of roleplaying with managers to assess how they would deliver a message and to ensure they can stand behind it.

How to Move From A Hacking Culture To A Software Engineering Culture

When the Mobile team at Zendesk grew from 4 to 15 members, the team's "hacking culture" approach to work became problematic. The manager took action to encourage a more standard process and hired engineers who valued quality engineering and could work fast. This allowed the team to build foundations that would ensure disagreements were handled with engineering values in mind, and that quality was prioritized over speed.

Lessons From Setting Up an Insource Operations Offshore

This article discusses the experience of a CTO at a VC-backed SaaS company who attempted to accelerate their roadmap by offshoring their engineering team. Despite having the right people and culture in place, the team hired too quickly and did not have the right frameworks in place to make the arrangement successful. The cost savings were not realized and the output was significantly lower than expected. The takeaway is to start slowly when setting up an offshore location and to have a strong technical leader in place who understands the organization's culture and technical requirements.

How to manage the ego of a rockstar developer

A rockstar developer was exhibiting negative behavior in the team, such as not listening to other team members and being aggressive when defending his point of view. After investigating the root cause of his behavior, it was discovered that he felt unappreciated and needed to show everyone that he was the smartest person in the room. The manager took action by having a difficult conversation with him, praising him publicly and privately, and pushing for a reevaluation of his compensation. This simple solution was highly effective in fixing the problem.

Reducing Engineer Burnout

An employee came to their manager with burnout due to having too many meetings and not enough time to focus on engineering. The manager and employee worked together to identify what the manager could do to help, such as talking to recruiting and blocking off time for engineering work. The manager also took the initiative to look at the team's calendar each week to ensure they had the capacity to get their work done. This situation demonstrates the importance of managers taking the time to understand their reports' obligations and helping to prevent burnout.

Resolving Conflicts Between Engineers And Designers

When faced with a conflict between an engineer and a designer, the Engineering Manager of Salesforce took action by talking to both parties and getting them to communicate directly. Through code pairing and opening up communication lines, the engineer and designer were able to work together and build a better relationship. The lesson learned is that communication and respect between engineers and designers is key for a successful relationship.

Structuring your time as a new manager

When promoted from Engineering IC to Engineering Manager, the author was thrown in the deep end and had to figure out how to structure their day and allocate their time. They realized they needed to have one-on-ones with their reports and their boss, and made hard decisions about what engineering work to cut back on. This approach gave them a real sense of the conversations they needed to have and allowed them to give engineering work to their team.

Implementing a major platform technology change

The company needed to improve its full-text search platform to allow for near-instantaneous addition and search of new documents. To do this, the engineering manager sponsored a sequence of internal experiments and formed a dedicated Core team. They communicated the technical risks to upper management and implemented the changes in a methodical way, allowing for customers and users to be migrated back to the old system in the event of a catastrophic fail. Through this process, they were able to successfully introduce the new technology.

Resolving conflicts between two top engineers

As VP of Engineering at ebrary, the author faced a conflict between two senior architects over a change implementation for the search stack. To resolve the issue, the author used the Columbo method to ask pertinent questions and drill down to the fundamentals of the disagreement. It was determined that the conflict was not technical, but about ownership, and a solution was reached with compromise for risk reduction. The author learned that it is important to recognize conflicts early on and to guide employees to agreement on the essence of the problem, while preserving authority and responsibility for all parties.

Developing Managers Internally

This article discusses the importance of investing in managers and how to do it correctly. It outlines the steps taken to identify potential managers, mentor and coach them, and invest in them through in-house training and book clubs. The article also highlights the importance of investing in managers to ensure the success of the team and company, as well as the lessons learned from the process.

How to Engage Offshore Engineers

This article discusses the challenges of hiring offshore engineers for an early stage startup with limited funding. The author suggests that by investing time into building the offshore team, and providing them with enough context to understand the product, it is possible to achieve the same quality of work as engineers based in the US.

Scaling Myself

The author recounts their experience of transitioning from a software engineering intern to a leader of multiple teams at Modernizing Medicine. They learned to delegate, inspire, and support their team, as well as become more strategic in their approach. The key lesson is to stay in a constant learning mindset, be open to new challenges, and focus on the team you build around you in order to scale.

Integrating a newly acquired startup into your company

When Salesforce acquired Rypple, a small startup based in Toronto, the two teams had difficulty integrating due to their different cultures. To resolve the conflict, Salesforce sent engineers to Toronto and Rypple's engineers to San Francisco, and they used Scrum teams to cross-pollinate and work remotely. The key lesson learned was that communication, setting expectations, and face-to-face time are essential for successful integration of two companies.

