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Constraining decisions with reality

This article discusses the challenge of balancing the high-energy, visionary founder of a startup with the engineering team's ability to build ideas. To address this, the team implemented a whiteboard and sticky note system to capture work and bulk it into sprints, allowing them to better quantify and qualify what they were working on and inform priority decisions. This process made it more visible what the engineering team was working on and allowed them to accommodate CEO requests in a way that kept the team happier.

You should reward rockstar developers

This article discusses the importance of rewarding high-performing developers. It tells the story of a rockstar developer who was given a 3% raise in salary, which didn't reflect the value he had contributed to the team. The lesson learned is that you need to incentivize your best-performing developers, and if you can't reward them with money, find other ways to do so.

How to handle an underperforming employee

A manager was leading a team of engineers and one of them was not performing as expected. To address this, the manager set up a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) which had a positive outcome. However, the manager still considers this a failure as the employee was surprised by the PIP and should have been coached more effectively in regular 1:1s. The manager learned that feedback should be given regularly and linked to outcomes, and that formal HR tools should not be a surprise. The manager should make an earnest commitment to the employee's personal development.

Tips For Fast And Effective Recruitment

The Director of Engineering at Dailymotion faced the challenge of quickly hiring 16-17 people for a project from scratch. To do this, they had to deal with a large number of external recruiters and resumes. To make the process more efficient, they set up quick screening interviews and used CodePad to quickly weed out candidates who couldn't code. They also made sure to be upfront with candidates about the job and the company, to ensure they would be happy and comfortable with the position. Ultimately, the lesson learned is that teams are all about the people and the culture they create, and it is important to hire the right personalities who can work well together.

Transitioning from waterfall to Scrum and getting the Business team to buy-in

When the engineering team at CaterTrax was developing software, they often missed the mark and delivered products on time but with features that were not always right. To address this, the team transitioned from a waterfall to a Scrum methodology, which improved quality and met commitments. However, the business team was initially resistant to the change and it took five months for them to buy in. To gain buy-in from the business team for a new working method, it is important to develop a business case, get feedback from the team, and meet commitments with short feedback loops and quality, working software.

The Challenges Of Hiring Experienced Engineers

Venmo faced the challenge of hiring experienced engineers, who tend to be passive candidates and don't have the time to complete a take-home coding challenge. To address this, the company removed the take-home challenge and introduced a hiring manager screen and standardized other interview sessions. This has helped them to find senior engineers and speed up the hiring process, while also saving time for their engineers.

An employee who doesn’t accept feedback

A few years ago, an employee in the team lacked technical skills and refused to accept feedback. After a one-on-one meeting where he became aggressive and cursed, the manager went to HR and implemented a performance improvement plan. In the end, the employee was let go and the manager learned to consult HR earlier in such situations.

Outcome-Based Goals Rather Than Output-Based

At Managed by Q, the product and engineering teams were out of sync with the rest of the business. To address this, the author worked with the product team to collect input from stakeholders and synthesize customer research, and then worked with the head of product to crystallize the direction and create quarterly objectives that were meaningful to the business. Through stakeholder interviews, voting exercises, and regular updates, the author was able to create greater alignment across the organization. The end result was much better visibility and buy-in from stakeholders, and a more motivated team.

In meetings, if anyone is remote, everyone is remote.

The VP of Engineering at FogCreek noticed that the founders thought he was too quiet and did not give enough input during meetings. After realizing that this was due to the delay of remote meetings, he proposed a policy of "If anyone is remote, everyone is remote", meaning that regardless of people being in the same location, they would stay in their own offices and jump on the video call individually. This policy was successful and is now part of the company culture at Trello.

Do You Know How to Tackle Diversity Issues on Your Team?

After a woman declined a job offer, the company realized that 90% of their team were men and decided to do more sourcing at women's engineering events. This resulted in a more gender-balanced team with a 60/40 male to female ratio, without changing their technical requirements. The lesson learned was that it is important to create a non-hostile work environment for everyone, and to prioritize women candidates without changing the bar.

Handling engineers’ demotivation when their work is declared obsolete

This article discusses how to help engineers adjust to changes in technology, which can cause an identity crisis. The author suggests managers provide a clear picture of the end goal and use metrics and incentives to help shift the focus to the team mission.

Becoming an Engineering Manager does not Mean You are just People Managing

The author, a manager at Lyft, explains how they use their technical background to contribute to the technical challenges their team faces, even though they are a manager. They discuss how they recently had to dive deep into the Payments team to help create a long-term strategy and roadmap. The author emphasizes that managers should be able to keep their technical know-how and use it to examine problems in depth.

Understanding What is Critical in a Job Position

A personable and willing to learn SQL database administrator was hired, but it was discovered that he panicked in critical situations and made mistakes that had an impact on the business. After a serious conversation and brainstorming to build his confidence, it was decided to terminate his contract. This experience taught the company to be more clear in job descriptions and to test candidates' ability to handle stressful situations during the hiring process.

Gaining trust from a new team

This article discusses the challenges of leading a team of engineers in different locations. The author found that gaining the team's trust was the most important factor in success, and this was achieved through personal connections and clear communication. The author also learned the importance of having a boss who trusts their methods and techniques.

Convincing your executives to increase their hiring budget

This article discusses the challenge of hiring a full backend developer with at least five years of experience. The author had to convince their executives to increase the budget in order to hire a top-notch engineer, and they gathered data to demonstrate that a small budget would result in a loss for the company. They also compared their company's salary to the market price and found that they were offering much lower than the competition. After a month of convincing, the executives agreed to increase the budget, but the perfect candidate had already declined the offer. The author's advice is to bring a lot of data and present it in a way that executives will understand.

