Knowledge shared by our community

A high performer making legitimate comments in code reviews in a harsh manner

A manager leading a team of engineers encountered a high-performing individual contributor who was providing unconstructive code reviews in a harsh manner. The manager gathered the team to establish guidelines for code reviews and created a wiki page with examples of constructive reviews. With guidance, the individual contributor adjusted their tone and learned to provide code reviews in a more constructive manner. The lesson learned is that managers must address damaging behavior quickly and ensure that team members understand the importance of words and being mindful of people's differences.

Leading Cultural Change - Changing culture after acquiring a new team

After Concur bought a new company, the author was tasked with integrating the two teams. To do this, they evaluated talent, restructured the team, and gathered information on the major issues. They then defined goals and worked on shared objectives, performance improvement plans, and skills and training. The process was difficult, but ultimately successful. The author learned that changing culture is difficult and that clear and consistent communication is key to leading change.

How to handle a “Hero” employee that keeps valuable knowledge to himself?

In this story, the author was concerned about the high risk posed by having only one person, Brian, who understood the configuration of the company's production servers. To address this, the author appealed to Brian's emotions and logic, thanked him for his work, and assigned a junior engineer to be his student. As a result, more people had critical knowledge and Brian could take days off if he wanted to.

Making Remote teams successful with Agile.

At Blackhawk Network, I managed a team of four engineers in California and five in India, who had to deal with significant time zone differences. To resolve this issue, I put together metrics, held two team sessions, and recommended that the team operate as one scrum team. The teams agreed to daily stand-ups, groomings, sprint planning, retrospectives, and sprint reviews, with the product manager in all meetings. This helped to reduce the 24-hour turnaround time, as there was frequent communication, and the product manager helped the team to understand the feature more accurately.

Hiring, training and problem-solving

This article discusses the challenges faced by a company tasked with taking a dataset from the US Government, figuring out the network architecture of different school districts in America, and working out which school districts needed internet access. The company initially used Excel for their data, but the data model was too large and the analysts didn't know how to use SQL. To solve the problem, the company hired an outside firm, trained the analysts in SQL, and hired new engineers to help with the data model. After two and a half years, the company is now tearing the data apart and building a data warehouse. The article emphasizes the importance of communicating with both the executives and the team, and translating technical issues into language that the business will understand.

Underestimating onboarding for an experienced engineer

A manager had high expectations for a new, experienced developer, but after one week it was clear that the developer was not meeting expectations. Through a two-hour 1:1, the manager learned that the developer needed to be properly onboarded and they created a plan to gradually increase the developer's tasks. After one month, the developer was able to reach full speed and eventually became tech lead. The manager learned that any employee, regardless of experience, must be properly onboarded to ensure success.

Letting go an engineer can result in a win-win situation

In one of my previous teams, I promoted an engineer to team lead, but it was a mistake as there were personality misfits. I coached him to be a better manager, but it didn't work, so I had to let him go. I learned that it's important to know when to let people go, as it's a win-win for everyone. I also learned that networking and reputation play a big role in recruiting, and the employee I let go even referred someone that we later hired.

Introducing take-home exercises to my hiring process.

In this case study, the manager was unsure of a candidate's code quality and decided to give them a take-home exercise to assess their skills. The exercise revealed that the candidate's code was not up to par, and the manager ultimately decided to pass on them. This experience made the manager rethink their position on take-home exercises, as they realized it was a better way to assess a candidate's code quality than whiteboard exercises.

How to Get Your Team to Accept a Difficult Decision

As a new manager at a fast-growing startup, the team wanted to start the code from scratch, but the manager decided to patiently fix the bugs instead. After two months, it became apparent that the code had to be rewritten due to technical debt. The manager gathered data to back up the decision and was able to convince the executives to accept the decision. The manager learned that the best way to take a difficult decision and convince others is to communicate with them, and to gather data to back up the argument.

How to help engineers from larger companies adapt to a startup environment

When hiring an engineer from a large company, it was necessary to make sure he understood the responsibility he had to take in the smaller startup. To do this, the lead engineer provided day-to-day coaching and mentoring, and the new engineer quickly stepped up. This experience was beneficial to the startup, as it needed more discipline. When hiring from a different environment, it is important to set clear expectations and provide internal coaching and mentoring.

6 questions you should ask in your next 1-1: the “Stay Interview”

As a new manager, the author struggled to understand what motivated their team. To address this, they implemented the "Stay Interview" which is a preemptive "exit interview" to learn about what motivates the team. The Stay Interview consists of questions such as "what do you like to be recognized for?" and "what would entice you away from your company?". After implementing the Stay Interview, team retention dramatically improved.

Walking one of your direct reports through conflict resolution.

A direct report of the manager was asked to change teams due to company restructuring. The new Project Manager was ambitious but inexperienced, making it difficult for the engineer. The manager gave advice on how to manage the situation, but it was not enough. The manager then advised the engineer to request a three-person conversation with the team lead, which eventually led to the reorganization of the teams. The manager learned that while it is nice to resolve interpersonal relationship problems, it can be difficult and require tradeoffs.

Redesigning our dev process from scratch

Following a reorganization, a manager was tasked with defining work processes. After a few months, it was clear that the process was inefficient and needed to be changed. The manager and PM designed a new process with fewer stages, an estimation stage, and enforced it with Jira. This has improved efficiency, visibility, and deliverability. The manager learned that simpler processes, investing in tools, and taking estimations into account are key principles for successful process design.

Reduce Cluttered Processes and Empower Team To Increase Effectiveness

When the engineering team at Managed by Q was not delivering, the Executive team identified that the team lacked goal clarity and was scared of making decisions. The Executive team identified the two most important projects and the team focused on those. One of the projects was a dispatching system, but the team was putting too much process and measurement in place. The team was asked to ship a version of the dispatching system as soon as possible to see if it would work. This was successful and built confidence for the team, as well as credibility between the team and the Executive team. The experience taught the Executive team to know how to get out of the way and give the team space to win.

Overcoming an engineer’s temper

A junior engineer at Google was having difficulty advancing in his career, and it was discovered that his temper was the main issue. Through regular one-on-one meetings, the engineer was able to gain control of his emotions and improve his performance, eventually leading to a promotion. This experience showed that if an issue is identified and analyzed, it can be solved and people can improve quickly.