Structuring a Flat Team Effectively

When Signal Sciences grew from 5 to 15 engineers, the team structure had to be changed to maintain camaraderie and reduce silos. The manager created product teams, called "bands", which were independent and sovereign, allowing each engineer to have a sense of ownership and responsibility. When scaling a team, it is important to know the problem set and be willing to try different solutions, as team structure can be iterative.

Focus On Inputs to Reduce Burnout

An engineering team was struggling with burn out due to too many requests coming in at once. The engineering leader took action by talking to the product team and stakeholders, and putting a "work in progress" limit in place. This reduced context switching and stress, and had the added benefit of the company making better business decisions. The lesson learned was that engineering leaders have a responsibility to make their entire team successful.

Managing Engineers Egos During Change

My company recently implemented a formal code review process, but this created tension between a new, more senior engineer and a mid-level engineer who had been at the company for a while. To resolve this, I appointed an arbitrator to look over code reviews and work with the new engineer, and I had individual conversations with both engineers to understand the source of the tension. After having a face-to-face conversation, the code reviews have improved and the pipeline is no longer blocked. This experience taught me the importance of being supportive and communicating expectations when introducing new processes.

How To Effectively Hire And Manage Remote Teams

Signal Sciences faced the challenge of managing a predominantly remote engineering team. To address this, they implemented different communication channels, used Zoom video chat, and brought the whole team together for quarterly reviews and team building activities. They also focused on hiring people who were able to advocate for themselves and gave team members autonomy and ownership over their work. These measures helped ensure the success of their remote employees.

Managing a team of former peers

When transitioning from a peer to a manager, it is important to mark the transition with the people you are managing. Take time to understand their needs and to establish goals and expectations. Find a way to give and get constructive feedback early to build trust. Focus on being helpful and supporting your reports in finding their own solutions.

Increase accountability through commitments and follow-up

This article discusses the actions taken by a small start-up team to increase their productivity. They implemented weekly status meetings, split tasks into two buckets (pledges and goals), and agreed on a single task with the company's top priority each week. The lessons learned from this experience are to write out the plan, make tasks specific and accountable, and question how hard the team is working. This helps to ensure that the team is working together and that commitments are being met.

Convincing Engineers Not to Be Managers

This article discusses a strategy for convincing engineers to think twice before moving into a management role. The author suggests asking questions to ensure the engineer understands the different roles and responsibilities of management, and to assess their appetite for managerial work. In most cases, the engineer will decide that management is not for them and will discuss alternative ways to grow and develop. The author emphasizes that a team lead should be leading because of their ability to inspire people, not because of their position.

Delivering Bad News Clearly to Engineers

When VP of Engineering at Percolate had to make a difficult product decision, the manager of the affected team did not deliver the message in the right tone, resulting in the team panicking and two people leaving the company. The VP learned the importance of roleplaying with managers to assess how they would deliver a message and to ensure they can stand behind it.

How to Move From A Hacking Culture To A Software Engineering Culture

When the Mobile team at Zendesk grew from 4 to 15 members, the team's "hacking culture" approach to work became problematic. The manager took action to encourage a more standard process and hired engineers who valued quality engineering and could work fast. This allowed the team to build foundations that would ensure disagreements were handled with engineering values in mind, and that quality was prioritized over speed.

Lessons From Setting Up an Insource Operations Offshore

This article discusses the experience of a CTO at a VC-backed SaaS company who attempted to accelerate their roadmap by offshoring their engineering team. Despite having the right people and culture in place, the team hired too quickly and did not have the right frameworks in place to make the arrangement successful. The cost savings were not realized and the output was significantly lower than expected. The takeaway is to start slowly when setting up an offshore location and to have a strong technical leader in place who understands the organization's culture and technical requirements.

How to manage the ego of a rockstar developer

A rockstar developer was exhibiting negative behavior in the team, such as not listening to other team members and being aggressive when defending his point of view. After investigating the root cause of his behavior, it was discovered that he felt unappreciated and needed to show everyone that he was the smartest person in the room. The manager took action by having a difficult conversation with him, praising him publicly and privately, and pushing for a reevaluation of his compensation. This simple solution was highly effective in fixing the problem.

Reducing Engineer Burnout

An employee came to their manager with burnout due to having too many meetings and not enough time to focus on engineering. The manager and employee worked together to identify what the manager could do to help, such as talking to recruiting and blocking off time for engineering work. The manager also took the initiative to look at the team's calendar each week to ensure they had the capacity to get their work done. This situation demonstrates the importance of managers taking the time to understand their reports' obligations and helping to prevent burnout.