To Contractor or not to contractor? Pros and cons of putting off full time hiring.

Rogue Rocket was founded in 2011 with the goal of staying lean and hiring staff on a project-needs basis. They used contractors to fill positions and minimize cash flow risk, and eventually made a few full-time hires. The strategy was to create great products and maximize quality and creativity, but this may not be a wise choice in the current business environment due to the shortage of skilled technical personnel. Companies must decide on the best strategy for their needs.

Learn to Know Whether Your Employee is a Kite or an Airplane

The manager of Trello hired an employee who seemed to be very smart, but he did not produce anything. The manager then set up a performance improvement plan with strict deadlines, but only two of the objectives were accomplished. This led the manager to the conclusion that there are two extremes of personalities to manage, airplanes and kites, and that he should have identified this during the interview process.

How to deal with a layoff

An employee threatened to sue the company when given a one-month warning to improve performance. The CEO terminated his employment after the employee called him and the threat was not followed through. The process of giving employees a chance to improve before termination is fair and in this case, the team is more efficient and happier without the toxic employee.

Managing to change an employee’s bad habit

A new engineer hired at Trello had difficulty adapting to the company's formal communication style, using swear words frequently. The manager addressed the issue with gentle conversation and then used Slack to give instantaneous, discrete feedback whenever the engineer used inappropriate language. This approach enabled the engineer to quickly adjust to the company's culture. The lesson learned is that it is important to address issues with new employees quickly and discretely in order to help them fit in with the company's culture.

Creating and utilizing an engineering career path

A startup realized that their ad-hoc responses to career growth weren't enough and began researching career paths from other companies. After collecting a dozen paths, they created their own with six positions, four qualities per position, and one to three sentences per quality. They received feedback from their most experienced engineers and rolled out the path with a presentation. Lessons learned include understanding the problem, finding a starting point, avoiding "Not Invented Here," training managers and engineers, and working with HR.

Constraining decisions with reality

This article discusses the challenge of balancing the high-energy, visionary founder of a startup with the engineering team's ability to build ideas. To address this, the team implemented a whiteboard and sticky note system to capture work and bulk it into sprints, allowing them to better quantify and qualify what they were working on and inform priority decisions. This process made it more visible what the engineering team was working on and allowed them to accommodate CEO requests in a way that kept the team happier.

You should reward rockstar developers

This article discusses the importance of rewarding high-performing developers. It tells the story of a rockstar developer who was given a 3% raise in salary, which didn't reflect the value he had contributed to the team. The lesson learned is that you need to incentivize your best-performing developers, and if you can't reward them with money, find other ways to do so.

How to handle an underperforming employee

A manager was leading a team of engineers and one of them was not performing as expected. To address this, the manager set up a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) which had a positive outcome. However, the manager still considers this a failure as the employee was surprised by the PIP and should have been coached more effectively in regular 1:1s. The manager learned that feedback should be given regularly and linked to outcomes, and that formal HR tools should not be a surprise. The manager should make an earnest commitment to the employee's personal development.

Tips For Fast And Effective Recruitment

The Director of Engineering at Dailymotion faced the challenge of quickly hiring 16-17 people for a project from scratch. To do this, they had to deal with a large number of external recruiters and resumes. To make the process more efficient, they set up quick screening interviews and used CodePad to quickly weed out candidates who couldn't code. They also made sure to be upfront with candidates about the job and the company, to ensure they would be happy and comfortable with the position. Ultimately, the lesson learned is that teams are all about the people and the culture they create, and it is important to hire the right personalities who can work well together.

Transitioning from waterfall to Scrum and getting the Business team to buy-in

When the engineering team at CaterTrax was developing software, they often missed the mark and delivered products on time but with features that were not always right. To address this, the team transitioned from a waterfall to a Scrum methodology, which improved quality and met commitments. However, the business team was initially resistant to the change and it took five months for them to buy in. To gain buy-in from the business team for a new working method, it is important to develop a business case, get feedback from the team, and meet commitments with short feedback loops and quality, working software.

The Challenges Of Hiring Experienced Engineers

Venmo faced the challenge of hiring experienced engineers, who tend to be passive candidates and don't have the time to complete a take-home coding challenge. To address this, the company removed the take-home challenge and introduced a hiring manager screen and standardized other interview sessions. This has helped them to find senior engineers and speed up the hiring process, while also saving time for their engineers.

An employee who doesn’t accept feedback

A few years ago, an employee in the team lacked technical skills and refused to accept feedback. After a one-on-one meeting where he became aggressive and cursed, the manager went to HR and implemented a performance improvement plan. In the end, the employee was let go and the manager learned to consult HR earlier in such situations.

Outcome-Based Goals Rather Than Output-Based

At Managed by Q, the product and engineering teams were out of sync with the rest of the business. To address this, the author worked with the product team to collect input from stakeholders and synthesize customer research, and then worked with the head of product to crystallize the direction and create quarterly objectives that were meaningful to the business. Through stakeholder interviews, voting exercises, and regular updates, the author was able to create greater alignment across the organization. The end result was much better visibility and buy-in from stakeholders, and a more motivated team.

In meetings, if anyone is remote, everyone is remote.

The VP of Engineering at FogCreek noticed that the founders thought he was too quiet and did not give enough input during meetings. After realizing that this was due to the delay of remote meetings, he proposed a policy of "If anyone is remote, everyone is remote", meaning that regardless of people being in the same location, they would stay in their own offices and jump on the video call individually. This policy was successful and is now part of the company culture at Trello.

Do You Know How to Tackle Diversity Issues on Your Team?

