Knowledge shared by our community

The Secret to Making Remote Work a Success

The Covid-era has caused a shift to remote work culture, which has created communication issues and a feeling of isolation. To overcome these obstacles, companies have implemented tools such as Slack, Huddle, and a "hot wall" to facilitate communication and create a sense of community. Additionally, managers have encouraged employees to take breaks and update their status, and have organized online happy hours and in-person gatherings when safe. Ultimately, it is important to never underestimate the value of social interactions and to create intentional opportunities for interpersonal relationships.

To Be a Strong Leader, Hire People Smarter Than You

Steve Jobs' quote, "It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do," encourages great managers to hire people better than themselves at their job. To manage this diverse group of highly-skilled people, managers should become great questioners, learn continually, and delegate responsibilities, not tasks. They should also set boundaries and know when to say no, and ensure that what their reports are doing connects back to the company and product needs.

Diamonds in the Rough: The Key to Recruitment Success

Startups often struggle to attract quality high-demand talent due to competition with tech giants and the need for hybrid skillsets. To source great candidates, startups should recruit for potential and intangibles, as well as demonstrated excellence. Additionally, investing in employees to help them grow and achieve their career goals can help to build loyalty and create a win-win situation.

Career Courage - Key to Career Progression

This article discusses the journey of a professional who felt her career had stagnated and how she was able to take the initiative to grow in her career. The key areas that helped her were dreaming, having a positive mindset, continuous learning, embracing change, networking, and effective communication. She learned that career courage and setting boundaries are critical to one's career advancement and that it is important to not blame external factors for lack of progress.

Build V.S. Buy: Empowering Teams with a Data-Driven Approach

In large organizations, product leaders must assess the build v.s. buy decision when initiatives come up. Ten years ago, a company partnered with two vendors for a novel product involving AI and modeling, despite some team members wanting to do it in-house. The product leader encouraged experimentation and professional development, and if something high impact was created, the team would bring it to life. An engineer created a machine learning model with only 60% accuracy, but the product leader empowered the team to make data-driven decisions, leading the engineer to recommend leveraging the vendors.

How to Move Past Bureaucracies of Larger Organizations

This article discusses how to take advantage of opportunities in a large organization. It explains the process of creating a partnership product, which involves identifying the opportunity, connecting with the leadership of the partnering organization, involving all necessary stakeholders, and receiving buy-in from each stakeholder. It also emphasizes the importance of having a strong business case and data to validate the opportunity.

Overcoming the Imposter Syndrome to Land More Opportunities

This article details the experience of a person struggling with imposter syndrome while taking ownership of a major redesign project. After much internal deliberation, the person decided to take on the challenge and worked hard for three months to complete the redesign. The experience taught them to not second guess themselves and to take opportunities to grow and push themselves. The CEO was impressed with the decision and mentioned it in a positive light in a subsequent board meeting.

Designing a Career Ladder

The author experienced a drop in productivity due to too many meetings and not having a person to delegate duties to. To address this, the team was split into two and three leaders were assigned, one for the full-stack team and two for the product teams. This allowed for more focus time and the feedback has been positive. The author also learned that leading managers is a different sport than leading ICs and involves providing advice on leadership and feedback.

Scaling Your Developers Team: When and How to Start?

Doist had two products, Todoist and Twist, and needed to scale their team of three frontend developers. To do this, they hired more developers and appointed a team lead. The lead had to manage both the technical and people aspects of the team, and introduced processes such as one-on-one meetings, product roadmaps, and planning processes. They also renewed their codebase to newer technology. The lead had to provide the team with a vision and autonomy to figure out the details, while also looking for improvements.

What Companies Can Do to Reduce Technical Debt

This article discusses how to reduce technical debt in a product-based company. The author suggests convincing the upper management to focus on improving the quality of the product and to collaborate with product management to prioritize features based on data-driven information. The author also emphasizes the importance of communicating with the higher leadership and avoiding technical jargon.