What to Do When You Need to Fire Someone Who is Popular

A manager had to make a difficult decision to let go of an employee, Sam, who was liked by many in the company, but was not performing well and was creating a bad environment. The manager had to think rationally and remove emotions from the decision, and ultimately decided to let Sam go. This decision improved the team atmosphere, but resulted in the departure of Sam's close friend, Bill. The manager learned that performance must be considered over personal relationships when making decisions.

Promoting the wrong person to a management position

An engineer was promoted to team lead, but was unable to handle the people side of the role. The manager took action by coaching the engineer to take a pure engineering path and taking on some of the team lead responsibilities. The manager learned to be more careful when promoting people to leadership positions, to trust their gut feeling, and to use internal resources to help managers validate their choice. If the person is not right for the job, it is better to let them go.

Looking for leadership skills when promoting an IC to manager.

As a manager, it can be difficult to know who to promote to managerial roles. To identify potential leaders, I look for signs during regular one-on-ones and encourage initiative. I also set up a 3-month try-out period to assess their management skills. This helps me identify people with both great leadership and management skills, while also minimizing the risk of losing a great engineer if they fail to be permanently promoted.

Engaged in a face to face discussion to rebuild a key business partner relationship

A company was facing a difficult decision regarding a business partner that was critical to their revenue. Rather than replace them, the new manager decided to reach out and talk directly to the partner. Through open dialogue and understanding the real issues, the manager was able to salvage the partnership and learn valuable lessons about communication and problem solving.

Reducing layers of management

When the senior director of engineering joined Zoosk, they found a lot of layers for a relatively small team of 35 people. After meeting with each person, they found that people were promoted into management roles without formal training. The director worked with HR and the SVP to create a new role, allowing people to become a tech lead and progress to a technical director role without having to manage people. This allowed the engineer to get the title they wanted and the time they needed for coding. This experience highlighted the importance of having a dual career path and understanding the motivations of each team member.

A high performer making legitimate comments in code reviews in a harsh manner

A manager leading a team of engineers encountered a high-performing individual contributor who was providing unconstructive code reviews in a harsh manner. The manager gathered the team to establish guidelines for code reviews and created a wiki page with examples of constructive reviews. With guidance, the individual contributor adjusted their tone and learned to provide code reviews in a more constructive manner. The lesson learned is that managers must address damaging behavior quickly and ensure that team members understand the importance of words and being mindful of people's differences.

Leading Cultural Change - Changing culture after acquiring a new team

After Concur bought a new company, the author was tasked with integrating the two teams. To do this, they evaluated talent, restructured the team, and gathered information on the major issues. They then defined goals and worked on shared objectives, performance improvement plans, and skills and training. The process was difficult, but ultimately successful. The author learned that changing culture is difficult and that clear and consistent communication is key to leading change.

How to handle a “Hero” employee that keeps valuable knowledge to himself?

In this story, the author was concerned about the high risk posed by having only one person, Brian, who understood the configuration of the company's production servers. To address this, the author appealed to Brian's emotions and logic, thanked him for his work, and assigned a junior engineer to be his student. As a result, more people had critical knowledge and Brian could take days off if he wanted to.

Making Remote teams successful with Agile.

At Blackhawk Network, I managed a team of four engineers in California and five in India, who had to deal with significant time zone differences. To resolve this issue, I put together metrics, held two team sessions, and recommended that the team operate as one scrum team. The teams agreed to daily stand-ups, groomings, sprint planning, retrospectives, and sprint reviews, with the product manager in all meetings. This helped to reduce the 24-hour turnaround time, as there was frequent communication, and the product manager helped the team to understand the feature more accurately.

Hiring, training and problem-solving

This article discusses the challenges faced by a company tasked with taking a dataset from the US Government, figuring out the network architecture of different school districts in America, and working out which school districts needed internet access. The company initially used Excel for their data, but the data model was too large and the analysts didn't know how to use SQL. To solve the problem, the company hired an outside firm, trained the analysts in SQL, and hired new engineers to help with the data model. After two and a half years, the company is now tearing the data apart and building a data warehouse. The article emphasizes the importance of communicating with both the executives and the team, and translating technical issues into language that the business will understand.

Underestimating onboarding for an experienced engineer

A manager had high expectations for a new, experienced developer, but after one week it was clear that the developer was not meeting expectations. Through a two-hour 1:1, the manager learned that the developer needed to be properly onboarded and they created a plan to gradually increase the developer's tasks. After one month, the developer was able to reach full speed and eventually became tech lead. The manager learned that any employee, regardless of experience, must be properly onboarded to ensure success.

Letting go an engineer can result in a win-win situation

In one of my previous teams, I promoted an engineer to team lead, but it was a mistake as there were personality misfits. I coached him to be a better manager, but it didn't work, so I had to let him go. I learned that it's important to know when to let people go, as it's a win-win for everyone. I also learned that networking and reputation play a big role in recruiting, and the employee I let go even referred someone that we later hired.

Introducing take-home exercises to my hiring process.

In this case study, the manager was unsure of a candidate's code quality and decided to give them a take-home exercise to assess their skills. The exercise revealed that the candidate's code was not up to par, and the manager ultimately decided to pass on them. This experience made the manager rethink their position on take-home exercises, as they realized it was a better way to assess a candidate's code quality than whiteboard exercises.

How to Get Your Team to Accept a Difficult Decision

As a new manager at a fast-growing startup, the team wanted to start the code from scratch, but the manager decided to patiently fix the bugs instead. After two months, it became apparent that the code had to be rewritten due to technical debt. The manager gathered data to back up the decision and was able to convince the executives to accept the decision. The manager learned that the best way to take a difficult decision and convince others is to communicate with them, and to gather data to back up the argument.

How to help engineers from larger companies adapt to a startup environment

When hiring an engineer from a large company, it was necessary to make sure he understood the responsibility he had to take in the smaller startup. To do this, the lead engineer provided day-to-day coaching and mentoring, and the new engineer quickly stepped up. This experience was beneficial to the startup, as it needed more discipline. When hiring from a different environment, it is important to set clear expectations and provide internal coaching and mentoring.