After a woman declined a job offer, the company realized that 90% of their team were men and decided to do more sourcing at women's engineering events. This resulted in a more gender-balanced team with a 60/40 male to female ratio, without changing their technical requirements. The lesson learned was that it is important to create a non-hostile work environment for everyone, and to prioritize women candidates without changing the bar.

Handling engineers’ demotivation when their work is declared obsolete

This article discusses how to help engineers adjust to changes in technology, which can cause an identity crisis. The author suggests managers provide a clear picture of the end goal and use metrics and incentives to help shift the focus to the team mission.

Becoming an Engineering Manager does not Mean You are just People Managing

The author, a manager at Lyft, explains how they use their technical background to contribute to the technical challenges their team faces, even though they are a manager. They discuss how they recently had to dive deep into the Payments team to help create a long-term strategy and roadmap. The author emphasizes that managers should be able to keep their technical know-how and use it to examine problems in depth.

Understanding What is Critical in a Job Position

A personable and willing to learn SQL database administrator was hired, but it was discovered that he panicked in critical situations and made mistakes that had an impact on the business. After a serious conversation and brainstorming to build his confidence, it was decided to terminate his contract. This experience taught the company to be more clear in job descriptions and to test candidates' ability to handle stressful situations during the hiring process.

Gaining trust from a new team

This article discusses the challenges of leading a team of engineers in different locations. The author found that gaining the team's trust was the most important factor in success, and this was achieved through personal connections and clear communication. The author also learned the importance of having a boss who trusts their methods and techniques.

Convincing your executives to increase their hiring budget

This article discusses the challenge of hiring a full backend developer with at least five years of experience. The author had to convince their executives to increase the budget in order to hire a top-notch engineer, and they gathered data to demonstrate that a small budget would result in a loss for the company. They also compared their company's salary to the market price and found that they were offering much lower than the competition. After a month of convincing, the executives agreed to increase the budget, but the perfect candidate had already declined the offer. The author's advice is to bring a lot of data and present it in a way that executives will understand.

To Contractor or not to contractor? Pros and cons of putting off full time hiring.

Rogue Rocket was founded in 2011 with the goal of staying lean and hiring staff on a project-needs basis. They used contractors to fill positions and minimize cash flow risk, and eventually made a few full-time hires. The strategy was to create great products and maximize quality and creativity, but this may not be a wise choice in the current business environment due to the shortage of skilled technical personnel. Companies must decide on the best strategy for their needs.

Learn to Know Whether Your Employee is a Kite or an Airplane

The manager of Trello hired an employee who seemed to be very smart, but he did not produce anything. The manager then set up a performance improvement plan with strict deadlines, but only two of the objectives were accomplished. This led the manager to the conclusion that there are two extremes of personalities to manage, airplanes and kites, and that he should have identified this during the interview process.

How to deal with a layoff

An employee threatened to sue the company when given a one-month warning to improve performance. The CEO terminated his employment after the employee called him and the threat was not followed through. The process of giving employees a chance to improve before termination is fair and in this case, the team is more efficient and happier without the toxic employee.

Managing to change an employee’s bad habit

A new engineer hired at Trello had difficulty adapting to the company's formal communication style, using swear words frequently. The manager addressed the issue with gentle conversation and then used Slack to give instantaneous, discrete feedback whenever the engineer used inappropriate language. This approach enabled the engineer to quickly adjust to the company's culture. The lesson learned is that it is important to address issues with new employees quickly and discretely in order to help them fit in with the company's culture.

Creating and utilizing an engineering career path

A startup realized that their ad-hoc responses to career growth weren't enough and began researching career paths from other companies. After collecting a dozen paths, they created their own with six positions, four qualities per position, and one to three sentences per quality. They received feedback from their most experienced engineers and rolled out the path with a presentation. Lessons learned include understanding the problem, finding a starting point, avoiding "Not Invented Here," training managers and engineers, and working with HR.

Constraining decisions with reality

This article discusses the challenge of balancing the high-energy, visionary founder of a startup with the engineering team's ability to build ideas. To address this, the team implemented a whiteboard and sticky note system to capture work and bulk it into sprints, allowing them to better quantify and qualify what they were working on and inform priority decisions. This process made it more visible what the engineering team was working on and allowed them to accommodate CEO requests in a way that kept the team happier.

You should reward rockstar developers

This article discusses the importance of rewarding high-performing developers. It tells the story of a rockstar developer who was given a 3% raise in salary, which didn't reflect the value he had contributed to the team. The lesson learned is that you need to incentivize your best-performing developers, and if you can't reward them with money, find other ways to do so.

How to handle an underperforming employee

A manager was leading a team of engineers and one of them was not performing as expected. To address this, the manager set up a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) which had a positive outcome. However, the manager still considers this a failure as the employee was surprised by the PIP and should have been coached more effectively in regular 1:1s. The manager learned that feedback should be given regularly and linked to outcomes, and that formal HR tools should not be a surprise. The manager should make an earnest commitment to the employee's personal development.

Tips For Fast And Effective Recruitment

The Director of Engineering at Dailymotion faced the challenge of quickly hiring 16-17 people for a project from scratch. To do this, they had to deal with a large number of external recruiters and resumes. To make the process more efficient, they set up quick screening interviews and used CodePad to quickly weed out candidates who couldn't code. They also made sure to be upfront with candidates about the job and the company, to ensure they would be happy and comfortable with the position. Ultimately, the lesson learned is that teams are all about the people and the culture they create, and it is important to hire the right personalities who can work well together.

Transitioning from waterfall to Scrum and getting the Business team to buy-in

When the engineering team at CaterTrax was developing software, they often missed the mark and delivered products on time but with features that were not always right. To address this, the team transitioned from a waterfall to a Scrum methodology, which improved quality and met commitments. However, the business team was initially resistant to the change and it took five months for them to buy in. To gain buy-in from the business team for a new working method, it is important to develop a business case, get feedback from the team, and meet commitments with short feedback loops and quality, working software.