Concrete Tips to Convince Senior Management

In order to convince the higher management to invest in new servers, the author demonstrated the performance improvement of 2-3 servers and extrapolated the results to hundreds. Visual representations of the data, such as graphs and charts, were used to show the potential of the investment. Additionally, the author made sure that everyone was on the same page and leaned on each other's expertise to make the project successful. The lesson learned was to use visuals and simplify concepts when communicating with non-techies.

How to Overcome Fear and Break Out of Your Comfort Zone

Moving out of your comfort zone can be a daunting experience, but it is necessary for personal growth. Embrace the challenges, try something new, and work on yourself to get out of your comfort zone. Don't be afraid to try something new, even if it's only for a short period of time, as it will help you discover your potential and core competencies.

Transition from Individual Contributor to People Manager

This article is about the author's experience transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager role. The author was initially hesitant due to fear of losing technical domain knowledge and being an introvert. After accepting the offer, the author took courses, read books, and joined Toastmasters International to become a better leader. The author learned the importance of providing constructive feedback and how to observe and grow from people around them.

Balancing Personal and Professional Life

In today's competitive business world, it can be difficult for female professionals to balance their work and personal lives. Prioritization is key to finding the right balance, and it is important to ask for help and support when needed. It is also important to have faith in yourself and believe that something will work out, and not to compare yourself to others. With the right balance, it is possible to have a successful career and family life.

Understanding Leadership Before Becoming a Manager

It is difficult for technical individual contributors to transition to a managerial role due to lack of preparation and guidance. Measuring output as a manager is challenging as it is no longer based on individual performance, but rather team success. To be successful in a managerial role, individuals should practice their leadership skills before transitioning, get clarifications on expectations, take any opportunity to practice leadership skills, look to positive role models, and delegate responsibilities to their team.

Channeling a Startup Mindset when Prioritizing

This article discusses the importance of taking small steps and measuring success when working on a project, especially for startups. It also recommends using the weighted shortest job first framework to prioritize tasks and features in order to maximize the team's time.

How Reminders can Unleash Your Full Potential

When transitioning from an IC to a manager, it is important to treat leadership like an engineering discipline. This includes maintaining a healthy calendar, setting reminders for tasks, and performing a retrospective on performance. Reading resources and owning consequences when something goes wrong are also important tips for new managers.

Building Teams who are Loyal to Customers

Loyalty to customers is an organization-wide behavior that is essential for successful businesses. Benefits of being loyal to customers include normalization of organizational hierarchy, self-empowerment, work fulfillment, and a positive feedback loop. Organizations can build teams loyal to customers by having a shared vision, business transparency, a safe space, and empowering leadership. Ultimately, customers become the King when there is a kingdom that loyally stands behind them.

Launching a Successful Product through an Acquisition

This article discusses the challenges of leading an acquisition of two startups and launching a new product to market. The author, a Program Manager, focused on cross-functional collaboration and transparency to address the challenges of combining two products on a unified platform. The author also emphasized the importance of building relationships, trust, and communication strategies to ensure the successful launch of the product within six months.

Aligning Strategic Business Objectives With Project Management Strategy

This article discusses the challenges of managing a product organization with over 80 products. It outlines the steps taken to ensure successful project management, such as communication, alignment, progress tracking, and ownership. It also emphasizes the importance of communication in planning and execution, and suggests ways to ensure that stakeholders are kept informed.

The Secret to Making Remote Work a Success

The Covid-era has caused a shift to remote work culture, which has created communication issues and a feeling of isolation. To overcome these obstacles, companies have implemented tools such as Slack, Huddle, and a "hot wall" to facilitate communication and create a sense of community. Additionally, managers have encouraged employees to take breaks and update their status, and have organized online happy hours and in-person gatherings when safe. Ultimately, it is important to never underestimate the value of social interactions and to create intentional opportunities for interpersonal relationships.

To Be a Strong Leader, Hire People Smarter Than You

Steve Jobs' quote, "It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do," encourages great managers to hire people better than themselves at their job. To manage this diverse group of highly-skilled people, managers should become great questioners, learn continually, and delegate responsibilities, not tasks. They should also set boundaries and know when to say no, and ensure that what their reports are doing connects back to the company and product needs.