6 questions you should ask in your next 1-1: the “Stay Interview”

As a new manager, the author struggled to understand what motivated their team. To address this, they implemented the "Stay Interview" which is a preemptive "exit interview" to learn about what motivates the team. The Stay Interview consists of questions such as "what do you like to be recognized for?" and "what would entice you away from your company?". After implementing the Stay Interview, team retention dramatically improved.

Walking one of your direct reports through conflict resolution.

A direct report of the manager was asked to change teams due to company restructuring. The new Project Manager was ambitious but inexperienced, making it difficult for the engineer. The manager gave advice on how to manage the situation, but it was not enough. The manager then advised the engineer to request a three-person conversation with the team lead, which eventually led to the reorganization of the teams. The manager learned that while it is nice to resolve interpersonal relationship problems, it can be difficult and require tradeoffs.

Redesigning our dev process from scratch

Following a reorganization, a manager was tasked with defining work processes. After a few months, it was clear that the process was inefficient and needed to be changed. The manager and PM designed a new process with fewer stages, an estimation stage, and enforced it with Jira. This has improved efficiency, visibility, and deliverability. The manager learned that simpler processes, investing in tools, and taking estimations into account are key principles for successful process design.

Reduce Cluttered Processes and Empower Team To Increase Effectiveness

When the engineering team at Managed by Q was not delivering, the Executive team identified that the team lacked goal clarity and was scared of making decisions. The Executive team identified the two most important projects and the team focused on those. One of the projects was a dispatching system, but the team was putting too much process and measurement in place. The team was asked to ship a version of the dispatching system as soon as possible to see if it would work. This was successful and built confidence for the team, as well as credibility between the team and the Executive team. The experience taught the Executive team to know how to get out of the way and give the team space to win.

Overcoming an engineer’s temper

A junior engineer at Google was having difficulty advancing in his career, and it was discovered that his temper was the main issue. Through regular one-on-one meetings, the engineer was able to gain control of his emotions and improve his performance, eventually leading to a promotion. This experience showed that if an issue is identified and analyzed, it can be solved and people can improve quickly.

What to Do When You Need to Fire Someone Who is Popular

A manager had to make a difficult decision to let go of an employee, Sam, who was liked by many in the company, but was not performing well and was creating a bad environment. The manager had to think rationally and remove emotions from the decision, and ultimately decided to let Sam go. This decision improved the team atmosphere, but resulted in the departure of Sam's close friend, Bill. The manager learned that performance must be considered over personal relationships when making decisions.

Promoting the wrong person to a management position

An engineer was promoted to team lead, but was unable to handle the people side of the role. The manager took action by coaching the engineer to take a pure engineering path and taking on some of the team lead responsibilities. The manager learned to be more careful when promoting people to leadership positions, to trust their gut feeling, and to use internal resources to help managers validate their choice. If the person is not right for the job, it is better to let them go.

Looking for leadership skills when promoting an IC to manager.

As a manager, it can be difficult to know who to promote to managerial roles. To identify potential leaders, I look for signs during regular one-on-ones and encourage initiative. I also set up a 3-month try-out period to assess their management skills. This helps me identify people with both great leadership and management skills, while also minimizing the risk of losing a great engineer if they fail to be permanently promoted.

Engaged in a face to face discussion to rebuild a key business partner relationship

A company was facing a difficult decision regarding a business partner that was critical to their revenue. Rather than replace them, the new manager decided to reach out and talk directly to the partner. Through open dialogue and understanding the real issues, the manager was able to salvage the partnership and learn valuable lessons about communication and problem solving.

Reducing layers of management

When the senior director of engineering joined Zoosk, they found a lot of layers for a relatively small team of 35 people. After meeting with each person, they found that people were promoted into management roles without formal training. The director worked with HR and the SVP to create a new role, allowing people to become a tech lead and progress to a technical director role without having to manage people. This allowed the engineer to get the title they wanted and the time they needed for coding. This experience highlighted the importance of having a dual career path and understanding the motivations of each team member.

A high performer making legitimate comments in code reviews in a harsh manner

A manager leading a team of engineers encountered a high-performing individual contributor who was providing unconstructive code reviews in a harsh manner. The manager gathered the team to establish guidelines for code reviews and created a wiki page with examples of constructive reviews. With guidance, the individual contributor adjusted their tone and learned to provide code reviews in a more constructive manner. The lesson learned is that managers must address damaging behavior quickly and ensure that team members understand the importance of words and being mindful of people's differences.

Leading Cultural Change - Changing culture after acquiring a new team

After Concur bought a new company, the author was tasked with integrating the two teams. To do this, they evaluated talent, restructured the team, and gathered information on the major issues. They then defined goals and worked on shared objectives, performance improvement plans, and skills and training. The process was difficult, but ultimately successful. The author learned that changing culture is difficult and that clear and consistent communication is key to leading change.

How to handle a “Hero” employee that keeps valuable knowledge to himself?

In this story, the author was concerned about the high risk posed by having only one person, Brian, who understood the configuration of the company's production servers. To address this, the author appealed to Brian's emotions and logic, thanked him for his work, and assigned a junior engineer to be his student. As a result, more people had critical knowledge and Brian could take days off if he wanted to.

Making Remote teams successful with Agile.

At Blackhawk Network, I managed a team of four engineers in California and five in India, who had to deal with significant time zone differences. To resolve this issue, I put together metrics, held two team sessions, and recommended that the team operate as one scrum team. The teams agreed to daily stand-ups, groomings, sprint planning, retrospectives, and sprint reviews, with the product manager in all meetings. This helped to reduce the 24-hour turnaround time, as there was frequent communication, and the product manager helped the team to understand the feature more accurately.

Hiring, training and problem-solving

This article discusses the challenges faced by a company tasked with taking a dataset from the US Government, figuring out the network architecture of different school districts in America, and working out which school districts needed internet access. The company initially used Excel for their data, but the data model was too large and the analysts didn't know how to use SQL. To solve the problem, the company hired an outside firm, trained the analysts in SQL, and hired new engineers to help with the data model. After two and a half years, the company is now tearing the data apart and building a data warehouse. The article emphasizes the importance of communicating with both the executives and the team, and translating technical issues into language that the business will understand.

