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How To Coach A Manager To Be More Empathetic

A manager was hired for a position, but his rational, cognitive approach to decision-making was not well-suited to the team he was given. The manager was coached on how to be more empathetic and an active listener, and to give his team autonomy. After months of coaching, the manager was successful in shifting his behavior and the team reported a positive change. This experience taught the recruiter to assess what they are and are not getting when recruiting, and to focus on the strengths a candidate brings to the table.

How to hire at scale when your organization matures

At Box, they have created a system of fixed "pods" consisting of a hiring manager, one recruiter, two sourcers, and one coordinator to efficiently fill roles at scale. Lessons learned include not assigning too many roles at once, experimenting with job descriptions, and having two distinct groups to define and execute the hiring philosophy.

The Pyramid of Needs of an Engineering Organisation

In order to address an engineering department attrition rate of 35-40%, a rubric was used to identify areas of focus. This rubric, based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, identified the leadership team, org health, strategy, tools, systems, and processes, and product/results as the areas to focus on. This rubric helped to ensure that the team was aligned and focused on the right areas, rather than being distracted by things that don't drive the business forward.

My guidelines to successful one-on-ones.

When new to management, one-on-ones can be difficult to understand. However, they are essential for building trust and understanding what is going on in the team. To make one-on-ones successful, let the direct report set the agenda, have a weekly schedule, let people talk, and don't set a rigid framework. It is better to have a short meeting than to cancel, and remember that it takes time to build a trusting relationship.

Having better one-on-ones by tailoring them to your employees.

This article discusses how to get the most out of one-on-ones with direct reports. It suggests breaking the rules of one-on-ones by changing the setting of the meeting, such as going outside or getting coffee. It also suggests asking for feedback from direct reports and tailoring the one-on-ones to the individual employee. This helps to ensure better communication and more information is received.

Lessons From Leading Total Rewrite Projects

In 2014, Twitter wanted to rewrite its internal A/B testing system, but the two teams working on it created tension and a lack of clarity. To fix the problem, a new team was created with responsibility for A/B testing, staffed with both data scientists and engineers. This helped to align people behind one goal and build trust, while also incentivising the new system to be production-ready and stable. The team also learned that it is important to understand the old system and its failings in order to avoid repeating mistakes.

Managers shouldn’t be dictators

In this story, the author recounts their experience as an Air Force officer managing a team of software test engineers. The author learned that the military personnel and civilians had different motivations and strengths, and that it was important to factor these in and be flexible in how they structured their work. They also learned to get to know their employees as individuals, as it could go a long way in building trust. Lastly, they learned to start getting to know their team early on, as it would be more difficult to do so later.

Handling an average-performing employee who wants a promotion

A few years ago, a person was hired at a lower level than they wanted, with the expectation that they could advance. Despite giving them room for initiative and tasks linked to a leadership position, they were underperforming and not reaching out for help. When they asked for a promotion, they were shown a formalized engineer ladder and salary grid which showed them where they were and what they needed to improve. This didn't help and they ended up leaving. The key message is that having concrete explanations of why someone is not being promoted helps a lot. The engineer ladder and salary grid was published for everyone and triggered a lot of advancement. Inflating somebody's title or salary is not recommended as it gives employees an incentive to work harder and reduces their legitimacy if they are not at their proper position.

Improve Your Hiring Process During Rapid Growth

When a software team at a rapidly expanding company needed to hire more engineers, they faced problems with consistency in their hiring process. To improve the process, the team introduced an ATS to track candidates, sent out emails to the interview panel with context about the candidate and assigned roles to each panel member, and trained people to write down feedback. These changes were effective in improving the process and creating a better experience for both interviewers and interviewees.

It’s worth spending some time on a promising employee

A woman at Yelp was technically competent and motivated, but her introverted nature made other managers doubt her potential as a leader. The manager invested time into her development, giving her the right opportunities to show her abilities, pointing out her impact, and providing coaching to help her talk more in meetings. After three months, she was able to act as the tech lead on the team, proving that everyone has areas of growth and it's worth investing time in those with potential.

Growing pains when growing a team

Accellion had an engineer who was struggling to build a Sync engine on top of their Secure File Sharing platform. To help him, the lead created an Infrastructure team and got more senior engineers to take on the Sync issue. This allowed the engineer to be successful and the Sync issue was solved. The lesson learned was that having an Infrastructure team early on is essential to growing teams quickly, and sometimes engineers need to be moved to something they can be successful at to avoid burnout.

Helping a Good Developer Become a Legitimate Manager

When a talented engineer was promoted to a manager's position, they lacked experience and were not seen as a legitimate leader by their peers. To help them skill up, they were paired with an experienced engineering manager. After five to six months, the new manager was acknowledged by the team as a legitimate manager and had made a mindset switch from a "dev who manages people" to "a manager knowing stuff about engineering". This showed that pairing new managers with experienced ones can be an effective way to upskill them.

Define what you can gamble on when hiring.

When hiring a graphic engineer, the author took a gamble on a candidate with a strong personality, which turned out to be a mistake. The author learned that it is important to define must-haves and deal-breakers ahead of time when hiring, and to be careful not to gamble on these attributes. The author also learned that the must-haves and deal-breakers can vary depending on the company culture, situation, and team dynamics.

Being proactive when my manager took all the credit for the work of me and my team

In order to handle a difficult manager, the author took proactive steps to increase their visibility and influence. They had a talk with their manager's manager, created opportunities for themselves and their team, and eventually got promoted. The lesson learned was to be proactive in finding solutions, pull people up as you rise, and don't burn bridges.

Implementing a culture of communication

When taking over a large engineering team with sub-teams, the manager noticed a lack of consistency in team management and communication. To address this, the manager introduced regular one-on-one meetings, provided resources for further learning, and mentored the existing leadership to help them gain the tools to tackle the team's problems. This resulted in improved communication and collaboration within the team in a short timeframe.