Resolving Conflicts Between Engineers And Designers

When faced with a conflict between an engineer and a designer, the Engineering Manager of Salesforce took action by talking to both parties and getting them to communicate directly. Through code pairing and opening up communication lines, the engineer and designer were able to work together and build a better relationship. The lesson learned is that communication and respect between engineers and designers is key for a successful relationship.

Structuring your time as a new manager

When promoted from Engineering IC to Engineering Manager, the author was thrown in the deep end and had to figure out how to structure their day and allocate their time. They realized they needed to have one-on-ones with their reports and their boss, and made hard decisions about what engineering work to cut back on. This approach gave them a real sense of the conversations they needed to have and allowed them to give engineering work to their team.

Implementing a major platform technology change

The company needed to improve its full-text search platform to allow for near-instantaneous addition and search of new documents. To do this, the engineering manager sponsored a sequence of internal experiments and formed a dedicated Core team. They communicated the technical risks to upper management and implemented the changes in a methodical way, allowing for customers and users to be migrated back to the old system in the event of a catastrophic fail. Through this process, they were able to successfully introduce the new technology.

Resolving conflicts between two top engineers

As VP of Engineering at ebrary, the author faced a conflict between two senior architects over a change implementation for the search stack. To resolve the issue, the author used the Columbo method to ask pertinent questions and drill down to the fundamentals of the disagreement. It was determined that the conflict was not technical, but about ownership, and a solution was reached with compromise for risk reduction. The author learned that it is important to recognize conflicts early on and to guide employees to agreement on the essence of the problem, while preserving authority and responsibility for all parties.

Developing Managers Internally

This article discusses the importance of investing in managers and how to do it correctly. It outlines the steps taken to identify potential managers, mentor and coach them, and invest in them through in-house training and book clubs. The article also highlights the importance of investing in managers to ensure the success of the team and company, as well as the lessons learned from the process.

How to Engage Offshore Engineers

This article discusses the challenges of hiring offshore engineers for an early stage startup with limited funding. The author suggests that by investing time into building the offshore team, and providing them with enough context to understand the product, it is possible to achieve the same quality of work as engineers based in the US.

Scaling Myself

The author recounts their experience of transitioning from a software engineering intern to a leader of multiple teams at Modernizing Medicine. They learned to delegate, inspire, and support their team, as well as become more strategic in their approach. The key lesson is to stay in a constant learning mindset, be open to new challenges, and focus on the team you build around you in order to scale.

Integrating a newly acquired startup into your company

When Salesforce acquired Rypple, a small startup based in Toronto, the two teams had difficulty integrating due to their different cultures. To resolve the conflict, Salesforce sent engineers to Toronto and Rypple's engineers to San Francisco, and they used Scrum teams to cross-pollinate and work remotely. The key lesson learned was that communication, setting expectations, and face-to-face time are essential for successful integration of two companies.

Structuring a Flat Team Effectively

When Signal Sciences grew from 5 to 15 engineers, the team structure had to be changed to maintain camaraderie and reduce silos. The manager created product teams, called "bands", which were independent and sovereign, allowing each engineer to have a sense of ownership and responsibility. When scaling a team, it is important to know the problem set and be willing to try different solutions, as team structure can be iterative.

Focus On Inputs to Reduce Burnout

An engineering team was struggling with burn out due to too many requests coming in at once. The engineering leader took action by talking to the product team and stakeholders, and putting a "work in progress" limit in place. This reduced context switching and stress, and had the added benefit of the company making better business decisions. The lesson learned was that engineering leaders have a responsibility to make their entire team successful.

Managing Engineers Egos During Change

My company recently implemented a formal code review process, but this created tension between a new, more senior engineer and a mid-level engineer who had been at the company for a while. To resolve this, I appointed an arbitrator to look over code reviews and work with the new engineer, and I had individual conversations with both engineers to understand the source of the tension. After having a face-to-face conversation, the code reviews have improved and the pipeline is no longer blocked. This experience taught me the importance of being supportive and communicating expectations when introducing new processes.

How To Effectively Hire And Manage Remote Teams

Signal Sciences faced the challenge of managing a predominantly remote engineering team. To address this, they implemented different communication channels, used Zoom video chat, and brought the whole team together for quarterly reviews and team building activities. They also focused on hiring people who were able to advocate for themselves and gave team members autonomy and ownership over their work. These measures helped ensure the success of their remote employees.

Managing a team of former peers

When transitioning from a peer to a manager, it is important to mark the transition with the people you are managing. Take time to understand their needs and to establish goals and expectations. Find a way to give and get constructive feedback early to build trust. Focus on being helpful and supporting your reports in finding their own solutions.