Underestimating onboarding for an experienced engineer

A manager had high expectations for a new, experienced developer, but after one week it was clear that the developer was not meeting expectations. Through a two-hour 1:1, the manager learned that the developer needed to be properly onboarded and they created a plan to gradually increase the developer's tasks. After one month, the developer was able to reach full speed and eventually became tech lead. The manager learned that any employee, regardless of experience, must be properly onboarded to ensure success.

Letting go an engineer can result in a win-win situation

In one of my previous teams, I promoted an engineer to team lead, but it was a mistake as there were personality misfits. I coached him to be a better manager, but it didn't work, so I had to let him go. I learned that it's important to know when to let people go, as it's a win-win for everyone. I also learned that networking and reputation play a big role in recruiting, and the employee I let go even referred someone that we later hired.

Introducing take-home exercises to my hiring process.

In this case study, the manager was unsure of a candidate's code quality and decided to give them a take-home exercise to assess their skills. The exercise revealed that the candidate's code was not up to par, and the manager ultimately decided to pass on them. This experience made the manager rethink their position on take-home exercises, as they realized it was a better way to assess a candidate's code quality than whiteboard exercises.

How to Get Your Team to Accept a Difficult Decision

As a new manager at a fast-growing startup, the team wanted to start the code from scratch, but the manager decided to patiently fix the bugs instead. After two months, it became apparent that the code had to be rewritten due to technical debt. The manager gathered data to back up the decision and was able to convince the executives to accept the decision. The manager learned that the best way to take a difficult decision and convince others is to communicate with them, and to gather data to back up the argument.

How to help engineers from larger companies adapt to a startup environment

When hiring an engineer from a large company, it was necessary to make sure he understood the responsibility he had to take in the smaller startup. To do this, the lead engineer provided day-to-day coaching and mentoring, and the new engineer quickly stepped up. This experience was beneficial to the startup, as it needed more discipline. When hiring from a different environment, it is important to set clear expectations and provide internal coaching and mentoring.

6 questions you should ask in your next 1-1: the “Stay Interview”

As a new manager, the author struggled to understand what motivated their team. To address this, they implemented the "Stay Interview" which is a preemptive "exit interview" to learn about what motivates the team. The Stay Interview consists of questions such as "what do you like to be recognized for?" and "what would entice you away from your company?". After implementing the Stay Interview, team retention dramatically improved.

Walking one of your direct reports through conflict resolution.

A direct report of the manager was asked to change teams due to company restructuring. The new Project Manager was ambitious but inexperienced, making it difficult for the engineer. The manager gave advice on how to manage the situation, but it was not enough. The manager then advised the engineer to request a three-person conversation with the team lead, which eventually led to the reorganization of the teams. The manager learned that while it is nice to resolve interpersonal relationship problems, it can be difficult and require tradeoffs.

Redesigning our dev process from scratch

Following a reorganization, a manager was tasked with defining work processes. After a few months, it was clear that the process was inefficient and needed to be changed. The manager and PM designed a new process with fewer stages, an estimation stage, and enforced it with Jira. This has improved efficiency, visibility, and deliverability. The manager learned that simpler processes, investing in tools, and taking estimations into account are key principles for successful process design.

Reduce Cluttered Processes and Empower Team To Increase Effectiveness

When the engineering team at Managed by Q was not delivering, the Executive team identified that the team lacked goal clarity and was scared of making decisions. The Executive team identified the two most important projects and the team focused on those. One of the projects was a dispatching system, but the team was putting too much process and measurement in place. The team was asked to ship a version of the dispatching system as soon as possible to see if it would work. This was successful and built confidence for the team, as well as credibility between the team and the Executive team. The experience taught the Executive team to know how to get out of the way and give the team space to win.

Overcoming an engineer’s temper

A junior engineer at Google was having difficulty advancing in his career, and it was discovered that his temper was the main issue. Through regular one-on-one meetings, the engineer was able to gain control of his emotions and improve his performance, eventually leading to a promotion. This experience showed that if an issue is identified and analyzed, it can be solved and people can improve quickly.

What to Do When You Need to Fire Someone Who is Popular

A manager had to make a difficult decision to let go of an employee, Sam, who was liked by many in the company, but was not performing well and was creating a bad environment. The manager had to think rationally and remove emotions from the decision, and ultimately decided to let Sam go. This decision improved the team atmosphere, but resulted in the departure of Sam's close friend, Bill. The manager learned that performance must be considered over personal relationships when making decisions.

Promoting the wrong person to a management position

An engineer was promoted to team lead, but was unable to handle the people side of the role. The manager took action by coaching the engineer to take a pure engineering path and taking on some of the team lead responsibilities. The manager learned to be more careful when promoting people to leadership positions, to trust their gut feeling, and to use internal resources to help managers validate their choice. If the person is not right for the job, it is better to let them go.

Looking for leadership skills when promoting an IC to manager.

As a manager, it can be difficult to know who to promote to managerial roles. To identify potential leaders, I look for signs during regular one-on-ones and encourage initiative. I also set up a 3-month try-out period to assess their management skills. This helps me identify people with both great leadership and management skills, while also minimizing the risk of losing a great engineer if they fail to be permanently promoted.

Engaged in a face to face discussion to rebuild a key business partner relationship

A company was facing a difficult decision regarding a business partner that was critical to their revenue. Rather than replace them, the new manager decided to reach out and talk directly to the partner. Through open dialogue and understanding the real issues, the manager was able to salvage the partnership and learn valuable lessons about communication and problem solving.

Reducing layers of management

When the senior director of engineering joined Zoosk, they found a lot of layers for a relatively small team of 35 people. After meeting with each person, they found that people were promoted into management roles without formal training. The director worked with HR and the SVP to create a new role, allowing people to become a tech lead and progress to a technical director role without having to manage people. This allowed the engineer to get the title they wanted and the time they needed for coding. This experience highlighted the importance of having a dual career path and understanding the motivations of each team member.