The Challenges Of Hiring Experienced Engineers

Venmo faced the challenge of hiring experienced engineers, who tend to be passive candidates and don't have the time to complete a take-home coding challenge. To address this, the company removed the take-home challenge and introduced a hiring manager screen and standardized other interview sessions. This has helped them to find senior engineers and speed up the hiring process, while also saving time for their engineers.

An employee who doesn’t accept feedback

A few years ago, an employee in the team lacked technical skills and refused to accept feedback. After a one-on-one meeting where he became aggressive and cursed, the manager went to HR and implemented a performance improvement plan. In the end, the employee was let go and the manager learned to consult HR earlier in such situations.

Outcome-Based Goals Rather Than Output-Based

At Managed by Q, the product and engineering teams were out of sync with the rest of the business. To address this, the author worked with the product team to collect input from stakeholders and synthesize customer research, and then worked with the head of product to crystallize the direction and create quarterly objectives that were meaningful to the business. Through stakeholder interviews, voting exercises, and regular updates, the author was able to create greater alignment across the organization. The end result was much better visibility and buy-in from stakeholders, and a more motivated team.

In meetings, if anyone is remote, everyone is remote.

The VP of Engineering at FogCreek noticed that the founders thought he was too quiet and did not give enough input during meetings. After realizing that this was due to the delay of remote meetings, he proposed a policy of "If anyone is remote, everyone is remote", meaning that regardless of people being in the same location, they would stay in their own offices and jump on the video call individually. This policy was successful and is now part of the company culture at Trello.

Do You Know How to Tackle Diversity Issues on Your Team?

After a woman declined a job offer, the company realized that 90% of their team were men and decided to do more sourcing at women's engineering events. This resulted in a more gender-balanced team with a 60/40 male to female ratio, without changing their technical requirements. The lesson learned was that it is important to create a non-hostile work environment for everyone, and to prioritize women candidates without changing the bar.

Handling engineers’ demotivation when their work is declared obsolete

This article discusses how to help engineers adjust to changes in technology, which can cause an identity crisis. The author suggests managers provide a clear picture of the end goal and use metrics and incentives to help shift the focus to the team mission.

Becoming an Engineering Manager does not Mean You are just People Managing

The author, a manager at Lyft, explains how they use their technical background to contribute to the technical challenges their team faces, even though they are a manager. They discuss how they recently had to dive deep into the Payments team to help create a long-term strategy and roadmap. The author emphasizes that managers should be able to keep their technical know-how and use it to examine problems in depth.

Understanding What is Critical in a Job Position

A personable and willing to learn SQL database administrator was hired, but it was discovered that he panicked in critical situations and made mistakes that had an impact on the business. After a serious conversation and brainstorming to build his confidence, it was decided to terminate his contract. This experience taught the company to be more clear in job descriptions and to test candidates' ability to handle stressful situations during the hiring process.

Gaining trust from a new team

This article discusses the challenges of leading a team of engineers in different locations. The author found that gaining the team's trust was the most important factor in success, and this was achieved through personal connections and clear communication. The author also learned the importance of having a boss who trusts their methods and techniques.

Convincing your executives to increase their hiring budget

This article discusses the challenge of hiring a full backend developer with at least five years of experience. The author had to convince their executives to increase the budget in order to hire a top-notch engineer, and they gathered data to demonstrate that a small budget would result in a loss for the company. They also compared their company's salary to the market price and found that they were offering much lower than the competition. After a month of convincing, the executives agreed to increase the budget, but the perfect candidate had already declined the offer. The author's advice is to bring a lot of data and present it in a way that executives will understand.

To Contractor or not to contractor? Pros and cons of putting off full time hiring.

Rogue Rocket was founded in 2011 with the goal of staying lean and hiring staff on a project-needs basis. They used contractors to fill positions and minimize cash flow risk, and eventually made a few full-time hires. The strategy was to create great products and maximize quality and creativity, but this may not be a wise choice in the current business environment due to the shortage of skilled technical personnel. Companies must decide on the best strategy for their needs.

Learn to Know Whether Your Employee is a Kite or an Airplane

The manager of Trello hired an employee who seemed to be very smart, but he did not produce anything. The manager then set up a performance improvement plan with strict deadlines, but only two of the objectives were accomplished. This led the manager to the conclusion that there are two extremes of personalities to manage, airplanes and kites, and that he should have identified this during the interview process.

How to deal with a layoff

An employee threatened to sue the company when given a one-month warning to improve performance. The CEO terminated his employment after the employee called him and the threat was not followed through. The process of giving employees a chance to improve before termination is fair and in this case, the team is more efficient and happier without the toxic employee.

Managing to change an employee’s bad habit

A new engineer hired at Trello had difficulty adapting to the company's formal communication style, using swear words frequently. The manager addressed the issue with gentle conversation and then used Slack to give instantaneous, discrete feedback whenever the engineer used inappropriate language. This approach enabled the engineer to quickly adjust to the company's culture. The lesson learned is that it is important to address issues with new employees quickly and discretely in order to help them fit in with the company's culture.

Creating and utilizing an engineering career path

A startup realized that their ad-hoc responses to career growth weren't enough and began researching career paths from other companies. After collecting a dozen paths, they created their own with six positions, four qualities per position, and one to three sentences per quality. They received feedback from their most experienced engineers and rolled out the path with a presentation. Lessons learned include understanding the problem, finding a starting point, avoiding "Not Invented Here," training managers and engineers, and working with HR.