Increase accountability through commitments and follow-up

This article discusses the actions taken by a small start-up team to increase their productivity. They implemented weekly status meetings, split tasks into two buckets (pledges and goals), and agreed on a single task with the company's top priority each week. The lessons learned from this experience are to write out the plan, make tasks specific and accountable, and question how hard the team is working. This helps to ensure that the team is working together and that commitments are being met.

Convincing Engineers Not to Be Managers

This article discusses a strategy for convincing engineers to think twice before moving into a management role. The author suggests asking questions to ensure the engineer understands the different roles and responsibilities of management, and to assess their appetite for managerial work. In most cases, the engineer will decide that management is not for them and will discuss alternative ways to grow and develop. The author emphasizes that a team lead should be leading because of their ability to inspire people, not because of their position.

Delivering Bad News Clearly to Engineers

When VP of Engineering at Percolate had to make a difficult product decision, the manager of the affected team did not deliver the message in the right tone, resulting in the team panicking and two people leaving the company. The VP learned the importance of roleplaying with managers to assess how they would deliver a message and to ensure they can stand behind it.

How to Move From A Hacking Culture To A Software Engineering Culture

When the Mobile team at Zendesk grew from 4 to 15 members, the team's "hacking culture" approach to work became problematic. The manager took action to encourage a more standard process and hired engineers who valued quality engineering and could work fast. This allowed the team to build foundations that would ensure disagreements were handled with engineering values in mind, and that quality was prioritized over speed.

Lessons From Setting Up an Insource Operations Offshore

This article discusses the experience of a CTO at a VC-backed SaaS company who attempted to accelerate their roadmap by offshoring their engineering team. Despite having the right people and culture in place, the team hired too quickly and did not have the right frameworks in place to make the arrangement successful. The cost savings were not realized and the output was significantly lower than expected. The takeaway is to start slowly when setting up an offshore location and to have a strong technical leader in place who understands the organization's culture and technical requirements.

How to manage the ego of a rockstar developer

A rockstar developer was exhibiting negative behavior in the team, such as not listening to other team members and being aggressive when defending his point of view. After investigating the root cause of his behavior, it was discovered that he felt unappreciated and needed to show everyone that he was the smartest person in the room. The manager took action by having a difficult conversation with him, praising him publicly and privately, and pushing for a reevaluation of his compensation. This simple solution was highly effective in fixing the problem.

Reducing Engineer Burnout

An employee came to their manager with burnout due to having too many meetings and not enough time to focus on engineering. The manager and employee worked together to identify what the manager could do to help, such as talking to recruiting and blocking off time for engineering work. The manager also took the initiative to look at the team's calendar each week to ensure they had the capacity to get their work done. This situation demonstrates the importance of managers taking the time to understand their reports' obligations and helping to prevent burnout.

Resolving Conflicts Between Engineers And Designers

When faced with a conflict between an engineer and a designer, the Engineering Manager of Salesforce took action by talking to both parties and getting them to communicate directly. Through code pairing and opening up communication lines, the engineer and designer were able to work together and build a better relationship. The lesson learned is that communication and respect between engineers and designers is key for a successful relationship.

Structuring your time as a new manager

When promoted from Engineering IC to Engineering Manager, the author was thrown in the deep end and had to figure out how to structure their day and allocate their time. They realized they needed to have one-on-ones with their reports and their boss, and made hard decisions about what engineering work to cut back on. This approach gave them a real sense of the conversations they needed to have and allowed them to give engineering work to their team.

Implementing a major platform technology change

The company needed to improve its full-text search platform to allow for near-instantaneous addition and search of new documents. To do this, the engineering manager sponsored a sequence of internal experiments and formed a dedicated Core team. They communicated the technical risks to upper management and implemented the changes in a methodical way, allowing for customers and users to be migrated back to the old system in the event of a catastrophic fail. Through this process, they were able to successfully introduce the new technology.

Resolving conflicts between two top engineers

As VP of Engineering at ebrary, the author faced a conflict between two senior architects over a change implementation for the search stack. To resolve the issue, the author used the Columbo method to ask pertinent questions and drill down to the fundamentals of the disagreement. It was determined that the conflict was not technical, but about ownership, and a solution was reached with compromise for risk reduction. The author learned that it is important to recognize conflicts early on and to guide employees to agreement on the essence of the problem, while preserving authority and responsibility for all parties.

Developing Managers Internally

This article discusses the importance of investing in managers and how to do it correctly. It outlines the steps taken to identify potential managers, mentor and coach them, and invest in them through in-house training and book clubs. The article also highlights the importance of investing in managers to ensure the success of the team and company, as well as the lessons learned from the process.