A high performer making legitimate comments in code reviews in a harsh manner

A manager leading a team of engineers encountered a high-performing individual contributor who was providing unconstructive code reviews in a harsh manner. The manager gathered the team to establish guidelines for code reviews and created a wiki page with examples of constructive reviews. With guidance, the individual contributor adjusted their tone and learned to provide code reviews in a more constructive manner. The lesson learned is that managers must address damaging behavior quickly and ensure that team members understand the importance of words and being mindful of people's differences.

Leading Cultural Change - Changing culture after acquiring a new team

After Concur bought a new company, the author was tasked with integrating the two teams. To do this, they evaluated talent, restructured the team, and gathered information on the major issues. They then defined goals and worked on shared objectives, performance improvement plans, and skills and training. The process was difficult, but ultimately successful. The author learned that changing culture is difficult and that clear and consistent communication is key to leading change.

How to handle a “Hero” employee that keeps valuable knowledge to himself?

In this story, the author was concerned about the high risk posed by having only one person, Brian, who understood the configuration of the company's production servers. To address this, the author appealed to Brian's emotions and logic, thanked him for his work, and assigned a junior engineer to be his student. As a result, more people had critical knowledge and Brian could take days off if he wanted to.

Making Remote teams successful with Agile.

At Blackhawk Network, I managed a team of four engineers in California and five in India, who had to deal with significant time zone differences. To resolve this issue, I put together metrics, held two team sessions, and recommended that the team operate as one scrum team. The teams agreed to daily stand-ups, groomings, sprint planning, retrospectives, and sprint reviews, with the product manager in all meetings. This helped to reduce the 24-hour turnaround time, as there was frequent communication, and the product manager helped the team to understand the feature more accurately.

Hiring, training and problem-solving

This article discusses the challenges faced by a company tasked with taking a dataset from the US Government, figuring out the network architecture of different school districts in America, and working out which school districts needed internet access. The company initially used Excel for their data, but the data model was too large and the analysts didn't know how to use SQL. To solve the problem, the company hired an outside firm, trained the analysts in SQL, and hired new engineers to help with the data model. After two and a half years, the company is now tearing the data apart and building a data warehouse. The article emphasizes the importance of communicating with both the executives and the team, and translating technical issues into language that the business will understand.

Underestimating onboarding for an experienced engineer

A manager had high expectations for a new, experienced developer, but after one week it was clear that the developer was not meeting expectations. Through a two-hour 1:1, the manager learned that the developer needed to be properly onboarded and they created a plan to gradually increase the developer's tasks. After one month, the developer was able to reach full speed and eventually became tech lead. The manager learned that any employee, regardless of experience, must be properly onboarded to ensure success.

Letting go an engineer can result in a win-win situation

In one of my previous teams, I promoted an engineer to team lead, but it was a mistake as there were personality misfits. I coached him to be a better manager, but it didn't work, so I had to let him go. I learned that it's important to know when to let people go, as it's a win-win for everyone. I also learned that networking and reputation play a big role in recruiting, and the employee I let go even referred someone that we later hired.

Introducing take-home exercises to my hiring process.

In this case study, the manager was unsure of a candidate's code quality and decided to give them a take-home exercise to assess their skills. The exercise revealed that the candidate's code was not up to par, and the manager ultimately decided to pass on them. This experience made the manager rethink their position on take-home exercises, as they realized it was a better way to assess a candidate's code quality than whiteboard exercises.

How to Get Your Team to Accept a Difficult Decision

As a new manager at a fast-growing startup, the team wanted to start the code from scratch, but the manager decided to patiently fix the bugs instead. After two months, it became apparent that the code had to be rewritten due to technical debt. The manager gathered data to back up the decision and was able to convince the executives to accept the decision. The manager learned that the best way to take a difficult decision and convince others is to communicate with them, and to gather data to back up the argument.

How to help engineers from larger companies adapt to a startup environment

When hiring an engineer from a large company, it was necessary to make sure he understood the responsibility he had to take in the smaller startup. To do this, the lead engineer provided day-to-day coaching and mentoring, and the new engineer quickly stepped up. This experience was beneficial to the startup, as it needed more discipline. When hiring from a different environment, it is important to set clear expectations and provide internal coaching and mentoring.

6 questions you should ask in your next 1-1: the “Stay Interview”

As a new manager, the author struggled to understand what motivated their team. To address this, they implemented the "Stay Interview" which is a preemptive "exit interview" to learn about what motivates the team. The Stay Interview consists of questions such as "what do you like to be recognized for?" and "what would entice you away from your company?". After implementing the Stay Interview, team retention dramatically improved.

Walking one of your direct reports through conflict resolution.

A direct report of the manager was asked to change teams due to company restructuring. The new Project Manager was ambitious but inexperienced, making it difficult for the engineer. The manager gave advice on how to manage the situation, but it was not enough. The manager then advised the engineer to request a three-person conversation with the team lead, which eventually led to the reorganization of the teams. The manager learned that while it is nice to resolve interpersonal relationship problems, it can be difficult and require tradeoffs.

Redesigning our dev process from scratch

Following a reorganization, a manager was tasked with defining work processes. After a few months, it was clear that the process was inefficient and needed to be changed. The manager and PM designed a new process with fewer stages, an estimation stage, and enforced it with Jira. This has improved efficiency, visibility, and deliverability. The manager learned that simpler processes, investing in tools, and taking estimations into account are key principles for successful process design.

Reduce Cluttered Processes and Empower Team To Increase Effectiveness

When the engineering team at Managed by Q was not delivering, the Executive team identified that the team lacked goal clarity and was scared of making decisions. The Executive team identified the two most important projects and the team focused on those. One of the projects was a dispatching system, but the team was putting too much process and measurement in place. The team was asked to ship a version of the dispatching system as soon as possible to see if it would work. This was successful and built confidence for the team, as well as credibility between the team and the Executive team. The experience taught the Executive team to know how to get out of the way and give the team space to win.

Overcoming an engineer’s temper

A junior engineer at Google was having difficulty advancing in his career, and it was discovered that his temper was the main issue. Through regular one-on-one meetings, the engineer was able to gain control of his emotions and improve his performance, eventually leading to a promotion. This experience showed that if an issue is identified and analyzed, it can be solved and people can improve quickly.