Constraining decisions with reality

This article discusses the challenge of balancing the high-energy, visionary founder of a startup with the engineering team's ability to build ideas. To address this, the team implemented a whiteboard and sticky note system to capture work and bulk it into sprints, allowing them to better quantify and qualify what they were working on and inform priority decisions. This process made it more visible what the engineering team was working on and allowed them to accommodate CEO requests in a way that kept the team happier.

You should reward rockstar developers

This article discusses the importance of rewarding high-performing developers. It tells the story of a rockstar developer who was given a 3% raise in salary, which didn't reflect the value he had contributed to the team. The lesson learned is that you need to incentivize your best-performing developers, and if you can't reward them with money, find other ways to do so.

How to handle an underperforming employee

A manager was leading a team of engineers and one of them was not performing as expected. To address this, the manager set up a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) which had a positive outcome. However, the manager still considers this a failure as the employee was surprised by the PIP and should have been coached more effectively in regular 1:1s. The manager learned that feedback should be given regularly and linked to outcomes, and that formal HR tools should not be a surprise. The manager should make an earnest commitment to the employee's personal development.

Tips For Fast And Effective Recruitment

The Director of Engineering at Dailymotion faced the challenge of quickly hiring 16-17 people for a project from scratch. To do this, they had to deal with a large number of external recruiters and resumes. To make the process more efficient, they set up quick screening interviews and used CodePad to quickly weed out candidates who couldn't code. They also made sure to be upfront with candidates about the job and the company, to ensure they would be happy and comfortable with the position. Ultimately, the lesson learned is that teams are all about the people and the culture they create, and it is important to hire the right personalities who can work well together.

Transitioning from waterfall to Scrum and getting the Business team to buy-in

When the engineering team at CaterTrax was developing software, they often missed the mark and delivered products on time but with features that were not always right. To address this, the team transitioned from a waterfall to a Scrum methodology, which improved quality and met commitments. However, the business team was initially resistant to the change and it took five months for them to buy in. To gain buy-in from the business team for a new working method, it is important to develop a business case, get feedback from the team, and meet commitments with short feedback loops and quality, working software.

The Challenges Of Hiring Experienced Engineers

Venmo faced the challenge of hiring experienced engineers, who tend to be passive candidates and don't have the time to complete a take-home coding challenge. To address this, the company removed the take-home challenge and introduced a hiring manager screen and standardized other interview sessions. This has helped them to find senior engineers and speed up the hiring process, while also saving time for their engineers.

An employee who doesn’t accept feedback

A few years ago, an employee in the team lacked technical skills and refused to accept feedback. After a one-on-one meeting where he became aggressive and cursed, the manager went to HR and implemented a performance improvement plan. In the end, the employee was let go and the manager learned to consult HR earlier in such situations.

Outcome-Based Goals Rather Than Output-Based

At Managed by Q, the product and engineering teams were out of sync with the rest of the business. To address this, the author worked with the product team to collect input from stakeholders and synthesize customer research, and then worked with the head of product to crystallize the direction and create quarterly objectives that were meaningful to the business. Through stakeholder interviews, voting exercises, and regular updates, the author was able to create greater alignment across the organization. The end result was much better visibility and buy-in from stakeholders, and a more motivated team.

In meetings, if anyone is remote, everyone is remote.

The VP of Engineering at FogCreek noticed that the founders thought he was too quiet and did not give enough input during meetings. After realizing that this was due to the delay of remote meetings, he proposed a policy of "If anyone is remote, everyone is remote", meaning that regardless of people being in the same location, they would stay in their own offices and jump on the video call individually. This policy was successful and is now part of the company culture at Trello.

Do You Know How to Tackle Diversity Issues on Your Team?

After a woman declined a job offer, the company realized that 90% of their team were men and decided to do more sourcing at women's engineering events. This resulted in a more gender-balanced team with a 60/40 male to female ratio, without changing their technical requirements. The lesson learned was that it is important to create a non-hostile work environment for everyone, and to prioritize women candidates without changing the bar.

Handling engineers’ demotivation when their work is declared obsolete

This article discusses how to help engineers adjust to changes in technology, which can cause an identity crisis. The author suggests managers provide a clear picture of the end goal and use metrics and incentives to help shift the focus to the team mission.

Becoming an Engineering Manager does not Mean You are just People Managing

The author, a manager at Lyft, explains how they use their technical background to contribute to the technical challenges their team faces, even though they are a manager. They discuss how they recently had to dive deep into the Payments team to help create a long-term strategy and roadmap. The author emphasizes that managers should be able to keep their technical know-how and use it to examine problems in depth.

Understanding What is Critical in a Job Position

A personable and willing to learn SQL database administrator was hired, but it was discovered that he panicked in critical situations and made mistakes that had an impact on the business. After a serious conversation and brainstorming to build his confidence, it was decided to terminate his contract. This experience taught the company to be more clear in job descriptions and to test candidates' ability to handle stressful situations during the hiring process.

Gaining trust from a new team

This article discusses the challenges of leading a team of engineers in different locations. The author found that gaining the team's trust was the most important factor in success, and this was achieved through personal connections and clear communication. The author also learned the importance of having a boss who trusts their methods and techniques.

Convincing your executives to increase their hiring budget

This article discusses the challenge of hiring a full backend developer with at least five years of experience. The author had to convince their executives to increase the budget in order to hire a top-notch engineer, and they gathered data to demonstrate that a small budget would result in a loss for the company. They also compared their company's salary to the market price and found that they were offering much lower than the competition. After a month of convincing, the executives agreed to increase the budget, but the perfect candidate had already declined the offer. The author's advice is to bring a lot of data and present it in a way that executives will understand.