How to Engage Offshore Engineers

This article discusses the challenges of hiring offshore engineers for an early stage startup with limited funding. The author suggests that by investing time into building the offshore team, and providing them with enough context to understand the product, it is possible to achieve the same quality of work as engineers based in the US.

Scaling Myself

The author recounts their experience of transitioning from a software engineering intern to a leader of multiple teams at Modernizing Medicine. They learned to delegate, inspire, and support their team, as well as become more strategic in their approach. The key lesson is to stay in a constant learning mindset, be open to new challenges, and focus on the team you build around you in order to scale.

Integrating a newly acquired startup into your company

When Salesforce acquired Rypple, a small startup based in Toronto, the two teams had difficulty integrating due to their different cultures. To resolve the conflict, Salesforce sent engineers to Toronto and Rypple's engineers to San Francisco, and they used Scrum teams to cross-pollinate and work remotely. The key lesson learned was that communication, setting expectations, and face-to-face time are essential for successful integration of two companies.

Structuring a Flat Team Effectively

When Signal Sciences grew from 5 to 15 engineers, the team structure had to be changed to maintain camaraderie and reduce silos. The manager created product teams, called "bands", which were independent and sovereign, allowing each engineer to have a sense of ownership and responsibility. When scaling a team, it is important to know the problem set and be willing to try different solutions, as team structure can be iterative.

Focus On Inputs to Reduce Burnout

An engineering team was struggling with burn out due to too many requests coming in at once. The engineering leader took action by talking to the product team and stakeholders, and putting a "work in progress" limit in place. This reduced context switching and stress, and had the added benefit of the company making better business decisions. The lesson learned was that engineering leaders have a responsibility to make their entire team successful.

Managing Engineers Egos During Change

My company recently implemented a formal code review process, but this created tension between a new, more senior engineer and a mid-level engineer who had been at the company for a while. To resolve this, I appointed an arbitrator to look over code reviews and work with the new engineer, and I had individual conversations with both engineers to understand the source of the tension. After having a face-to-face conversation, the code reviews have improved and the pipeline is no longer blocked. This experience taught me the importance of being supportive and communicating expectations when introducing new processes.

How To Effectively Hire And Manage Remote Teams

Signal Sciences faced the challenge of managing a predominantly remote engineering team. To address this, they implemented different communication channels, used Zoom video chat, and brought the whole team together for quarterly reviews and team building activities. They also focused on hiring people who were able to advocate for themselves and gave team members autonomy and ownership over their work. These measures helped ensure the success of their remote employees.

Managing a team of former peers

When transitioning from a peer to a manager, it is important to mark the transition with the people you are managing. Take time to understand their needs and to establish goals and expectations. Find a way to give and get constructive feedback early to build trust. Focus on being helpful and supporting your reports in finding their own solutions.

Increase accountability through commitments and follow-up

This article discusses the actions taken by a small start-up team to increase their productivity. They implemented weekly status meetings, split tasks into two buckets (pledges and goals), and agreed on a single task with the company's top priority each week. The lessons learned from this experience are to write out the plan, make tasks specific and accountable, and question how hard the team is working. This helps to ensure that the team is working together and that commitments are being met.

Convincing Engineers Not to Be Managers

This article discusses a strategy for convincing engineers to think twice before moving into a management role. The author suggests asking questions to ensure the engineer understands the different roles and responsibilities of management, and to assess their appetite for managerial work. In most cases, the engineer will decide that management is not for them and will discuss alternative ways to grow and develop. The author emphasizes that a team lead should be leading because of their ability to inspire people, not because of their position.

Delivering Bad News Clearly to Engineers

When VP of Engineering at Percolate had to make a difficult product decision, the manager of the affected team did not deliver the message in the right tone, resulting in the team panicking and two people leaving the company. The VP learned the importance of roleplaying with managers to assess how they would deliver a message and to ensure they can stand behind it.

How to Move From A Hacking Culture To A Software Engineering Culture

When the Mobile team at Zendesk grew from 4 to 15 members, the team's "hacking culture" approach to work became problematic. The manager took action to encourage a more standard process and hired engineers who valued quality engineering and could work fast. This allowed the team to build foundations that would ensure disagreements were handled with engineering values in mind, and that quality was prioritized over speed.

Lessons From Setting Up an Insource Operations Offshore

This article discusses the experience of a CTO at a VC-backed SaaS company who attempted to accelerate their roadmap by offshoring their engineering team. Despite having the right people and culture in place, the team hired too quickly and did not have the right frameworks in place to make the arrangement successful. The cost savings were not realized and the output was significantly lower than expected. The takeaway is to start slowly when setting up an offshore location and to have a strong technical leader in place who understands the organization's culture and technical requirements.