Diamonds in the Rough: The Key to Recruitment Success

Startups often struggle to attract quality high-demand talent due to competition with tech giants and the need for hybrid skillsets. To source great candidates, startups should recruit for potential and intangibles, as well as demonstrated excellence. Additionally, investing in employees to help them grow and achieve their career goals can help to build loyalty and create a win-win situation.

Career Courage - Key to Career Progression

This article discusses the journey of a professional who felt her career had stagnated and how she was able to take the initiative to grow in her career. The key areas that helped her were dreaming, having a positive mindset, continuous learning, embracing change, networking, and effective communication. She learned that career courage and setting boundaries are critical to one's career advancement and that it is important to not blame external factors for lack of progress.

Build V.S. Buy: Empowering Teams with a Data-Driven Approach

In large organizations, product leaders must assess the build v.s. buy decision when initiatives come up. Ten years ago, a company partnered with two vendors for a novel product involving AI and modeling, despite some team members wanting to do it in-house. The product leader encouraged experimentation and professional development, and if something high impact was created, the team would bring it to life. An engineer created a machine learning model with only 60% accuracy, but the product leader empowered the team to make data-driven decisions, leading the engineer to recommend leveraging the vendors.

How to Move Past Bureaucracies of Larger Organizations

This article discusses how to take advantage of opportunities in a large organization. It explains the process of creating a partnership product, which involves identifying the opportunity, connecting with the leadership of the partnering organization, involving all necessary stakeholders, and receiving buy-in from each stakeholder. It also emphasizes the importance of having a strong business case and data to validate the opportunity.

Overcoming the Imposter Syndrome to Land More Opportunities

This article details the experience of a person struggling with imposter syndrome while taking ownership of a major redesign project. After much internal deliberation, the person decided to take on the challenge and worked hard for three months to complete the redesign. The experience taught them to not second guess themselves and to take opportunities to grow and push themselves. The CEO was impressed with the decision and mentioned it in a positive light in a subsequent board meeting.

Designing a Career Ladder

The author experienced a drop in productivity due to too many meetings and not having a person to delegate duties to. To address this, the team was split into two and three leaders were assigned, one for the full-stack team and two for the product teams. This allowed for more focus time and the feedback has been positive. The author also learned that leading managers is a different sport than leading ICs and involves providing advice on leadership and feedback.

Scaling Your Developers Team: When and How to Start?

Doist had two products, Todoist and Twist, and needed to scale their team of three frontend developers. To do this, they hired more developers and appointed a team lead. The lead had to manage both the technical and people aspects of the team, and introduced processes such as one-on-one meetings, product roadmaps, and planning processes. They also renewed their codebase to newer technology. The lead had to provide the team with a vision and autonomy to figure out the details, while also looking for improvements.

What Companies Can Do to Reduce Technical Debt

This article discusses how to reduce technical debt in a product-based company. The author suggests convincing the upper management to focus on improving the quality of the product and to collaborate with product management to prioritize features based on data-driven information. The author also emphasizes the importance of communicating with the higher leadership and avoiding technical jargon.

Concrete Tips to Convince Senior Management

In order to convince the higher management to invest in new servers, the author demonstrated the performance improvement of 2-3 servers and extrapolated the results to hundreds. Visual representations of the data, such as graphs and charts, were used to show the potential of the investment. Additionally, the author made sure that everyone was on the same page and leaned on each other's expertise to make the project successful. The lesson learned was to use visuals and simplify concepts when communicating with non-techies.

How to Overcome Fear and Break Out of Your Comfort Zone

Moving out of your comfort zone can be a daunting experience, but it is necessary for personal growth. Embrace the challenges, try something new, and work on yourself to get out of your comfort zone. Don't be afraid to try something new, even if it's only for a short period of time, as it will help you discover your potential and core competencies.

Transition from Individual Contributor to People Manager

This article is about the author's experience transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager role. The author was initially hesitant due to fear of losing technical domain knowledge and being an introvert. After accepting the offer, the author took courses, read books, and joined Toastmasters International to become a better leader. The author learned the importance of providing constructive feedback and how to observe and grow from people around them.