What to Do When You Need to Fire Someone Who is Popular

A manager had to make a difficult decision to let go of an employee, Sam, who was liked by many in the company, but was not performing well and was creating a bad environment. The manager had to think rationally and remove emotions from the decision, and ultimately decided to let Sam go. This decision improved the team atmosphere, but resulted in the departure of Sam's close friend, Bill. The manager learned that performance must be considered over personal relationships when making decisions.

Promoting the wrong person to a management position

An engineer was promoted to team lead, but was unable to handle the people side of the role. The manager took action by coaching the engineer to take a pure engineering path and taking on some of the team lead responsibilities. The manager learned to be more careful when promoting people to leadership positions, to trust their gut feeling, and to use internal resources to help managers validate their choice. If the person is not right for the job, it is better to let them go.

Looking for leadership skills when promoting an IC to manager.

As a manager, it can be difficult to know who to promote to managerial roles. To identify potential leaders, I look for signs during regular one-on-ones and encourage initiative. I also set up a 3-month try-out period to assess their management skills. This helps me identify people with both great leadership and management skills, while also minimizing the risk of losing a great engineer if they fail to be permanently promoted.

Engaged in a face to face discussion to rebuild a key business partner relationship

A company was facing a difficult decision regarding a business partner that was critical to their revenue. Rather than replace them, the new manager decided to reach out and talk directly to the partner. Through open dialogue and understanding the real issues, the manager was able to salvage the partnership and learn valuable lessons about communication and problem solving.

Reducing layers of management

When the senior director of engineering joined Zoosk, they found a lot of layers for a relatively small team of 35 people. After meeting with each person, they found that people were promoted into management roles without formal training. The director worked with HR and the SVP to create a new role, allowing people to become a tech lead and progress to a technical director role without having to manage people. This allowed the engineer to get the title they wanted and the time they needed for coding. This experience highlighted the importance of having a dual career path and understanding the motivations of each team member.

A high performer making legitimate comments in code reviews in a harsh manner

A manager leading a team of engineers encountered a high-performing individual contributor who was providing unconstructive code reviews in a harsh manner. The manager gathered the team to establish guidelines for code reviews and created a wiki page with examples of constructive reviews. With guidance, the individual contributor adjusted their tone and learned to provide code reviews in a more constructive manner. The lesson learned is that managers must address damaging behavior quickly and ensure that team members understand the importance of words and being mindful of people's differences.

Leading Cultural Change - Changing culture after acquiring a new team

After Concur bought a new company, the author was tasked with integrating the two teams. To do this, they evaluated talent, restructured the team, and gathered information on the major issues. They then defined goals and worked on shared objectives, performance improvement plans, and skills and training. The process was difficult, but ultimately successful. The author learned that changing culture is difficult and that clear and consistent communication is key to leading change.

How to handle a “Hero” employee that keeps valuable knowledge to himself?

In this story, the author was concerned about the high risk posed by having only one person, Brian, who understood the configuration of the company's production servers. To address this, the author appealed to Brian's emotions and logic, thanked him for his work, and assigned a junior engineer to be his student. As a result, more people had critical knowledge and Brian could take days off if he wanted to.

Making Remote teams successful with Agile.

At Blackhawk Network, I managed a team of four engineers in California and five in India, who had to deal with significant time zone differences. To resolve this issue, I put together metrics, held two team sessions, and recommended that the team operate as one scrum team. The teams agreed to daily stand-ups, groomings, sprint planning, retrospectives, and sprint reviews, with the product manager in all meetings. This helped to reduce the 24-hour turnaround time, as there was frequent communication, and the product manager helped the team to understand the feature more accurately.

Hiring, training and problem-solving

This article discusses the challenges faced by a company tasked with taking a dataset from the US Government, figuring out the network architecture of different school districts in America, and working out which school districts needed internet access. The company initially used Excel for their data, but the data model was too large and the analysts didn't know how to use SQL. To solve the problem, the company hired an outside firm, trained the analysts in SQL, and hired new engineers to help with the data model. After two and a half years, the company is now tearing the data apart and building a data warehouse. The article emphasizes the importance of communicating with both the executives and the team, and translating technical issues into language that the business will understand.

Underestimating onboarding for an experienced engineer

A manager had high expectations for a new, experienced developer, but after one week it was clear that the developer was not meeting expectations. Through a two-hour 1:1, the manager learned that the developer needed to be properly onboarded and they created a plan to gradually increase the developer's tasks. After one month, the developer was able to reach full speed and eventually became tech lead. The manager learned that any employee, regardless of experience, must be properly onboarded to ensure success.

Letting go an engineer can result in a win-win situation

In one of my previous teams, I promoted an engineer to team lead, but it was a mistake as there were personality misfits. I coached him to be a better manager, but it didn't work, so I had to let him go. I learned that it's important to know when to let people go, as it's a win-win for everyone. I also learned that networking and reputation play a big role in recruiting, and the employee I let go even referred someone that we later hired.

Introducing take-home exercises to my hiring process.

In this case study, the manager was unsure of a candidate's code quality and decided to give them a take-home exercise to assess their skills. The exercise revealed that the candidate's code was not up to par, and the manager ultimately decided to pass on them. This experience made the manager rethink their position on take-home exercises, as they realized it was a better way to assess a candidate's code quality than whiteboard exercises.

How to Get Your Team to Accept a Difficult Decision

As a new manager at a fast-growing startup, the team wanted to start the code from scratch, but the manager decided to patiently fix the bugs instead. After two months, it became apparent that the code had to be rewritten due to technical debt. The manager gathered data to back up the decision and was able to convince the executives to accept the decision. The manager learned that the best way to take a difficult decision and convince others is to communicate with them, and to gather data to back up the argument.

How to help engineers from larger companies adapt to a startup environment

When hiring an engineer from a large company, it was necessary to make sure he understood the responsibility he had to take in the smaller startup. To do this, the lead engineer provided day-to-day coaching and mentoring, and the new engineer quickly stepped up. This experience was beneficial to the startup, as it needed more discipline. When hiring from a different environment, it is important to set clear expectations and provide internal coaching and mentoring.