How to manage the ego of a rockstar developer

A rockstar developer was exhibiting negative behavior in the team, such as not listening to other team members and being aggressive when defending his point of view. After investigating the root cause of his behavior, it was discovered that he felt unappreciated and needed to show everyone that he was the smartest person in the room. The manager took action by having a difficult conversation with him, praising him publicly and privately, and pushing for a reevaluation of his compensation. This simple solution was highly effective in fixing the problem.

Reducing Engineer Burnout

An employee came to their manager with burnout due to having too many meetings and not enough time to focus on engineering. The manager and employee worked together to identify what the manager could do to help, such as talking to recruiting and blocking off time for engineering work. The manager also took the initiative to look at the team's calendar each week to ensure they had the capacity to get their work done. This situation demonstrates the importance of managers taking the time to understand their reports' obligations and helping to prevent burnout.

Resolving Conflicts Between Engineers And Designers

When faced with a conflict between an engineer and a designer, the Engineering Manager of Salesforce took action by talking to both parties and getting them to communicate directly. Through code pairing and opening up communication lines, the engineer and designer were able to work together and build a better relationship. The lesson learned is that communication and respect between engineers and designers is key for a successful relationship.

Structuring your time as a new manager

When promoted from Engineering IC to Engineering Manager, the author was thrown in the deep end and had to figure out how to structure their day and allocate their time. They realized they needed to have one-on-ones with their reports and their boss, and made hard decisions about what engineering work to cut back on. This approach gave them a real sense of the conversations they needed to have and allowed them to give engineering work to their team.

Implementing a major platform technology change

The company needed to improve its full-text search platform to allow for near-instantaneous addition and search of new documents. To do this, the engineering manager sponsored a sequence of internal experiments and formed a dedicated Core team. They communicated the technical risks to upper management and implemented the changes in a methodical way, allowing for customers and users to be migrated back to the old system in the event of a catastrophic fail. Through this process, they were able to successfully introduce the new technology.

Resolving conflicts between two top engineers

As VP of Engineering at ebrary, the author faced a conflict between two senior architects over a change implementation for the search stack. To resolve the issue, the author used the Columbo method to ask pertinent questions and drill down to the fundamentals of the disagreement. It was determined that the conflict was not technical, but about ownership, and a solution was reached with compromise for risk reduction. The author learned that it is important to recognize conflicts early on and to guide employees to agreement on the essence of the problem, while preserving authority and responsibility for all parties.

Developing Managers Internally

This article discusses the importance of investing in managers and how to do it correctly. It outlines the steps taken to identify potential managers, mentor and coach them, and invest in them through in-house training and book clubs. The article also highlights the importance of investing in managers to ensure the success of the team and company, as well as the lessons learned from the process.

How to Engage Offshore Engineers

This article discusses the challenges of hiring offshore engineers for an early stage startup with limited funding. The author suggests that by investing time into building the offshore team, and providing them with enough context to understand the product, it is possible to achieve the same quality of work as engineers based in the US.

Scaling Myself

The author recounts their experience of transitioning from a software engineering intern to a leader of multiple teams at Modernizing Medicine. They learned to delegate, inspire, and support their team, as well as become more strategic in their approach. The key lesson is to stay in a constant learning mindset, be open to new challenges, and focus on the team you build around you in order to scale.

Integrating a newly acquired startup into your company

When Salesforce acquired Rypple, a small startup based in Toronto, the two teams had difficulty integrating due to their different cultures. To resolve the conflict, Salesforce sent engineers to Toronto and Rypple's engineers to San Francisco, and they used Scrum teams to cross-pollinate and work remotely. The key lesson learned was that communication, setting expectations, and face-to-face time are essential for successful integration of two companies.

Structuring a Flat Team Effectively

When Signal Sciences grew from 5 to 15 engineers, the team structure had to be changed to maintain camaraderie and reduce silos. The manager created product teams, called "bands", which were independent and sovereign, allowing each engineer to have a sense of ownership and responsibility. When scaling a team, it is important to know the problem set and be willing to try different solutions, as team structure can be iterative.

Focus On Inputs to Reduce Burnout

An engineering team was struggling with burn out due to too many requests coming in at once. The engineering leader took action by talking to the product team and stakeholders, and putting a "work in progress" limit in place. This reduced context switching and stress, and had the added benefit of the company making better business decisions. The lesson learned was that engineering leaders have a responsibility to make their entire team successful.

Managing Engineers Egos During Change

My company recently implemented a formal code review process, but this created tension between a new, more senior engineer and a mid-level engineer who had been at the company for a while. To resolve this, I appointed an arbitrator to look over code reviews and work with the new engineer, and I had individual conversations with both engineers to understand the source of the tension. After having a face-to-face conversation, the code reviews have improved and the pipeline is no longer blocked. This experience taught me the importance of being supportive and communicating expectations when introducing new processes.