Rethinking your whole project structure to work with contractors

Motorola faced a dilemma of hiring two people in San Francisco or six contractors in India for the same cost. To get the best of both worlds, they restructured the project to have one person in San Francisco working on an API layer and an offshore team of contractors working on the UI components. This allowed them to have people in-house working on the core value of the product and leverage a skilled workforce on the UI part. The key to successful outsourced projects is to have a well-defined start and end, no ramp up time, and no IP related tasks.

Driving your team to a higher shipping velocity

When the author first started working at Dropbox, the company was going through a change of mission and the values were getting in the way of rapidly updating and modernizing products. To encourage the team to free their minds and just ship, the author started talking about impact on customers and rewarding teams that shipped, learnt their customers, and did the most herculean work. Through this process, the author learned that culture is stronger than process, and creating a fun and happy team creates a more productive team.

Building a team while your company is in hyper-growth.

When Blablacar needed to rapidly grow, the company's founders put pressure on the engineering team to double in size every year while maintaining quality. To do this, the team adapted the company's structure, divided the engineering team into three, and used Scrum to improve efficiencies. Hiring so quickly in a hyper growth company is difficult, and the company's ways of doing things will change every six months. The speaker's advice is to be enthusiastic, authentic, and open to change.

Taking care of your direct reports’ career growth.

This story is about a manager who had an engineer in their team who had been at the same level for a long time. The manager took action to help the engineer realize they needed to focus on their career growth and gave them a project to prove themselves. Through this experience, the manager learned the importance of being proactive and providing clear expectations to ensure the engineer can focus on their challenge.

A great engineer as a bad manager

A VP at Blackhawk Network promised an engineer a promotion to manager, but she was not given any mentorship or guidance in the role. After three months of coaching, it was determined that she was not suited for the management role and she was moved back to a team lead. She was later promoted to Principal Engineer and the company learned the importance of having multiple career paths and being transparent with employees about budget constraints.

How To Coach A Manager To Be More Empathetic

A manager was hired for a position, but his rational, cognitive approach to decision-making was not well-suited to the team he was given. The manager was coached on how to be more empathetic and an active listener, and to give his team autonomy. After months of coaching, the manager was successful in shifting his behavior and the team reported a positive change. This experience taught the recruiter to assess what they are and are not getting when recruiting, and to focus on the strengths a candidate brings to the table.

How to hire at scale when your organization matures

At Box, they have created a system of fixed "pods" consisting of a hiring manager, one recruiter, two sourcers, and one coordinator to efficiently fill roles at scale. Lessons learned include not assigning too many roles at once, experimenting with job descriptions, and having two distinct groups to define and execute the hiring philosophy.

The Pyramid of Needs of an Engineering Organisation

In order to address an engineering department attrition rate of 35-40%, a rubric was used to identify areas of focus. This rubric, based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, identified the leadership team, org health, strategy, tools, systems, and processes, and product/results as the areas to focus on. This rubric helped to ensure that the team was aligned and focused on the right areas, rather than being distracted by things that don't drive the business forward.

My guidelines to successful one-on-ones.

When new to management, one-on-ones can be difficult to understand. However, they are essential for building trust and understanding what is going on in the team. To make one-on-ones successful, let the direct report set the agenda, have a weekly schedule, let people talk, and don't set a rigid framework. It is better to have a short meeting than to cancel, and remember that it takes time to build a trusting relationship.

Having better one-on-ones by tailoring them to your employees.

This article discusses how to get the most out of one-on-ones with direct reports. It suggests breaking the rules of one-on-ones by changing the setting of the meeting, such as going outside or getting coffee. It also suggests asking for feedback from direct reports and tailoring the one-on-ones to the individual employee. This helps to ensure better communication and more information is received.

Lessons From Leading Total Rewrite Projects

In 2014, Twitter wanted to rewrite its internal A/B testing system, but the two teams working on it created tension and a lack of clarity. To fix the problem, a new team was created with responsibility for A/B testing, staffed with both data scientists and engineers. This helped to align people behind one goal and build trust, while also incentivising the new system to be production-ready and stable. The team also learned that it is important to understand the old system and its failings in order to avoid repeating mistakes.

Managers shouldn’t be dictators

In this story, the author recounts their experience as an Air Force officer managing a team of software test engineers. The author learned that the military personnel and civilians had different motivations and strengths, and that it was important to factor these in and be flexible in how they structured their work. They also learned to get to know their employees as individuals, as it could go a long way in building trust. Lastly, they learned to start getting to know their team early on, as it would be more difficult to do so later.

Handling an average-performing employee who wants a promotion

A few years ago, a person was hired at a lower level than they wanted, with the expectation that they could advance. Despite giving them room for initiative and tasks linked to a leadership position, they were underperforming and not reaching out for help. When they asked for a promotion, they were shown a formalized engineer ladder and salary grid which showed them where they were and what they needed to improve. This didn't help and they ended up leaving. The key message is that having concrete explanations of why someone is not being promoted helps a lot. The engineer ladder and salary grid was published for everyone and triggered a lot of advancement. Inflating somebody's title or salary is not recommended as it gives employees an incentive to work harder and reduces their legitimacy if they are not at their proper position.

Improve Your Hiring Process During Rapid Growth

When a software team at a rapidly expanding company needed to hire more engineers, they faced problems with consistency in their hiring process. To improve the process, the team introduced an ATS to track candidates, sent out emails to the interview panel with context about the candidate and assigned roles to each panel member, and trained people to write down feedback. These changes were effective in improving the process and creating a better experience for both interviewers and interviewees.

It’s worth spending some time on a promising employee

A woman at Yelp was technically competent and motivated, but her introverted nature made other managers doubt her potential as a leader. The manager invested time into her development, giving her the right opportunities to show her abilities, pointing out her impact, and providing coaching to help her talk more in meetings. After three months, she was able to act as the tech lead on the team, proving that everyone has areas of growth and it's worth investing time in those with potential.