To Contractor or not to contractor? Pros and cons of putting off full time hiring.

Rogue Rocket was founded in 2011 with the goal of staying lean and hiring staff on a project-needs basis. They used contractors to fill positions and minimize cash flow risk, and eventually made a few full-time hires. The strategy was to create great products and maximize quality and creativity, but this may not be a wise choice in the current business environment due to the shortage of skilled technical personnel. Companies must decide on the best strategy for their needs.

Learn to Know Whether Your Employee is a Kite or an Airplane

The manager of Trello hired an employee who seemed to be very smart, but he did not produce anything. The manager then set up a performance improvement plan with strict deadlines, but only two of the objectives were accomplished. This led the manager to the conclusion that there are two extremes of personalities to manage, airplanes and kites, and that he should have identified this during the interview process.

How to deal with a layoff

An employee threatened to sue the company when given a one-month warning to improve performance. The CEO terminated his employment after the employee called him and the threat was not followed through. The process of giving employees a chance to improve before termination is fair and in this case, the team is more efficient and happier without the toxic employee.

Managing to change an employee’s bad habit

A new engineer hired at Trello had difficulty adapting to the company's formal communication style, using swear words frequently. The manager addressed the issue with gentle conversation and then used Slack to give instantaneous, discrete feedback whenever the engineer used inappropriate language. This approach enabled the engineer to quickly adjust to the company's culture. The lesson learned is that it is important to address issues with new employees quickly and discretely in order to help them fit in with the company's culture.

Creating and utilizing an engineering career path

A startup realized that their ad-hoc responses to career growth weren't enough and began researching career paths from other companies. After collecting a dozen paths, they created their own with six positions, four qualities per position, and one to three sentences per quality. They received feedback from their most experienced engineers and rolled out the path with a presentation. Lessons learned include understanding the problem, finding a starting point, avoiding "Not Invented Here," training managers and engineers, and working with HR.

Constraining decisions with reality

This article discusses the challenge of balancing the high-energy, visionary founder of a startup with the engineering team's ability to build ideas. To address this, the team implemented a whiteboard and sticky note system to capture work and bulk it into sprints, allowing them to better quantify and qualify what they were working on and inform priority decisions. This process made it more visible what the engineering team was working on and allowed them to accommodate CEO requests in a way that kept the team happier.

You should reward rockstar developers

This article discusses the importance of rewarding high-performing developers. It tells the story of a rockstar developer who was given a 3% raise in salary, which didn't reflect the value he had contributed to the team. The lesson learned is that you need to incentivize your best-performing developers, and if you can't reward them with money, find other ways to do so.

How to handle an underperforming employee

A manager was leading a team of engineers and one of them was not performing as expected. To address this, the manager set up a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) which had a positive outcome. However, the manager still considers this a failure as the employee was surprised by the PIP and should have been coached more effectively in regular 1:1s. The manager learned that feedback should be given regularly and linked to outcomes, and that formal HR tools should not be a surprise. The manager should make an earnest commitment to the employee's personal development.

Tips For Fast And Effective Recruitment

The Director of Engineering at Dailymotion faced the challenge of quickly hiring 16-17 people for a project from scratch. To do this, they had to deal with a large number of external recruiters and resumes. To make the process more efficient, they set up quick screening interviews and used CodePad to quickly weed out candidates who couldn't code. They also made sure to be upfront with candidates about the job and the company, to ensure they would be happy and comfortable with the position. Ultimately, the lesson learned is that teams are all about the people and the culture they create, and it is important to hire the right personalities who can work well together.

Transitioning from waterfall to Scrum and getting the Business team to buy-in

When the engineering team at CaterTrax was developing software, they often missed the mark and delivered products on time but with features that were not always right. To address this, the team transitioned from a waterfall to a Scrum methodology, which improved quality and met commitments. However, the business team was initially resistant to the change and it took five months for them to buy in. To gain buy-in from the business team for a new working method, it is important to develop a business case, get feedback from the team, and meet commitments with short feedback loops and quality, working software.

The Challenges Of Hiring Experienced Engineers

Venmo faced the challenge of hiring experienced engineers, who tend to be passive candidates and don't have the time to complete a take-home coding challenge. To address this, the company removed the take-home challenge and introduced a hiring manager screen and standardized other interview sessions. This has helped them to find senior engineers and speed up the hiring process, while also saving time for their engineers.

An employee who doesn’t accept feedback

A few years ago, an employee in the team lacked technical skills and refused to accept feedback. After a one-on-one meeting where he became aggressive and cursed, the manager went to HR and implemented a performance improvement plan. In the end, the employee was let go and the manager learned to consult HR earlier in such situations.

Outcome-Based Goals Rather Than Output-Based

At Managed by Q, the product and engineering teams were out of sync with the rest of the business. To address this, the author worked with the product team to collect input from stakeholders and synthesize customer research, and then worked with the head of product to crystallize the direction and create quarterly objectives that were meaningful to the business. Through stakeholder interviews, voting exercises, and regular updates, the author was able to create greater alignment across the organization. The end result was much better visibility and buy-in from stakeholders, and a more motivated team.

In meetings, if anyone is remote, everyone is remote.

The VP of Engineering at FogCreek noticed that the founders thought he was too quiet and did not give enough input during meetings. After realizing that this was due to the delay of remote meetings, he proposed a policy of "If anyone is remote, everyone is remote", meaning that regardless of people being in the same location, they would stay in their own offices and jump on the video call individually. This policy was successful and is now part of the company culture at Trello.

Do You Know How to Tackle Diversity Issues on Your Team?