How To Effectively Hire And Manage Remote Teams

Signal Sciences faced the challenge of managing a predominantly remote engineering team. To address this, they implemented different communication channels, used Zoom video chat, and brought the whole team together for quarterly reviews and team building activities. They also focused on hiring people who were able to advocate for themselves and gave team members autonomy and ownership over their work. These measures helped ensure the success of their remote employees.

Managing a team of former peers

When transitioning from a peer to a manager, it is important to mark the transition with the people you are managing. Take time to understand their needs and to establish goals and expectations. Find a way to give and get constructive feedback early to build trust. Focus on being helpful and supporting your reports in finding their own solutions.

Increase accountability through commitments and follow-up

This article discusses the actions taken by a small start-up team to increase their productivity. They implemented weekly status meetings, split tasks into two buckets (pledges and goals), and agreed on a single task with the company's top priority each week. The lessons learned from this experience are to write out the plan, make tasks specific and accountable, and question how hard the team is working. This helps to ensure that the team is working together and that commitments are being met.

Convincing Engineers Not to Be Managers

This article discusses a strategy for convincing engineers to think twice before moving into a management role. The author suggests asking questions to ensure the engineer understands the different roles and responsibilities of management, and to assess their appetite for managerial work. In most cases, the engineer will decide that management is not for them and will discuss alternative ways to grow and develop. The author emphasizes that a team lead should be leading because of their ability to inspire people, not because of their position.

Delivering Bad News Clearly to Engineers

When VP of Engineering at Percolate had to make a difficult product decision, the manager of the affected team did not deliver the message in the right tone, resulting in the team panicking and two people leaving the company. The VP learned the importance of roleplaying with managers to assess how they would deliver a message and to ensure they can stand behind it.

How to Move From A Hacking Culture To A Software Engineering Culture

When the Mobile team at Zendesk grew from 4 to 15 members, the team's "hacking culture" approach to work became problematic. The manager took action to encourage a more standard process and hired engineers who valued quality engineering and could work fast. This allowed the team to build foundations that would ensure disagreements were handled with engineering values in mind, and that quality was prioritized over speed.

Lessons From Setting Up an Insource Operations Offshore

This article discusses the experience of a CTO at a VC-backed SaaS company who attempted to accelerate their roadmap by offshoring their engineering team. Despite having the right people and culture in place, the team hired too quickly and did not have the right frameworks in place to make the arrangement successful. The cost savings were not realized and the output was significantly lower than expected. The takeaway is to start slowly when setting up an offshore location and to have a strong technical leader in place who understands the organization's culture and technical requirements.

How to manage the ego of a rockstar developer

A rockstar developer was exhibiting negative behavior in the team, such as not listening to other team members and being aggressive when defending his point of view. After investigating the root cause of his behavior, it was discovered that he felt unappreciated and needed to show everyone that he was the smartest person in the room. The manager took action by having a difficult conversation with him, praising him publicly and privately, and pushing for a reevaluation of his compensation. This simple solution was highly effective in fixing the problem.

Reducing Engineer Burnout

An employee came to their manager with burnout due to having too many meetings and not enough time to focus on engineering. The manager and employee worked together to identify what the manager could do to help, such as talking to recruiting and blocking off time for engineering work. The manager also took the initiative to look at the team's calendar each week to ensure they had the capacity to get their work done. This situation demonstrates the importance of managers taking the time to understand their reports' obligations and helping to prevent burnout.

Resolving Conflicts Between Engineers And Designers

When faced with a conflict between an engineer and a designer, the Engineering Manager of Salesforce took action by talking to both parties and getting them to communicate directly. Through code pairing and opening up communication lines, the engineer and designer were able to work together and build a better relationship. The lesson learned is that communication and respect between engineers and designers is key for a successful relationship.

Structuring your time as a new manager

When promoted from Engineering IC to Engineering Manager, the author was thrown in the deep end and had to figure out how to structure their day and allocate their time. They realized they needed to have one-on-ones with their reports and their boss, and made hard decisions about what engineering work to cut back on. This approach gave them a real sense of the conversations they needed to have and allowed them to give engineering work to their team.

Implementing a major platform technology change

The company needed to improve its full-text search platform to allow for near-instantaneous addition and search of new documents. To do this, the engineering manager sponsored a sequence of internal experiments and formed a dedicated Core team. They communicated the technical risks to upper management and implemented the changes in a methodical way, allowing for customers and users to be migrated back to the old system in the event of a catastrophic fail. Through this process, they were able to successfully introduce the new technology.