Growing pains when growing a team

Accellion had an engineer who was struggling to build a Sync engine on top of their Secure File Sharing platform. To help him, the lead created an Infrastructure team and got more senior engineers to take on the Sync issue. This allowed the engineer to be successful and the Sync issue was solved. The lesson learned was that having an Infrastructure team early on is essential to growing teams quickly, and sometimes engineers need to be moved to something they can be successful at to avoid burnout.

Helping a Good Developer Become a Legitimate Manager

When a talented engineer was promoted to a manager's position, they lacked experience and were not seen as a legitimate leader by their peers. To help them skill up, they were paired with an experienced engineering manager. After five to six months, the new manager was acknowledged by the team as a legitimate manager and had made a mindset switch from a "dev who manages people" to "a manager knowing stuff about engineering". This showed that pairing new managers with experienced ones can be an effective way to upskill them.

Define what you can gamble on when hiring.

When hiring a graphic engineer, the author took a gamble on a candidate with a strong personality, which turned out to be a mistake. The author learned that it is important to define must-haves and deal-breakers ahead of time when hiring, and to be careful not to gamble on these attributes. The author also learned that the must-haves and deal-breakers can vary depending on the company culture, situation, and team dynamics.

Being proactive when my manager took all the credit for the work of me and my team

In order to handle a difficult manager, the author took proactive steps to increase their visibility and influence. They had a talk with their manager's manager, created opportunities for themselves and their team, and eventually got promoted. The lesson learned was to be proactive in finding solutions, pull people up as you rise, and don't burn bridges.

Implementing a culture of communication

When taking over a large engineering team with sub-teams, the manager noticed a lack of consistency in team management and communication. To address this, the manager introduced regular one-on-one meetings, provided resources for further learning, and mentored the existing leadership to help them gain the tools to tackle the team's problems. This resulted in improved communication and collaboration within the team in a short timeframe.

Rethinking your whole project structure to work with contractors

Motorola faced a dilemma of hiring two people in San Francisco or six contractors in India for the same cost. To get the best of both worlds, they restructured the project to have one person in San Francisco working on an API layer and an offshore team of contractors working on the UI components. This allowed them to have people in-house working on the core value of the product and leverage a skilled workforce on the UI part. The key to successful outsourced projects is to have a well-defined start and end, no ramp up time, and no IP related tasks.

Driving your team to a higher shipping velocity

When the author first started working at Dropbox, the company was going through a change of mission and the values were getting in the way of rapidly updating and modernizing products. To encourage the team to free their minds and just ship, the author started talking about impact on customers and rewarding teams that shipped, learnt their customers, and did the most herculean work. Through this process, the author learned that culture is stronger than process, and creating a fun and happy team creates a more productive team.

Building a team while your company is in hyper-growth.

When Blablacar needed to rapidly grow, the company's founders put pressure on the engineering team to double in size every year while maintaining quality. To do this, the team adapted the company's structure, divided the engineering team into three, and used Scrum to improve efficiencies. Hiring so quickly in a hyper growth company is difficult, and the company's ways of doing things will change every six months. The speaker's advice is to be enthusiastic, authentic, and open to change.

Taking care of your direct reports’ career growth.

This story is about a manager who had an engineer in their team who had been at the same level for a long time. The manager took action to help the engineer realize they needed to focus on their career growth and gave them a project to prove themselves. Through this experience, the manager learned the importance of being proactive and providing clear expectations to ensure the engineer can focus on their challenge.

A great engineer as a bad manager

A VP at Blackhawk Network promised an engineer a promotion to manager, but she was not given any mentorship or guidance in the role. After three months of coaching, it was determined that she was not suited for the management role and she was moved back to a team lead. She was later promoted to Principal Engineer and the company learned the importance of having multiple career paths and being transparent with employees about budget constraints.

How To Coach A Manager To Be More Empathetic

A manager was hired for a position, but his rational, cognitive approach to decision-making was not well-suited to the team he was given. The manager was coached on how to be more empathetic and an active listener, and to give his team autonomy. After months of coaching, the manager was successful in shifting his behavior and the team reported a positive change. This experience taught the recruiter to assess what they are and are not getting when recruiting, and to focus on the strengths a candidate brings to the table.

How to hire at scale when your organization matures

At Box, they have created a system of fixed "pods" consisting of a hiring manager, one recruiter, two sourcers, and one coordinator to efficiently fill roles at scale. Lessons learned include not assigning too many roles at once, experimenting with job descriptions, and having two distinct groups to define and execute the hiring philosophy.

The Pyramid of Needs of an Engineering Organisation

In order to address an engineering department attrition rate of 35-40%, a rubric was used to identify areas of focus. This rubric, based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, identified the leadership team, org health, strategy, tools, systems, and processes, and product/results as the areas to focus on. This rubric helped to ensure that the team was aligned and focused on the right areas, rather than being distracted by things that don't drive the business forward.

My guidelines to successful one-on-ones.

When new to management, one-on-ones can be difficult to understand. However, they are essential for building trust and understanding what is going on in the team. To make one-on-ones successful, let the direct report set the agenda, have a weekly schedule, let people talk, and don't set a rigid framework. It is better to have a short meeting than to cancel, and remember that it takes time to build a trusting relationship.

Having better one-on-ones by tailoring them to your employees.

This article discusses how to get the most out of one-on-ones with direct reports. It suggests breaking the rules of one-on-ones by changing the setting of the meeting, such as going outside or getting coffee. It also suggests asking for feedback from direct reports and tailoring the one-on-ones to the individual employee. This helps to ensure better communication and more information is received.