Balancing Personal and Professional Life

In today's competitive business world, it can be difficult for female professionals to balance their work and personal lives. Prioritization is key to finding the right balance, and it is important to ask for help and support when needed. It is also important to have faith in yourself and believe that something will work out, and not to compare yourself to others. With the right balance, it is possible to have a successful career and family life.

Understanding Leadership Before Becoming a Manager

It is difficult for technical individual contributors to transition to a managerial role due to lack of preparation and guidance. Measuring output as a manager is challenging as it is no longer based on individual performance, but rather team success. To be successful in a managerial role, individuals should practice their leadership skills before transitioning, get clarifications on expectations, take any opportunity to practice leadership skills, look to positive role models, and delegate responsibilities to their team.

Channeling a Startup Mindset when Prioritizing

This article discusses the importance of taking small steps and measuring success when working on a project, especially for startups. It also recommends using the weighted shortest job first framework to prioritize tasks and features in order to maximize the team's time.

How Reminders can Unleash Your Full Potential

When transitioning from an IC to a manager, it is important to treat leadership like an engineering discipline. This includes maintaining a healthy calendar, setting reminders for tasks, and performing a retrospective on performance. Reading resources and owning consequences when something goes wrong are also important tips for new managers.

Building Teams who are Loyal to Customers

Loyalty to customers is an organization-wide behavior that is essential for successful businesses. Benefits of being loyal to customers include normalization of organizational hierarchy, self-empowerment, work fulfillment, and a positive feedback loop. Organizations can build teams loyal to customers by having a shared vision, business transparency, a safe space, and empowering leadership. Ultimately, customers become the King when there is a kingdom that loyally stands behind them.

Launching a Successful Product through an Acquisition

This article discusses the challenges of leading an acquisition of two startups and launching a new product to market. The author, a Program Manager, focused on cross-functional collaboration and transparency to address the challenges of combining two products on a unified platform. The author also emphasized the importance of building relationships, trust, and communication strategies to ensure the successful launch of the product within six months.

Aligning Strategic Business Objectives With Project Management Strategy

This article discusses the challenges of managing a product organization with over 80 products. It outlines the steps taken to ensure successful project management, such as communication, alignment, progress tracking, and ownership. It also emphasizes the importance of communication in planning and execution, and suggests ways to ensure that stakeholders are kept informed.

The Secret to Making Remote Work a Success

The Covid-era has caused a shift to remote work culture, which has created communication issues and a feeling of isolation. To overcome these obstacles, companies have implemented tools such as Slack, Huddle, and a "hot wall" to facilitate communication and create a sense of community. Additionally, managers have encouraged employees to take breaks and update their status, and have organized online happy hours and in-person gatherings when safe. Ultimately, it is important to never underestimate the value of social interactions and to create intentional opportunities for interpersonal relationships.

To Be a Strong Leader, Hire People Smarter Than You

Steve Jobs' quote, "It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do," encourages great managers to hire people better than themselves at their job. To manage this diverse group of highly-skilled people, managers should become great questioners, learn continually, and delegate responsibilities, not tasks. They should also set boundaries and know when to say no, and ensure that what their reports are doing connects back to the company and product needs.

Diamonds in the Rough: The Key to Recruitment Success

Startups often struggle to attract quality high-demand talent due to competition with tech giants and the need for hybrid skillsets. To source great candidates, startups should recruit for potential and intangibles, as well as demonstrated excellence. Additionally, investing in employees to help them grow and achieve their career goals can help to build loyalty and create a win-win situation.

Career Courage - Key to Career Progression

This article discusses the journey of a professional who felt her career had stagnated and how she was able to take the initiative to grow in her career. The key areas that helped her were dreaming, having a positive mindset, continuous learning, embracing change, networking, and effective communication. She learned that career courage and setting boundaries are critical to one's career advancement and that it is important to not blame external factors for lack of progress.