After a woman declined a job offer, the company realized that 90% of their team were men and decided to do more sourcing at women's engineering events. This resulted in a more gender-balanced team with a 60/40 male to female ratio, without changing their technical requirements. The lesson learned was that it is important to create a non-hostile work environment for everyone, and to prioritize women candidates without changing the bar.

Handling engineers’ demotivation when their work is declared obsolete

This article discusses how to help engineers adjust to changes in technology, which can cause an identity crisis. The author suggests managers provide a clear picture of the end goal and use metrics and incentives to help shift the focus to the team mission.

Becoming an Engineering Manager does not Mean You are just People Managing

The author, a manager at Lyft, explains how they use their technical background to contribute to the technical challenges their team faces, even though they are a manager. They discuss how they recently had to dive deep into the Payments team to help create a long-term strategy and roadmap. The author emphasizes that managers should be able to keep their technical know-how and use it to examine problems in depth.

Understanding What is Critical in a Job Position

A personable and willing to learn SQL database administrator was hired, but it was discovered that he panicked in critical situations and made mistakes that had an impact on the business. After a serious conversation and brainstorming to build his confidence, it was decided to terminate his contract. This experience taught the company to be more clear in job descriptions and to test candidates' ability to handle stressful situations during the hiring process.

Gaining trust from a new team

This article discusses the challenges of leading a team of engineers in different locations. The author found that gaining the team's trust was the most important factor in success, and this was achieved through personal connections and clear communication. The author also learned the importance of having a boss who trusts their methods and techniques.

Convincing your executives to increase their hiring budget

This article discusses the challenge of hiring a full backend developer with at least five years of experience. The author had to convince their executives to increase the budget in order to hire a top-notch engineer, and they gathered data to demonstrate that a small budget would result in a loss for the company. They also compared their company's salary to the market price and found that they were offering much lower than the competition. After a month of convincing, the executives agreed to increase the budget, but the perfect candidate had already declined the offer. The author's advice is to bring a lot of data and present it in a way that executives will understand.

To Contractor or not to contractor? Pros and cons of putting off full time hiring.

Rogue Rocket was founded in 2011 with the goal of staying lean and hiring staff on a project-needs basis. They used contractors to fill positions and minimize cash flow risk, and eventually made a few full-time hires. The strategy was to create great products and maximize quality and creativity, but this may not be a wise choice in the current business environment due to the shortage of skilled technical personnel. Companies must decide on the best strategy for their needs.

Learn to Know Whether Your Employee is a Kite or an Airplane

The manager of Trello hired an employee who seemed to be very smart, but he did not produce anything. The manager then set up a performance improvement plan with strict deadlines, but only two of the objectives were accomplished. This led the manager to the conclusion that there are two extremes of personalities to manage, airplanes and kites, and that he should have identified this during the interview process.

How to deal with a layoff

An employee threatened to sue the company when given a one-month warning to improve performance. The CEO terminated his employment after the employee called him and the threat was not followed through. The process of giving employees a chance to improve before termination is fair and in this case, the team is more efficient and happier without the toxic employee.

Managing to change an employee’s bad habit

A new engineer hired at Trello had difficulty adapting to the company's formal communication style, using swear words frequently. The manager addressed the issue with gentle conversation and then used Slack to give instantaneous, discrete feedback whenever the engineer used inappropriate language. This approach enabled the engineer to quickly adjust to the company's culture. The lesson learned is that it is important to address issues with new employees quickly and discretely in order to help them fit in with the company's culture.

Creating and utilizing an engineering career path

A startup realized that their ad-hoc responses to career growth weren't enough and began researching career paths from other companies. After collecting a dozen paths, they created their own with six positions, four qualities per position, and one to three sentences per quality. They received feedback from their most experienced engineers and rolled out the path with a presentation. Lessons learned include understanding the problem, finding a starting point, avoiding "Not Invented Here," training managers and engineers, and working with HR.

Constraining decisions with reality

This article discusses the challenge of balancing the high-energy, visionary founder of a startup with the engineering team's ability to build ideas. To address this, the team implemented a whiteboard and sticky note system to capture work and bulk it into sprints, allowing them to better quantify and qualify what they were working on and inform priority decisions. This process made it more visible what the engineering team was working on and allowed them to accommodate CEO requests in a way that kept the team happier.

You should reward rockstar developers

This article discusses the importance of rewarding high-performing developers. It tells the story of a rockstar developer who was given a 3% raise in salary, which didn't reflect the value he had contributed to the team. The lesson learned is that you need to incentivize your best-performing developers, and if you can't reward them with money, find other ways to do so.

How to handle an underperforming employee

A manager was leading a team of engineers and one of them was not performing as expected. To address this, the manager set up a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) which had a positive outcome. However, the manager still considers this a failure as the employee was surprised by the PIP and should have been coached more effectively in regular 1:1s. The manager learned that feedback should be given regularly and linked to outcomes, and that formal HR tools should not be a surprise. The manager should make an earnest commitment to the employee's personal development.

Tips For Fast And Effective Recruitment

The Director of Engineering at Dailymotion faced the challenge of quickly hiring 16-17 people for a project from scratch. To do this, they had to deal with a large number of external recruiters and resumes. To make the process more efficient, they set up quick screening interviews and used CodePad to quickly weed out candidates who couldn't code. They also made sure to be upfront with candidates about the job and the company, to ensure they would be happy and comfortable with the position. Ultimately, the lesson learned is that teams are all about the people and the culture they create, and it is important to hire the right personalities who can work well together.

Transitioning from waterfall to Scrum and getting the Business team to buy-in

When the engineering team at CaterTrax was developing software, they often missed the mark and delivered products on time but with features that were not always right. To address this, the team transitioned from a waterfall to a Scrum methodology, which improved quality and met commitments. However, the business team was initially resistant to the change and it took five months for them to buy in. To gain buy-in from the business team for a new working method, it is important to develop a business case, get feedback from the team, and meet commitments with short feedback loops and quality, working software.