6 questions you should ask in your next 1-1: the “Stay Interview”

As a new manager, the author struggled to understand what motivated their team. To address this, they implemented the "Stay Interview" which is a preemptive "exit interview" to learn about what motivates the team. The Stay Interview consists of questions such as "what do you like to be recognized for?" and "what would entice you away from your company?". After implementing the Stay Interview, team retention dramatically improved.

Walking one of your direct reports through conflict resolution.

A direct report of the manager was asked to change teams due to company restructuring. The new Project Manager was ambitious but inexperienced, making it difficult for the engineer. The manager gave advice on how to manage the situation, but it was not enough. The manager then advised the engineer to request a three-person conversation with the team lead, which eventually led to the reorganization of the teams. The manager learned that while it is nice to resolve interpersonal relationship problems, it can be difficult and require tradeoffs.

Redesigning our dev process from scratch

Following a reorganization, a manager was tasked with defining work processes. After a few months, it was clear that the process was inefficient and needed to be changed. The manager and PM designed a new process with fewer stages, an estimation stage, and enforced it with Jira. This has improved efficiency, visibility, and deliverability. The manager learned that simpler processes, investing in tools, and taking estimations into account are key principles for successful process design.

Reduce Cluttered Processes and Empower Team To Increase Effectiveness

When the engineering team at Managed by Q was not delivering, the Executive team identified that the team lacked goal clarity and was scared of making decisions. The Executive team identified the two most important projects and the team focused on those. One of the projects was a dispatching system, but the team was putting too much process and measurement in place. The team was asked to ship a version of the dispatching system as soon as possible to see if it would work. This was successful and built confidence for the team, as well as credibility between the team and the Executive team. The experience taught the Executive team to know how to get out of the way and give the team space to win.

Overcoming an engineer’s temper

A junior engineer at Google was having difficulty advancing in his career, and it was discovered that his temper was the main issue. Through regular one-on-one meetings, the engineer was able to gain control of his emotions and improve his performance, eventually leading to a promotion. This experience showed that if an issue is identified and analyzed, it can be solved and people can improve quickly.

What to Do When You Need to Fire Someone Who is Popular

A manager had to make a difficult decision to let go of an employee, Sam, who was liked by many in the company, but was not performing well and was creating a bad environment. The manager had to think rationally and remove emotions from the decision, and ultimately decided to let Sam go. This decision improved the team atmosphere, but resulted in the departure of Sam's close friend, Bill. The manager learned that performance must be considered over personal relationships when making decisions.

Promoting the wrong person to a management position

An engineer was promoted to team lead, but was unable to handle the people side of the role. The manager took action by coaching the engineer to take a pure engineering path and taking on some of the team lead responsibilities. The manager learned to be more careful when promoting people to leadership positions, to trust their gut feeling, and to use internal resources to help managers validate their choice. If the person is not right for the job, it is better to let them go.

Looking for leadership skills when promoting an IC to manager.

As a manager, it can be difficult to know who to promote to managerial roles. To identify potential leaders, I look for signs during regular one-on-ones and encourage initiative. I also set up a 3-month try-out period to assess their management skills. This helps me identify people with both great leadership and management skills, while also minimizing the risk of losing a great engineer if they fail to be permanently promoted.

Engaged in a face to face discussion to rebuild a key business partner relationship

A company was facing a difficult decision regarding a business partner that was critical to their revenue. Rather than replace them, the new manager decided to reach out and talk directly to the partner. Through open dialogue and understanding the real issues, the manager was able to salvage the partnership and learn valuable lessons about communication and problem solving.

Reducing layers of management

When the senior director of engineering joined Zoosk, they found a lot of layers for a relatively small team of 35 people. After meeting with each person, they found that people were promoted into management roles without formal training. The director worked with HR and the SVP to create a new role, allowing people to become a tech lead and progress to a technical director role without having to manage people. This allowed the engineer to get the title they wanted and the time they needed for coding. This experience highlighted the importance of having a dual career path and understanding the motivations of each team member.

A high performer making legitimate comments in code reviews in a harsh manner

A manager leading a team of engineers encountered a high-performing individual contributor who was providing unconstructive code reviews in a harsh manner. The manager gathered the team to establish guidelines for code reviews and created a wiki page with examples of constructive reviews. With guidance, the individual contributor adjusted their tone and learned to provide code reviews in a more constructive manner. The lesson learned is that managers must address damaging behavior quickly and ensure that team members understand the importance of words and being mindful of people's differences.

Leading Cultural Change - Changing culture after acquiring a new team

After Concur bought a new company, the author was tasked with integrating the two teams. To do this, they evaluated talent, restructured the team, and gathered information on the major issues. They then defined goals and worked on shared objectives, performance improvement plans, and skills and training. The process was difficult, but ultimately successful. The author learned that changing culture is difficult and that clear and consistent communication is key to leading change.

How to handle a “Hero” employee that keeps valuable knowledge to himself?

In this story, the author was concerned about the high risk posed by having only one person, Brian, who understood the configuration of the company's production servers. To address this, the author appealed to Brian's emotions and logic, thanked him for his work, and assigned a junior engineer to be his student. As a result, more people had critical knowledge and Brian could take days off if he wanted to.

Making Remote teams successful with Agile.

At Blackhawk Network, I managed a team of four engineers in California and five in India, who had to deal with significant time zone differences. To resolve this issue, I put together metrics, held two team sessions, and recommended that the team operate as one scrum team. The teams agreed to daily stand-ups, groomings, sprint planning, retrospectives, and sprint reviews, with the product manager in all meetings. This helped to reduce the 24-hour turnaround time, as there was frequent communication, and the product manager helped the team to understand the feature more accurately.

Hiring, training and problem-solving

This article discusses the challenges faced by a company tasked with taking a dataset from the US Government, figuring out the network architecture of different school districts in America, and working out which school districts needed internet access. The company initially used Excel for their data, but the data model was too large and the analysts didn't know how to use SQL. To solve the problem, the company hired an outside firm, trained the analysts in SQL, and hired new engineers to help with the data model. After two and a half years, the company is now tearing the data apart and building a data warehouse. The article emphasizes the importance of communicating with both the executives and the team, and translating technical issues into language that the business will understand.