Build V.S. Buy: Empowering Teams with a Data-Driven Approach

In large organizations, product leaders must assess the build v.s. buy decision when initiatives come up. Ten years ago, a company partnered with two vendors for a novel product involving AI and modeling, despite some team members wanting to do it in-house. The product leader encouraged experimentation and professional development, and if something high impact was created, the team would bring it to life. An engineer created a machine learning model with only 60% accuracy, but the product leader empowered the team to make data-driven decisions, leading the engineer to recommend leveraging the vendors.

How to Move Past Bureaucracies of Larger Organizations

This article discusses how to take advantage of opportunities in a large organization. It explains the process of creating a partnership product, which involves identifying the opportunity, connecting with the leadership of the partnering organization, involving all necessary stakeholders, and receiving buy-in from each stakeholder. It also emphasizes the importance of having a strong business case and data to validate the opportunity.

Overcoming the Imposter Syndrome to Land More Opportunities

This article details the experience of a person struggling with imposter syndrome while taking ownership of a major redesign project. After much internal deliberation, the person decided to take on the challenge and worked hard for three months to complete the redesign. The experience taught them to not second guess themselves and to take opportunities to grow and push themselves. The CEO was impressed with the decision and mentioned it in a positive light in a subsequent board meeting.

Designing a Career Ladder

The author experienced a drop in productivity due to too many meetings and not having a person to delegate duties to. To address this, the team was split into two and three leaders were assigned, one for the full-stack team and two for the product teams. This allowed for more focus time and the feedback has been positive. The author also learned that leading managers is a different sport than leading ICs and involves providing advice on leadership and feedback.

Scaling Your Developers Team: When and How to Start?

Doist had two products, Todoist and Twist, and needed to scale their team of three frontend developers. To do this, they hired more developers and appointed a team lead. The lead had to manage both the technical and people aspects of the team, and introduced processes such as one-on-one meetings, product roadmaps, and planning processes. They also renewed their codebase to newer technology. The lead had to provide the team with a vision and autonomy to figure out the details, while also looking for improvements.

What Companies Can Do to Reduce Technical Debt

This article discusses how to reduce technical debt in a product-based company. The author suggests convincing the upper management to focus on improving the quality of the product and to collaborate with product management to prioritize features based on data-driven information. The author also emphasizes the importance of communicating with the higher leadership and avoiding technical jargon.

Concrete Tips to Convince Senior Management

In order to convince the higher management to invest in new servers, the author demonstrated the performance improvement of 2-3 servers and extrapolated the results to hundreds. Visual representations of the data, such as graphs and charts, were used to show the potential of the investment. Additionally, the author made sure that everyone was on the same page and leaned on each other's expertise to make the project successful. The lesson learned was to use visuals and simplify concepts when communicating with non-techies.

How to Overcome Fear and Break Out of Your Comfort Zone

Moving out of your comfort zone can be a daunting experience, but it is necessary for personal growth. Embrace the challenges, try something new, and work on yourself to get out of your comfort zone. Don't be afraid to try something new, even if it's only for a short period of time, as it will help you discover your potential and core competencies.

Transition from Individual Contributor to People Manager

This article is about the author's experience transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager role. The author was initially hesitant due to fear of losing technical domain knowledge and being an introvert. After accepting the offer, the author took courses, read books, and joined Toastmasters International to become a better leader. The author learned the importance of providing constructive feedback and how to observe and grow from people around them.

Balancing Personal and Professional Life

In today's competitive business world, it can be difficult for female professionals to balance their work and personal lives. Prioritization is key to finding the right balance, and it is important to ask for help and support when needed. It is also important to have faith in yourself and believe that something will work out, and not to compare yourself to others. With the right balance, it is possible to have a successful career and family life.

Understanding Leadership Before Becoming a Manager

It is difficult for technical individual contributors to transition to a managerial role due to lack of preparation and guidance. Measuring output as a manager is challenging as it is no longer based on individual performance, but rather team success. To be successful in a managerial role, individuals should practice their leadership skills before transitioning, get clarifications on expectations, take any opportunity to practice leadership skills, look to positive role models, and delegate responsibilities to their team.

Channeling a Startup Mindset when Prioritizing

This article discusses the importance of taking small steps and measuring success when working on a project, especially for startups. It also recommends using the weighted shortest job first framework to prioritize tasks and features in order to maximize the team's time.