Lessons From Leading Total Rewrite Projects

In 2014, Twitter wanted to rewrite its internal A/B testing system, but the two teams working on it created tension and a lack of clarity. To fix the problem, a new team was created with responsibility for A/B testing, staffed with both data scientists and engineers. This helped to align people behind one goal and build trust, while also incentivising the new system to be production-ready and stable. The team also learned that it is important to understand the old system and its failings in order to avoid repeating mistakes.

Managers shouldn’t be dictators

In this story, the author recounts their experience as an Air Force officer managing a team of software test engineers. The author learned that the military personnel and civilians had different motivations and strengths, and that it was important to factor these in and be flexible in how they structured their work. They also learned to get to know their employees as individuals, as it could go a long way in building trust. Lastly, they learned to start getting to know their team early on, as it would be more difficult to do so later.

Handling an average-performing employee who wants a promotion

A few years ago, a person was hired at a lower level than they wanted, with the expectation that they could advance. Despite giving them room for initiative and tasks linked to a leadership position, they were underperforming and not reaching out for help. When they asked for a promotion, they were shown a formalized engineer ladder and salary grid which showed them where they were and what they needed to improve. This didn't help and they ended up leaving. The key message is that having concrete explanations of why someone is not being promoted helps a lot. The engineer ladder and salary grid was published for everyone and triggered a lot of advancement. Inflating somebody's title or salary is not recommended as it gives employees an incentive to work harder and reduces their legitimacy if they are not at their proper position.

Improve Your Hiring Process During Rapid Growth

When a software team at a rapidly expanding company needed to hire more engineers, they faced problems with consistency in their hiring process. To improve the process, the team introduced an ATS to track candidates, sent out emails to the interview panel with context about the candidate and assigned roles to each panel member, and trained people to write down feedback. These changes were effective in improving the process and creating a better experience for both interviewers and interviewees.

It’s worth spending some time on a promising employee

A woman at Yelp was technically competent and motivated, but her introverted nature made other managers doubt her potential as a leader. The manager invested time into her development, giving her the right opportunities to show her abilities, pointing out her impact, and providing coaching to help her talk more in meetings. After three months, she was able to act as the tech lead on the team, proving that everyone has areas of growth and it's worth investing time in those with potential.

Growing pains when growing a team

Accellion had an engineer who was struggling to build a Sync engine on top of their Secure File Sharing platform. To help him, the lead created an Infrastructure team and got more senior engineers to take on the Sync issue. This allowed the engineer to be successful and the Sync issue was solved. The lesson learned was that having an Infrastructure team early on is essential to growing teams quickly, and sometimes engineers need to be moved to something they can be successful at to avoid burnout.

Helping a Good Developer Become a Legitimate Manager

When a talented engineer was promoted to a manager's position, they lacked experience and were not seen as a legitimate leader by their peers. To help them skill up, they were paired with an experienced engineering manager. After five to six months, the new manager was acknowledged by the team as a legitimate manager and had made a mindset switch from a "dev who manages people" to "a manager knowing stuff about engineering". This showed that pairing new managers with experienced ones can be an effective way to upskill them.

Define what you can gamble on when hiring.

When hiring a graphic engineer, the author took a gamble on a candidate with a strong personality, which turned out to be a mistake. The author learned that it is important to define must-haves and deal-breakers ahead of time when hiring, and to be careful not to gamble on these attributes. The author also learned that the must-haves and deal-breakers can vary depending on the company culture, situation, and team dynamics.

Being proactive when my manager took all the credit for the work of me and my team

In order to handle a difficult manager, the author took proactive steps to increase their visibility and influence. They had a talk with their manager's manager, created opportunities for themselves and their team, and eventually got promoted. The lesson learned was to be proactive in finding solutions, pull people up as you rise, and don't burn bridges.

Implementing a culture of communication

When taking over a large engineering team with sub-teams, the manager noticed a lack of consistency in team management and communication. To address this, the manager introduced regular one-on-one meetings, provided resources for further learning, and mentored the existing leadership to help them gain the tools to tackle the team's problems. This resulted in improved communication and collaboration within the team in a short timeframe.

Rethinking your whole project structure to work with contractors

Motorola faced a dilemma of hiring two people in San Francisco or six contractors in India for the same cost. To get the best of both worlds, they restructured the project to have one person in San Francisco working on an API layer and an offshore team of contractors working on the UI components. This allowed them to have people in-house working on the core value of the product and leverage a skilled workforce on the UI part. The key to successful outsourced projects is to have a well-defined start and end, no ramp up time, and no IP related tasks.

Driving your team to a higher shipping velocity

When the author first started working at Dropbox, the company was going through a change of mission and the values were getting in the way of rapidly updating and modernizing products. To encourage the team to free their minds and just ship, the author started talking about impact on customers and rewarding teams that shipped, learnt their customers, and did the most herculean work. Through this process, the author learned that culture is stronger than process, and creating a fun and happy team creates a more productive team.

Building a team while your company is in hyper-growth.

When Blablacar needed to rapidly grow, the company's founders put pressure on the engineering team to double in size every year while maintaining quality. To do this, the team adapted the company's structure, divided the engineering team into three, and used Scrum to improve efficiencies. Hiring so quickly in a hyper growth company is difficult, and the company's ways of doing things will change every six months. The speaker's advice is to be enthusiastic, authentic, and open to change.

Taking care of your direct reports’ career growth.

This story is about a manager who had an engineer in their team who had been at the same level for a long time. The manager took action to help the engineer realize they needed to focus on their career growth and gave them a project to prove themselves. Through this experience, the manager learned the importance of being proactive and providing clear expectations to ensure the engineer can focus on their challenge.

A great engineer as a bad manager

A VP at Blackhawk Network promised an engineer a promotion to manager, but she was not given any mentorship or guidance in the role. After three months of coaching, it was determined that she was not suited for the management role and she was moved back to a team lead. She was later promoted to Principal Engineer and the company learned the importance of having multiple career paths and being transparent with employees about budget constraints.