Resolving conflicts between two top engineers

As VP of Engineering at ebrary, the author faced a conflict between two senior architects over a change implementation for the search stack. To resolve the issue, the author used the Columbo method to ask pertinent questions and drill down to the fundamentals of the disagreement. It was determined that the conflict was not technical, but about ownership, and a solution was reached with compromise for risk reduction. The author learned that it is important to recognize conflicts early on and to guide employees to agreement on the essence of the problem, while preserving authority and responsibility for all parties.

Developing Managers Internally

This article discusses the importance of investing in managers and how to do it correctly. It outlines the steps taken to identify potential managers, mentor and coach them, and invest in them through in-house training and book clubs. The article also highlights the importance of investing in managers to ensure the success of the team and company, as well as the lessons learned from the process.

How to Engage Offshore Engineers

This article discusses the challenges of hiring offshore engineers for an early stage startup with limited funding. The author suggests that by investing time into building the offshore team, and providing them with enough context to understand the product, it is possible to achieve the same quality of work as engineers based in the US.

Scaling Myself

The author recounts their experience of transitioning from a software engineering intern to a leader of multiple teams at Modernizing Medicine. They learned to delegate, inspire, and support their team, as well as become more strategic in their approach. The key lesson is to stay in a constant learning mindset, be open to new challenges, and focus on the team you build around you in order to scale.

Integrating a newly acquired startup into your company

When Salesforce acquired Rypple, a small startup based in Toronto, the two teams had difficulty integrating due to their different cultures. To resolve the conflict, Salesforce sent engineers to Toronto and Rypple's engineers to San Francisco, and they used Scrum teams to cross-pollinate and work remotely. The key lesson learned was that communication, setting expectations, and face-to-face time are essential for successful integration of two companies.

Structuring a Flat Team Effectively

When Signal Sciences grew from 5 to 15 engineers, the team structure had to be changed to maintain camaraderie and reduce silos. The manager created product teams, called "bands", which were independent and sovereign, allowing each engineer to have a sense of ownership and responsibility. When scaling a team, it is important to know the problem set and be willing to try different solutions, as team structure can be iterative.

Focus On Inputs to Reduce Burnout

An engineering team was struggling with burn out due to too many requests coming in at once. The engineering leader took action by talking to the product team and stakeholders, and putting a "work in progress" limit in place. This reduced context switching and stress, and had the added benefit of the company making better business decisions. The lesson learned was that engineering leaders have a responsibility to make their entire team successful.

Managing Engineers Egos During Change

My company recently implemented a formal code review process, but this created tension between a new, more senior engineer and a mid-level engineer who had been at the company for a while. To resolve this, I appointed an arbitrator to look over code reviews and work with the new engineer, and I had individual conversations with both engineers to understand the source of the tension. After having a face-to-face conversation, the code reviews have improved and the pipeline is no longer blocked. This experience taught me the importance of being supportive and communicating expectations when introducing new processes.

How To Effectively Hire And Manage Remote Teams

Signal Sciences faced the challenge of managing a predominantly remote engineering team. To address this, they implemented different communication channels, used Zoom video chat, and brought the whole team together for quarterly reviews and team building activities. They also focused on hiring people who were able to advocate for themselves and gave team members autonomy and ownership over their work. These measures helped ensure the success of their remote employees.

Managing a team of former peers

When transitioning from a peer to a manager, it is important to mark the transition with the people you are managing. Take time to understand their needs and to establish goals and expectations. Find a way to give and get constructive feedback early to build trust. Focus on being helpful and supporting your reports in finding their own solutions.

Increase accountability through commitments and follow-up

This article discusses the actions taken by a small start-up team to increase their productivity. They implemented weekly status meetings, split tasks into two buckets (pledges and goals), and agreed on a single task with the company's top priority each week. The lessons learned from this experience are to write out the plan, make tasks specific and accountable, and question how hard the team is working. This helps to ensure that the team is working together and that commitments are being met.

Convincing Engineers Not to Be Managers

This article discusses a strategy for convincing engineers to think twice before moving into a management role. The author suggests asking questions to ensure the engineer understands the different roles and responsibilities of management, and to assess their appetite for managerial work. In most cases, the engineer will decide that management is not for them and will discuss alternative ways to grow and develop. The author emphasizes that a team lead should be leading because of their ability to inspire people, not because of their position.

Delivering Bad News Clearly to Engineers

When VP of Engineering at Percolate had to make a difficult product decision, the manager of the affected team did not deliver the message in the right tone, resulting in the team panicking and two people leaving the company. The VP learned the importance of roleplaying with managers to assess how they would deliver a message and to ensure they can stand behind it.