How Reminders can Unleash Your Full Potential

When transitioning from an IC to a manager, it is important to treat leadership like an engineering discipline. This includes maintaining a healthy calendar, setting reminders for tasks, and performing a retrospective on performance. Reading resources and owning consequences when something goes wrong are also important tips for new managers.

Building Teams who are Loyal to Customers

Loyalty to customers is an organization-wide behavior that is essential for successful businesses. Benefits of being loyal to customers include normalization of organizational hierarchy, self-empowerment, work fulfillment, and a positive feedback loop. Organizations can build teams loyal to customers by having a shared vision, business transparency, a safe space, and empowering leadership. Ultimately, customers become the King when there is a kingdom that loyally stands behind them.

Launching a Successful Product through an Acquisition

This article discusses the challenges of leading an acquisition of two startups and launching a new product to market. The author, a Program Manager, focused on cross-functional collaboration and transparency to address the challenges of combining two products on a unified platform. The author also emphasized the importance of building relationships, trust, and communication strategies to ensure the successful launch of the product within six months.

Aligning Strategic Business Objectives With Project Management Strategy

This article discusses the challenges of managing a product organization with over 80 products. It outlines the steps taken to ensure successful project management, such as communication, alignment, progress tracking, and ownership. It also emphasizes the importance of communication in planning and execution, and suggests ways to ensure that stakeholders are kept informed.

The Secret to Making Remote Work a Success

The Covid-era has caused a shift to remote work culture, which has created communication issues and a feeling of isolation. To overcome these obstacles, companies have implemented tools such as Slack, Huddle, and a "hot wall" to facilitate communication and create a sense of community. Additionally, managers have encouraged employees to take breaks and update their status, and have organized online happy hours and in-person gatherings when safe. Ultimately, it is important to never underestimate the value of social interactions and to create intentional opportunities for interpersonal relationships.

To Be a Strong Leader, Hire People Smarter Than You

Steve Jobs' quote, "It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do," encourages great managers to hire people better than themselves at their job. To manage this diverse group of highly-skilled people, managers should become great questioners, learn continually, and delegate responsibilities, not tasks. They should also set boundaries and know when to say no, and ensure that what their reports are doing connects back to the company and product needs.

Diamonds in the Rough: The Key to Recruitment Success

Startups often struggle to attract quality high-demand talent due to competition with tech giants and the need for hybrid skillsets. To source great candidates, startups should recruit for potential and intangibles, as well as demonstrated excellence. Additionally, investing in employees to help them grow and achieve their career goals can help to build loyalty and create a win-win situation.

Career Courage - Key to Career Progression

This article discusses the journey of a professional who felt her career had stagnated and how she was able to take the initiative to grow in her career. The key areas that helped her were dreaming, having a positive mindset, continuous learning, embracing change, networking, and effective communication. She learned that career courage and setting boundaries are critical to one's career advancement and that it is important to not blame external factors for lack of progress.

Build V.S. Buy: Empowering Teams with a Data-Driven Approach

In large organizations, product leaders must assess the build v.s. buy decision when initiatives come up. Ten years ago, a company partnered with two vendors for a novel product involving AI and modeling, despite some team members wanting to do it in-house. The product leader encouraged experimentation and professional development, and if something high impact was created, the team would bring it to life. An engineer created a machine learning model with only 60% accuracy, but the product leader empowered the team to make data-driven decisions, leading the engineer to recommend leveraging the vendors.

How to Move Past Bureaucracies of Larger Organizations

This article discusses how to take advantage of opportunities in a large organization. It explains the process of creating a partnership product, which involves identifying the opportunity, connecting with the leadership of the partnering organization, involving all necessary stakeholders, and receiving buy-in from each stakeholder. It also emphasizes the importance of having a strong business case and data to validate the opportunity.

Overcoming the Imposter Syndrome to Land More Opportunities

This article details the experience of a person struggling with imposter syndrome while taking ownership of a major redesign project. After much internal deliberation, the person decided to take on the challenge and worked hard for three months to complete the redesign. The experience taught them to not second guess themselves and to take opportunities to grow and push themselves. The CEO was impressed with the decision and mentioned it in a positive light in a subsequent board meeting.