How To Coach A Manager To Be More Empathetic

A manager was hired for a position, but his rational, cognitive approach to decision-making was not well-suited to the team he was given. The manager was coached on how to be more empathetic and an active listener, and to give his team autonomy. After months of coaching, the manager was successful in shifting his behavior and the team reported a positive change. This experience taught the recruiter to assess what they are and are not getting when recruiting, and to focus on the strengths a candidate brings to the table.

How to hire at scale when your organization matures

At Box, they have created a system of fixed "pods" consisting of a hiring manager, one recruiter, two sourcers, and one coordinator to efficiently fill roles at scale. Lessons learned include not assigning too many roles at once, experimenting with job descriptions, and having two distinct groups to define and execute the hiring philosophy.

The Pyramid of Needs of an Engineering Organisation

In order to address an engineering department attrition rate of 35-40%, a rubric was used to identify areas of focus. This rubric, based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, identified the leadership team, org health, strategy, tools, systems, and processes, and product/results as the areas to focus on. This rubric helped to ensure that the team was aligned and focused on the right areas, rather than being distracted by things that don't drive the business forward.

My guidelines to successful one-on-ones.

When new to management, one-on-ones can be difficult to understand. However, they are essential for building trust and understanding what is going on in the team. To make one-on-ones successful, let the direct report set the agenda, have a weekly schedule, let people talk, and don't set a rigid framework. It is better to have a short meeting than to cancel, and remember that it takes time to build a trusting relationship.

Having better one-on-ones by tailoring them to your employees.

This article discusses how to get the most out of one-on-ones with direct reports. It suggests breaking the rules of one-on-ones by changing the setting of the meeting, such as going outside or getting coffee. It also suggests asking for feedback from direct reports and tailoring the one-on-ones to the individual employee. This helps to ensure better communication and more information is received.

Lessons From Leading Total Rewrite Projects

In 2014, Twitter wanted to rewrite its internal A/B testing system, but the two teams working on it created tension and a lack of clarity. To fix the problem, a new team was created with responsibility for A/B testing, staffed with both data scientists and engineers. This helped to align people behind one goal and build trust, while also incentivising the new system to be production-ready and stable. The team also learned that it is important to understand the old system and its failings in order to avoid repeating mistakes.

Managers shouldn’t be dictators

In this story, the author recounts their experience as an Air Force officer managing a team of software test engineers. The author learned that the military personnel and civilians had different motivations and strengths, and that it was important to factor these in and be flexible in how they structured their work. They also learned to get to know their employees as individuals, as it could go a long way in building trust. Lastly, they learned to start getting to know their team early on, as it would be more difficult to do so later.

Handling an average-performing employee who wants a promotion

A few years ago, a person was hired at a lower level than they wanted, with the expectation that they could advance. Despite giving them room for initiative and tasks linked to a leadership position, they were underperforming and not reaching out for help. When they asked for a promotion, they were shown a formalized engineer ladder and salary grid which showed them where they were and what they needed to improve. This didn't help and they ended up leaving. The key message is that having concrete explanations of why someone is not being promoted helps a lot. The engineer ladder and salary grid was published for everyone and triggered a lot of advancement. Inflating somebody's title or salary is not recommended as it gives employees an incentive to work harder and reduces their legitimacy if they are not at their proper position.

Improve Your Hiring Process During Rapid Growth

When a software team at a rapidly expanding company needed to hire more engineers, they faced problems with consistency in their hiring process. To improve the process, the team introduced an ATS to track candidates, sent out emails to the interview panel with context about the candidate and assigned roles to each panel member, and trained people to write down feedback. These changes were effective in improving the process and creating a better experience for both interviewers and interviewees.

It’s worth spending some time on a promising employee

A woman at Yelp was technically competent and motivated, but her introverted nature made other managers doubt her potential as a leader. The manager invested time into her development, giving her the right opportunities to show her abilities, pointing out her impact, and providing coaching to help her talk more in meetings. After three months, she was able to act as the tech lead on the team, proving that everyone has areas of growth and it's worth investing time in those with potential.

Growing pains when growing a team

Accellion had an engineer who was struggling to build a Sync engine on top of their Secure File Sharing platform. To help him, the lead created an Infrastructure team and got more senior engineers to take on the Sync issue. This allowed the engineer to be successful and the Sync issue was solved. The lesson learned was that having an Infrastructure team early on is essential to growing teams quickly, and sometimes engineers need to be moved to something they can be successful at to avoid burnout.

Helping a Good Developer Become a Legitimate Manager

When a talented engineer was promoted to a manager's position, they lacked experience and were not seen as a legitimate leader by their peers. To help them skill up, they were paired with an experienced engineering manager. After five to six months, the new manager was acknowledged by the team as a legitimate manager and had made a mindset switch from a "dev who manages people" to "a manager knowing stuff about engineering". This showed that pairing new managers with experienced ones can be an effective way to upskill them.

Define what you can gamble on when hiring.

When hiring a graphic engineer, the author took a gamble on a candidate with a strong personality, which turned out to be a mistake. The author learned that it is important to define must-haves and deal-breakers ahead of time when hiring, and to be careful not to gamble on these attributes. The author also learned that the must-haves and deal-breakers can vary depending on the company culture, situation, and team dynamics.

Being proactive when my manager took all the credit for the work of me and my team

In order to handle a difficult manager, the author took proactive steps to increase their visibility and influence. They had a talk with their manager's manager, created opportunities for themselves and their team, and eventually got promoted. The lesson learned was to be proactive in finding solutions, pull people up as you rise, and don't burn bridges.

Implementing a culture of communication

When taking over a large engineering team with sub-teams, the manager noticed a lack of consistency in team management and communication. To address this, the manager introduced regular one-on-one meetings, provided resources for further learning, and mentored the existing leadership to help them gain the tools to tackle the team's problems. This resulted in improved communication and collaboration within the team in a short timeframe.