Underestimating onboarding for an experienced engineer

A manager had high expectations for a new, experienced developer, but after one week it was clear that the developer was not meeting expectations. Through a two-hour 1:1, the manager learned that the developer needed to be properly onboarded and they created a plan to gradually increase the developer's tasks. After one month, the developer was able to reach full speed and eventually became tech lead. The manager learned that any employee, regardless of experience, must be properly onboarded to ensure success.

Letting go an engineer can result in a win-win situation

In one of my previous teams, I promoted an engineer to team lead, but it was a mistake as there were personality misfits. I coached him to be a better manager, but it didn't work, so I had to let him go. I learned that it's important to know when to let people go, as it's a win-win for everyone. I also learned that networking and reputation play a big role in recruiting, and the employee I let go even referred someone that we later hired.

Introducing take-home exercises to my hiring process.

In this case study, the manager was unsure of a candidate's code quality and decided to give them a take-home exercise to assess their skills. The exercise revealed that the candidate's code was not up to par, and the manager ultimately decided to pass on them. This experience made the manager rethink their position on take-home exercises, as they realized it was a better way to assess a candidate's code quality than whiteboard exercises.

How to Get Your Team to Accept a Difficult Decision

As a new manager at a fast-growing startup, the team wanted to start the code from scratch, but the manager decided to patiently fix the bugs instead. After two months, it became apparent that the code had to be rewritten due to technical debt. The manager gathered data to back up the decision and was able to convince the executives to accept the decision. The manager learned that the best way to take a difficult decision and convince others is to communicate with them, and to gather data to back up the argument.

How to help engineers from larger companies adapt to a startup environment

When hiring an engineer from a large company, it was necessary to make sure he understood the responsibility he had to take in the smaller startup. To do this, the lead engineer provided day-to-day coaching and mentoring, and the new engineer quickly stepped up. This experience was beneficial to the startup, as it needed more discipline. When hiring from a different environment, it is important to set clear expectations and provide internal coaching and mentoring.

6 questions you should ask in your next 1-1: the “Stay Interview”

As a new manager, the author struggled to understand what motivated their team. To address this, they implemented the "Stay Interview" which is a preemptive "exit interview" to learn about what motivates the team. The Stay Interview consists of questions such as "what do you like to be recognized for?" and "what would entice you away from your company?". After implementing the Stay Interview, team retention dramatically improved.

Walking one of your direct reports through conflict resolution.

A direct report of the manager was asked to change teams due to company restructuring. The new Project Manager was ambitious but inexperienced, making it difficult for the engineer. The manager gave advice on how to manage the situation, but it was not enough. The manager then advised the engineer to request a three-person conversation with the team lead, which eventually led to the reorganization of the teams. The manager learned that while it is nice to resolve interpersonal relationship problems, it can be difficult and require tradeoffs.

Redesigning our dev process from scratch

Following a reorganization, a manager was tasked with defining work processes. After a few months, it was clear that the process was inefficient and needed to be changed. The manager and PM designed a new process with fewer stages, an estimation stage, and enforced it with Jira. This has improved efficiency, visibility, and deliverability. The manager learned that simpler processes, investing in tools, and taking estimations into account are key principles for successful process design.

Reduce Cluttered Processes and Empower Team To Increase Effectiveness

When the engineering team at Managed by Q was not delivering, the Executive team identified that the team lacked goal clarity and was scared of making decisions. The Executive team identified the two most important projects and the team focused on those. One of the projects was a dispatching system, but the team was putting too much process and measurement in place. The team was asked to ship a version of the dispatching system as soon as possible to see if it would work. This was successful and built confidence for the team, as well as credibility between the team and the Executive team. The experience taught the Executive team to know how to get out of the way and give the team space to win.

Overcoming an engineer’s temper

A junior engineer at Google was having difficulty advancing in his career, and it was discovered that his temper was the main issue. Through regular one-on-one meetings, the engineer was able to gain control of his emotions and improve his performance, eventually leading to a promotion. This experience showed that if an issue is identified and analyzed, it can be solved and people can improve quickly.

What to Do When You Need to Fire Someone Who is Popular

A manager had to make a difficult decision to let go of an employee, Sam, who was liked by many in the company, but was not performing well and was creating a bad environment. The manager had to think rationally and remove emotions from the decision, and ultimately decided to let Sam go. This decision improved the team atmosphere, but resulted in the departure of Sam's close friend, Bill. The manager learned that performance must be considered over personal relationships when making decisions.

Promoting the wrong person to a management position

An engineer was promoted to team lead, but was unable to handle the people side of the role. The manager took action by coaching the engineer to take a pure engineering path and taking on some of the team lead responsibilities. The manager learned to be more careful when promoting people to leadership positions, to trust their gut feeling, and to use internal resources to help managers validate their choice. If the person is not right for the job, it is better to let them go.

Looking for leadership skills when promoting an IC to manager.

As a manager, it can be difficult to know who to promote to managerial roles. To identify potential leaders, I look for signs during regular one-on-ones and encourage initiative. I also set up a 3-month try-out period to assess their management skills. This helps me identify people with both great leadership and management skills, while also minimizing the risk of losing a great engineer if they fail to be permanently promoted.

Engaged in a face to face discussion to rebuild a key business partner relationship

A company was facing a difficult decision regarding a business partner that was critical to their revenue. Rather than replace them, the new manager decided to reach out and talk directly to the partner. Through open dialogue and understanding the real issues, the manager was able to salvage the partnership and learn valuable lessons about communication and problem solving.

Reducing layers of management

When the senior director of engineering joined Zoosk, they found a lot of layers for a relatively small team of 35 people. After meeting with each person, they found that people were promoted into management roles without formal training. The director worked with HR and the SVP to create a new role, allowing people to become a tech lead and progress to a technical director role without having to manage people. This allowed the engineer to get the title they wanted and the time they needed for coding. This experience highlighted the importance of having a dual career path and understanding the motivations of each team member.