Designing a Career Ladder

The author experienced a drop in productivity due to too many meetings and not having a person to delegate duties to. To address this, the team was split into two and three leaders were assigned, one for the full-stack team and two for the product teams. This allowed for more focus time and the feedback has been positive. The author also learned that leading managers is a different sport than leading ICs and involves providing advice on leadership and feedback.

Scaling Your Developers Team: When and How to Start?

Doist had two products, Todoist and Twist, and needed to scale their team of three frontend developers. To do this, they hired more developers and appointed a team lead. The lead had to manage both the technical and people aspects of the team, and introduced processes such as one-on-one meetings, product roadmaps, and planning processes. They also renewed their codebase to newer technology. The lead had to provide the team with a vision and autonomy to figure out the details, while also looking for improvements.

What Companies Can Do to Reduce Technical Debt

This article discusses how to reduce technical debt in a product-based company. The author suggests convincing the upper management to focus on improving the quality of the product and to collaborate with product management to prioritize features based on data-driven information. The author also emphasizes the importance of communicating with the higher leadership and avoiding technical jargon.

Concrete Tips to Convince Senior Management

In order to convince the higher management to invest in new servers, the author demonstrated the performance improvement of 2-3 servers and extrapolated the results to hundreds. Visual representations of the data, such as graphs and charts, were used to show the potential of the investment. Additionally, the author made sure that everyone was on the same page and leaned on each other's expertise to make the project successful. The lesson learned was to use visuals and simplify concepts when communicating with non-techies.

How to Overcome Fear and Break Out of Your Comfort Zone

Moving out of your comfort zone can be a daunting experience, but it is necessary for personal growth. Embrace the challenges, try something new, and work on yourself to get out of your comfort zone. Don't be afraid to try something new, even if it's only for a short period of time, as it will help you discover your potential and core competencies.

Transition from Individual Contributor to People Manager

This article is about the author's experience transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager role. The author was initially hesitant due to fear of losing technical domain knowledge and being an introvert. After accepting the offer, the author took courses, read books, and joined Toastmasters International to become a better leader. The author learned the importance of providing constructive feedback and how to observe and grow from people around them.

Balancing Personal and Professional Life

In today's competitive business world, it can be difficult for female professionals to balance their work and personal lives. Prioritization is key to finding the right balance, and it is important to ask for help and support when needed. It is also important to have faith in yourself and believe that something will work out, and not to compare yourself to others. With the right balance, it is possible to have a successful career and family life.

Understanding Leadership Before Becoming a Manager

It is difficult for technical individual contributors to transition to a managerial role due to lack of preparation and guidance. Measuring output as a manager is challenging as it is no longer based on individual performance, but rather team success. To be successful in a managerial role, individuals should practice their leadership skills before transitioning, get clarifications on expectations, take any opportunity to practice leadership skills, look to positive role models, and delegate responsibilities to their team.

Channeling a Startup Mindset when Prioritizing

This article discusses the importance of taking small steps and measuring success when working on a project, especially for startups. It also recommends using the weighted shortest job first framework to prioritize tasks and features in order to maximize the team's time.

How Reminders can Unleash Your Full Potential

When transitioning from an IC to a manager, it is important to treat leadership like an engineering discipline. This includes maintaining a healthy calendar, setting reminders for tasks, and performing a retrospective on performance. Reading resources and owning consequences when something goes wrong are also important tips for new managers.

Building Teams who are Loyal to Customers

Loyalty to customers is an organization-wide behavior that is essential for successful businesses. Benefits of being loyal to customers include normalization of organizational hierarchy, self-empowerment, work fulfillment, and a positive feedback loop. Organizations can build teams loyal to customers by having a shared vision, business transparency, a safe space, and empowering leadership. Ultimately, customers become the King when there is a kingdom that loyally stands behind them.