Rethinking your whole project structure to work with contractors

Motorola faced a dilemma of hiring two people in San Francisco or six contractors in India for the same cost. To get the best of both worlds, they restructured the project to have one person in San Francisco working on an API layer and an offshore team of contractors working on the UI components. This allowed them to have people in-house working on the core value of the product and leverage a skilled workforce on the UI part. The key to successful outsourced projects is to have a well-defined start and end, no ramp up time, and no IP related tasks.

Driving your team to a higher shipping velocity

When the author first started working at Dropbox, the company was going through a change of mission and the values were getting in the way of rapidly updating and modernizing products. To encourage the team to free their minds and just ship, the author started talking about impact on customers and rewarding teams that shipped, learnt their customers, and did the most herculean work. Through this process, the author learned that culture is stronger than process, and creating a fun and happy team creates a more productive team.

Building a team while your company is in hyper-growth.

When Blablacar needed to rapidly grow, the company's founders put pressure on the engineering team to double in size every year while maintaining quality. To do this, the team adapted the company's structure, divided the engineering team into three, and used Scrum to improve efficiencies. Hiring so quickly in a hyper growth company is difficult, and the company's ways of doing things will change every six months. The speaker's advice is to be enthusiastic, authentic, and open to change.

Taking care of your direct reports’ career growth.

This story is about a manager who had an engineer in their team who had been at the same level for a long time. The manager took action to help the engineer realize they needed to focus on their career growth and gave them a project to prove themselves. Through this experience, the manager learned the importance of being proactive and providing clear expectations to ensure the engineer can focus on their challenge.

A great engineer as a bad manager

A VP at Blackhawk Network promised an engineer a promotion to manager, but she was not given any mentorship or guidance in the role. After three months of coaching, it was determined that she was not suited for the management role and she was moved back to a team lead. She was later promoted to Principal Engineer and the company learned the importance of having multiple career paths and being transparent with employees about budget constraints.

How To Coach A Manager To Be More Empathetic

A manager was hired for a position, but his rational, cognitive approach to decision-making was not well-suited to the team he was given. The manager was coached on how to be more empathetic and an active listener, and to give his team autonomy. After months of coaching, the manager was successful in shifting his behavior and the team reported a positive change. This experience taught the recruiter to assess what they are and are not getting when recruiting, and to focus on the strengths a candidate brings to the table.

How to hire at scale when your organization matures

At Box, they have created a system of fixed "pods" consisting of a hiring manager, one recruiter, two sourcers, and one coordinator to efficiently fill roles at scale. Lessons learned include not assigning too many roles at once, experimenting with job descriptions, and having two distinct groups to define and execute the hiring philosophy.

The Pyramid of Needs of an Engineering Organisation

In order to address an engineering department attrition rate of 35-40%, a rubric was used to identify areas of focus. This rubric, based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, identified the leadership team, org health, strategy, tools, systems, and processes, and product/results as the areas to focus on. This rubric helped to ensure that the team was aligned and focused on the right areas, rather than being distracted by things that don't drive the business forward.

My guidelines to successful one-on-ones.

When new to management, one-on-ones can be difficult to understand. However, they are essential for building trust and understanding what is going on in the team. To make one-on-ones successful, let the direct report set the agenda, have a weekly schedule, let people talk, and don't set a rigid framework. It is better to have a short meeting than to cancel, and remember that it takes time to build a trusting relationship.

Having better one-on-ones by tailoring them to your employees.

This article discusses how to get the most out of one-on-ones with direct reports. It suggests breaking the rules of one-on-ones by changing the setting of the meeting, such as going outside or getting coffee. It also suggests asking for feedback from direct reports and tailoring the one-on-ones to the individual employee. This helps to ensure better communication and more information is received.

Lessons From Leading Total Rewrite Projects

In 2014, Twitter wanted to rewrite its internal A/B testing system, but the two teams working on it created tension and a lack of clarity. To fix the problem, a new team was created with responsibility for A/B testing, staffed with both data scientists and engineers. This helped to align people behind one goal and build trust, while also incentivising the new system to be production-ready and stable. The team also learned that it is important to understand the old system and its failings in order to avoid repeating mistakes.

Managers shouldn’t be dictators

In this story, the author recounts their experience as an Air Force officer managing a team of software test engineers. The author learned that the military personnel and civilians had different motivations and strengths, and that it was important to factor these in and be flexible in how they structured their work. They also learned to get to know their employees as individuals, as it could go a long way in building trust. Lastly, they learned to start getting to know their team early on, as it would be more difficult to do so later.

Handling an average-performing employee who wants a promotion

A few years ago, a person was hired at a lower level than they wanted, with the expectation that they could advance. Despite giving them room for initiative and tasks linked to a leadership position, they were underperforming and not reaching out for help. When they asked for a promotion, they were shown a formalized engineer ladder and salary grid which showed them where they were and what they needed to improve. This didn't help and they ended up leaving. The key message is that having concrete explanations of why someone is not being promoted helps a lot. The engineer ladder and salary grid was published for everyone and triggered a lot of advancement. Inflating somebody's title or salary is not recommended as it gives employees an incentive to work harder and reduces their legitimacy if they are not at their proper position.

Improve Your Hiring Process During Rapid Growth

When a software team at a rapidly expanding company needed to hire more engineers, they faced problems with consistency in their hiring process. To improve the process, the team introduced an ATS to track candidates, sent out emails to the interview panel with context about the candidate and assigned roles to each panel member, and trained people to write down feedback. These changes were effective in improving the process and creating a better experience for both interviewers and interviewees.

It’s worth spending some time on a promising employee

A woman at Yelp was technically competent and motivated, but her introverted nature made other managers doubt her potential as a leader. The manager invested time into her development, giving her the right opportunities to show her abilities, pointing out her impact, and providing coaching to help her talk more in meetings. After three months, she was able to act as the tech lead on the team, proving that everyone has areas of growth and it's worth investing time in those with potential.