The Challenges Of Hiring Experienced Engineers

Venmo faced the challenge of hiring experienced engineers, who tend to be passive candidates and don't have the time to complete a take-home coding challenge. To address this, the company removed the take-home challenge and introduced a hiring manager screen and standardized other interview sessions. This has helped them to find senior engineers and speed up the hiring process, while also saving time for their engineers.

An employee who doesn’t accept feedback

A few years ago, an employee in the team lacked technical skills and refused to accept feedback. After a one-on-one meeting where he became aggressive and cursed, the manager went to HR and implemented a performance improvement plan. In the end, the employee was let go and the manager learned to consult HR earlier in such situations.

Outcome-Based Goals Rather Than Output-Based

At Managed by Q, the product and engineering teams were out of sync with the rest of the business. To address this, the author worked with the product team to collect input from stakeholders and synthesize customer research, and then worked with the head of product to crystallize the direction and create quarterly objectives that were meaningful to the business. Through stakeholder interviews, voting exercises, and regular updates, the author was able to create greater alignment across the organization. The end result was much better visibility and buy-in from stakeholders, and a more motivated team.

In meetings, if anyone is remote, everyone is remote.

The VP of Engineering at FogCreek noticed that the founders thought he was too quiet and did not give enough input during meetings. After realizing that this was due to the delay of remote meetings, he proposed a policy of "If anyone is remote, everyone is remote", meaning that regardless of people being in the same location, they would stay in their own offices and jump on the video call individually. This policy was successful and is now part of the company culture at Trello.

Do You Know How to Tackle Diversity Issues on Your Team?

After a woman declined a job offer, the company realized that 90% of their team were men and decided to do more sourcing at women's engineering events. This resulted in a more gender-balanced team with a 60/40 male to female ratio, without changing their technical requirements. The lesson learned was that it is important to create a non-hostile work environment for everyone, and to prioritize women candidates without changing the bar.

Handling engineers’ demotivation when their work is declared obsolete

This article discusses how to help engineers adjust to changes in technology, which can cause an identity crisis. The author suggests managers provide a clear picture of the end goal and use metrics and incentives to help shift the focus to the team mission.

Becoming an Engineering Manager does not Mean You are just People Managing

The author, a manager at Lyft, explains how they use their technical background to contribute to the technical challenges their team faces, even though they are a manager. They discuss how they recently had to dive deep into the Payments team to help create a long-term strategy and roadmap. The author emphasizes that managers should be able to keep their technical know-how and use it to examine problems in depth.

Understanding What is Critical in a Job Position

A personable and willing to learn SQL database administrator was hired, but it was discovered that he panicked in critical situations and made mistakes that had an impact on the business. After a serious conversation and brainstorming to build his confidence, it was decided to terminate his contract. This experience taught the company to be more clear in job descriptions and to test candidates' ability to handle stressful situations during the hiring process.

Gaining trust from a new team

This article discusses the challenges of leading a team of engineers in different locations. The author found that gaining the team's trust was the most important factor in success, and this was achieved through personal connections and clear communication. The author also learned the importance of having a boss who trusts their methods and techniques.

Convincing your executives to increase their hiring budget

This article discusses the challenge of hiring a full backend developer with at least five years of experience. The author had to convince their executives to increase the budget in order to hire a top-notch engineer, and they gathered data to demonstrate that a small budget would result in a loss for the company. They also compared their company's salary to the market price and found that they were offering much lower than the competition. After a month of convincing, the executives agreed to increase the budget, but the perfect candidate had already declined the offer. The author's advice is to bring a lot of data and present it in a way that executives will understand.

To Contractor or not to contractor? Pros and cons of putting off full time hiring.

Rogue Rocket was founded in 2011 with the goal of staying lean and hiring staff on a project-needs basis. They used contractors to fill positions and minimize cash flow risk, and eventually made a few full-time hires. The strategy was to create great products and maximize quality and creativity, but this may not be a wise choice in the current business environment due to the shortage of skilled technical personnel. Companies must decide on the best strategy for their needs.

Learn to Know Whether Your Employee is a Kite or an Airplane

The manager of Trello hired an employee who seemed to be very smart, but he did not produce anything. The manager then set up a performance improvement plan with strict deadlines, but only two of the objectives were accomplished. This led the manager to the conclusion that there are two extremes of personalities to manage, airplanes and kites, and that he should have identified this during the interview process.

How to deal with a layoff

An employee threatened to sue the company when given a one-month warning to improve performance. The CEO terminated his employment after the employee called him and the threat was not followed through. The process of giving employees a chance to improve before termination is fair and in this case, the team is more efficient and happier without the toxic employee.

Managing to change an employee’s bad habit

A new engineer hired at Trello had difficulty adapting to the company's formal communication style, using swear words frequently. The manager addressed the issue with gentle conversation and then used Slack to give instantaneous, discrete feedback whenever the engineer used inappropriate language. This approach enabled the engineer to quickly adjust to the company's culture. The lesson learned is that it is important to address issues with new employees quickly and discretely in order to help them fit in with the company's culture.

Creating and utilizing an engineering career path

A startup realized that their ad-hoc responses to career growth weren't enough and began researching career paths from other companies. After collecting a dozen paths, they created their own with six positions, four qualities per position, and one to three sentences per quality. They received feedback from their most experienced engineers and rolled out the path with a presentation. Lessons learned include understanding the problem, finding a starting point, avoiding "Not Invented Here," training managers and engineers, and working with HR.