Growing pains when growing a team

Accellion had an engineer who was struggling to build a Sync engine on top of their Secure File Sharing platform. To help him, the lead created an Infrastructure team and got more senior engineers to take on the Sync issue. This allowed the engineer to be successful and the Sync issue was solved. The lesson learned was that having an Infrastructure team early on is essential to growing teams quickly, and sometimes engineers need to be moved to something they can be successful at to avoid burnout.

Helping a Good Developer Become a Legitimate Manager

When a talented engineer was promoted to a manager's position, they lacked experience and were not seen as a legitimate leader by their peers. To help them skill up, they were paired with an experienced engineering manager. After five to six months, the new manager was acknowledged by the team as a legitimate manager and had made a mindset switch from a "dev who manages people" to "a manager knowing stuff about engineering". This showed that pairing new managers with experienced ones can be an effective way to upskill them.

Define what you can gamble on when hiring.

When hiring a graphic engineer, the author took a gamble on a candidate with a strong personality, which turned out to be a mistake. The author learned that it is important to define must-haves and deal-breakers ahead of time when hiring, and to be careful not to gamble on these attributes. The author also learned that the must-haves and deal-breakers can vary depending on the company culture, situation, and team dynamics.

Being proactive when my manager took all the credit for the work of me and my team

In order to handle a difficult manager, the author took proactive steps to increase their visibility and influence. They had a talk with their manager's manager, created opportunities for themselves and their team, and eventually got promoted. The lesson learned was to be proactive in finding solutions, pull people up as you rise, and don't burn bridges.

Implementing a culture of communication

When taking over a large engineering team with sub-teams, the manager noticed a lack of consistency in team management and communication. To address this, the manager introduced regular one-on-one meetings, provided resources for further learning, and mentored the existing leadership to help them gain the tools to tackle the team's problems. This resulted in improved communication and collaboration within the team in a short timeframe.

Rethinking your whole project structure to work with contractors

Motorola faced a dilemma of hiring two people in San Francisco or six contractors in India for the same cost. To get the best of both worlds, they restructured the project to have one person in San Francisco working on an API layer and an offshore team of contractors working on the UI components. This allowed them to have people in-house working on the core value of the product and leverage a skilled workforce on the UI part. The key to successful outsourced projects is to have a well-defined start and end, no ramp up time, and no IP related tasks.

Driving your team to a higher shipping velocity

When the author first started working at Dropbox, the company was going through a change of mission and the values were getting in the way of rapidly updating and modernizing products. To encourage the team to free their minds and just ship, the author started talking about impact on customers and rewarding teams that shipped, learnt their customers, and did the most herculean work. Through this process, the author learned that culture is stronger than process, and creating a fun and happy team creates a more productive team.

Building a team while your company is in hyper-growth.

When Blablacar needed to rapidly grow, the company's founders put pressure on the engineering team to double in size every year while maintaining quality. To do this, the team adapted the company's structure, divided the engineering team into three, and used Scrum to improve efficiencies. Hiring so quickly in a hyper growth company is difficult, and the company's ways of doing things will change every six months. The speaker's advice is to be enthusiastic, authentic, and open to change.

Taking care of your direct reports’ career growth.

This story is about a manager who had an engineer in their team who had been at the same level for a long time. The manager took action to help the engineer realize they needed to focus on their career growth and gave them a project to prove themselves. Through this experience, the manager learned the importance of being proactive and providing clear expectations to ensure the engineer can focus on their challenge.

A great engineer as a bad manager

A VP at Blackhawk Network promised an engineer a promotion to manager, but she was not given any mentorship or guidance in the role. After three months of coaching, it was determined that she was not suited for the management role and she was moved back to a team lead. She was later promoted to Principal Engineer and the company learned the importance of having multiple career paths and being transparent with employees about budget constraints.

How To Coach A Manager To Be More Empathetic

A manager was hired for a position, but his rational, cognitive approach to decision-making was not well-suited to the team he was given. The manager was coached on how to be more empathetic and an active listener, and to give his team autonomy. After months of coaching, the manager was successful in shifting his behavior and the team reported a positive change. This experience taught the recruiter to assess what they are and are not getting when recruiting, and to focus on the strengths a candidate brings to the table.

How to hire at scale when your organization matures

At Box, they have created a system of fixed "pods" consisting of a hiring manager, one recruiter, two sourcers, and one coordinator to efficiently fill roles at scale. Lessons learned include not assigning too many roles at once, experimenting with job descriptions, and having two distinct groups to define and execute the hiring philosophy.

The Pyramid of Needs of an Engineering Organisation

In order to address an engineering department attrition rate of 35-40%, a rubric was used to identify areas of focus. This rubric, based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, identified the leadership team, org health, strategy, tools, systems, and processes, and product/results as the areas to focus on. This rubric helped to ensure that the team was aligned and focused on the right areas, rather than being distracted by things that don't drive the business forward.

My guidelines to successful one-on-ones.

When new to management, one-on-ones can be difficult to understand. However, they are essential for building trust and understanding what is going on in the team. To make one-on-ones successful, let the direct report set the agenda, have a weekly schedule, let people talk, and don't set a rigid framework. It is better to have a short meeting than to cancel, and remember that it takes time to build a trusting relationship.

Having better one-on-ones by tailoring them to your employees.

This article discusses how to get the most out of one-on-ones with direct reports. It suggests breaking the rules of one-on-ones by changing the setting of the meeting, such as going outside or getting coffee. It also suggests asking for feedback from direct reports and tailoring the one-on-ones to the individual employee. This helps to ensure better communication and more information is received.

Lessons From Leading Total Rewrite Projects

In 2014, Twitter wanted to rewrite its internal A/B testing system, but the two teams working on it created tension and a lack of clarity. To fix the problem, a new team was created with responsibility for A/B testing, staffed with both data scientists and engineers. This helped to align people behind one goal and build trust, while also incentivising the new system to be production-ready and stable. The team also learned that it is important to understand the old system and its failings in order to avoid repeating mistakes.

Managers shouldn’t be dictators

In this story, the author recounts their experience as an Air Force officer managing a team of software test engineers. The author learned that the military personnel and civilians had different motivations and strengths, and that it was important to factor these in and be flexible in how they structured their work. They also learned to get to know their employees as individuals, as it could go a long way in building trust. Lastly, they learned to start getting to know their team early on, as it would be more difficult to do so later.

Handling an average-performing employee who wants a promotion

A few years ago, a person was hired at a lower level than they wanted, with the expectation that they could advance. Despite giving them room for initiative and tasks linked to a leadership position, they were underperforming and not reaching out for help. When they asked for a promotion, they were shown a formalized engineer ladder and salary grid which showed them where they were and what they needed to improve. This didn't help and they ended up leaving. The key message is that having concrete explanations of why someone is not being promoted helps a lot. The engineer ladder and salary grid was published for everyone and triggered a lot of advancement. Inflating somebody's title or salary is not recommended as it gives employees an incentive to work harder and reduces their legitimacy if they are not at their proper position.

Improve Your Hiring Process During Rapid Growth

When a software team at a rapidly expanding company needed to hire more engineers, they faced problems with consistency in their hiring process. To improve the process, the team introduced an ATS to track candidates, sent out emails to the interview panel with context about the candidate and assigned roles to each panel member, and trained people to write down feedback. These changes were effective in improving the process and creating a better experience for both interviewers and interviewees.

It’s worth spending some time on a promising employee

A woman at Yelp was technically competent and motivated, but her introverted nature made other managers doubt her potential as a leader. The manager invested time into her development, giving her the right opportunities to show her abilities, pointing out her impact, and providing coaching to help her talk more in meetings. After three months, she was able to act as the tech lead on the team, proving that everyone has areas of growth and it's worth investing time in those with potential.

Growing pains when growing a team

Accellion had an engineer who was struggling to build a Sync engine on top of their Secure File Sharing platform. To help him, the lead created an Infrastructure team and got more senior engineers to take on the Sync issue. This allowed the engineer to be successful and the Sync issue was solved. The lesson learned was that having an Infrastructure team early on is essential to growing teams quickly, and sometimes engineers need to be moved to something they can be successful at to avoid burnout.

Helping a Good Developer Become a Legitimate Manager

When a talented engineer was promoted to a manager's position, they lacked experience and were not seen as a legitimate leader by their peers. To help them skill up, they were paired with an experienced engineering manager. After five to six months, the new manager was acknowledged by the team as a legitimate manager and had made a mindset switch from a "dev who manages people" to "a manager knowing stuff about engineering". This showed that pairing new managers with experienced ones can be an effective way to upskill them.

Define what you can gamble on when hiring.

When hiring a graphic engineer, the author took a gamble on a candidate with a strong personality, which turned out to be a mistake. The author learned that it is important to define must-haves and deal-breakers ahead of time when hiring, and to be careful not to gamble on these attributes. The author also learned that the must-haves and deal-breakers can vary depending on the company culture, situation, and team dynamics.

Being proactive when my manager took all the credit for the work of me and my team

In order to handle a difficult manager, the author took proactive steps to increase their visibility and influence. They had a talk with their manager's manager, created opportunities for themselves and their team, and eventually got promoted. The lesson learned was to be proactive in finding solutions, pull people up as you rise, and don't burn bridges.

Implementing a culture of communication

When taking over a large engineering team with sub-teams, the manager noticed a lack of consistency in team management and communication. To address this, the manager introduced regular one-on-one meetings, provided resources for further learning, and mentored the existing leadership to help them gain the tools to tackle the team's problems. This resulted in improved communication and collaboration within the team in a short timeframe.

Rethinking your whole project structure to work with contractors

Motorola faced a dilemma of hiring two people in San Francisco or six contractors in India for the same cost. To get the best of both worlds, they restructured the project to have one person in San Francisco working on an API layer and an offshore team of contractors working on the UI components. This allowed them to have people in-house working on the core value of the product and leverage a skilled workforce on the UI part. The key to successful outsourced projects is to have a well-defined start and end, no ramp up time, and no IP related tasks.

Driving your team to a higher shipping velocity

When the author first started working at Dropbox, the company was going through a change of mission and the values were getting in the way of rapidly updating and modernizing products. To encourage the team to free their minds and just ship, the author started talking about impact on customers and rewarding teams that shipped, learnt their customers, and did the most herculean work. Through this process, the author learned that culture is stronger than process, and creating a fun and happy team creates a more productive team.

Building a team while your company is in hyper-growth.

When Blablacar needed to rapidly grow, the company's founders put pressure on the engineering team to double in size every year while maintaining quality. To do this, the team adapted the company's structure, divided the engineering team into three, and used Scrum to improve efficiencies. Hiring so quickly in a hyper growth company is difficult, and the company's ways of doing things will change every six months. The speaker's advice is to be enthusiastic, authentic, and open to change.

Taking care of your direct reports’ career growth.

This story is about a manager who had an engineer in their team who had been at the same level for a long time. The manager took action to help the engineer realize they needed to focus on their career growth and gave them a project to prove themselves. Through this experience, the manager learned the importance of being proactive and providing clear expectations to ensure the engineer can focus on their challenge.

A great engineer as a bad manager

A VP at Blackhawk Network promised an engineer a promotion to manager, but she was not given any mentorship or guidance in the role. After three months of coaching, it was determined that she was not suited for the management role and she was moved back to a team lead. She was later promoted to Principal Engineer and the company learned the importance of having multiple career paths and being transparent with employees about budget constraints.