Launching a Successful Product through an Acquisition

This article discusses the challenges of leading an acquisition of two startups and launching a new product to market. The author, a Program Manager, focused on cross-functional collaboration and transparency to address the challenges of combining two products on a unified platform. The author also emphasized the importance of building relationships, trust, and communication strategies to ensure the successful launch of the product within six months.

Aligning Strategic Business Objectives With Project Management Strategy

This article discusses the challenges of managing a product organization with over 80 products. It outlines the steps taken to ensure successful project management, such as communication, alignment, progress tracking, and ownership. It also emphasizes the importance of communication in planning and execution, and suggests ways to ensure that stakeholders are kept informed.

The Secret to Making Remote Work a Success

The Covid-era has caused a shift to remote work culture, which has created communication issues and a feeling of isolation. To overcome these obstacles, companies have implemented tools such as Slack, Huddle, and a "hot wall" to facilitate communication and create a sense of community. Additionally, managers have encouraged employees to take breaks and update their status, and have organized online happy hours and in-person gatherings when safe. Ultimately, it is important to never underestimate the value of social interactions and to create intentional opportunities for interpersonal relationships.

To Be a Strong Leader, Hire People Smarter Than You

Steve Jobs' quote, "It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do," encourages great managers to hire people better than themselves at their job. To manage this diverse group of highly-skilled people, managers should become great questioners, learn continually, and delegate responsibilities, not tasks. They should also set boundaries and know when to say no, and ensure that what their reports are doing connects back to the company and product needs.

Diamonds in the Rough: The Key to Recruitment Success

Startups often struggle to attract quality high-demand talent due to competition with tech giants and the need for hybrid skillsets. To source great candidates, startups should recruit for potential and intangibles, as well as demonstrated excellence. Additionally, investing in employees to help them grow and achieve their career goals can help to build loyalty and create a win-win situation.

Career Courage - Key to Career Progression

This article discusses the journey of a professional who felt her career had stagnated and how she was able to take the initiative to grow in her career. The key areas that helped her were dreaming, having a positive mindset, continuous learning, embracing change, networking, and effective communication. She learned that career courage and setting boundaries are critical to one's career advancement and that it is important to not blame external factors for lack of progress.

Build V.S. Buy: Empowering Teams with a Data-Driven Approach

In large organizations, product leaders must assess the build v.s. buy decision when initiatives come up. Ten years ago, a company partnered with two vendors for a novel product involving AI and modeling, despite some team members wanting to do it in-house. The product leader encouraged experimentation and professional development, and if something high impact was created, the team would bring it to life. An engineer created a machine learning model with only 60% accuracy, but the product leader empowered the team to make data-driven decisions, leading the engineer to recommend leveraging the vendors.

How to Move Past Bureaucracies of Larger Organizations

This article discusses how to take advantage of opportunities in a large organization. It explains the process of creating a partnership product, which involves identifying the opportunity, connecting with the leadership of the partnering organization, involving all necessary stakeholders, and receiving buy-in from each stakeholder. It also emphasizes the importance of having a strong business case and data to validate the opportunity.

Overcoming the Imposter Syndrome to Land More Opportunities

This article details the experience of a person struggling with imposter syndrome while taking ownership of a major redesign project. After much internal deliberation, the person decided to take on the challenge and worked hard for three months to complete the redesign. The experience taught them to not second guess themselves and to take opportunities to grow and push themselves. The CEO was impressed with the decision and mentioned it in a positive light in a subsequent board meeting.

Designing a Career Ladder

The author experienced a drop in productivity due to too many meetings and not having a person to delegate duties to. To address this, the team was split into two and three leaders were assigned, one for the full-stack team and two for the product teams. This allowed for more focus time and the feedback has been positive. The author also learned that leading managers is a different sport than leading ICs and involves providing advice on leadership and feedback.

Scaling Your Developers Team: When and How to Start?

Doist had two products, Todoist and Twist, and needed to scale their team of three frontend developers. To do this, they hired more developers and appointed a team lead. The lead had to manage both the technical and people aspects of the team, and introduced processes such as one-on-one meetings, product roadmaps, and planning processes. They also renewed their codebase to newer technology. The lead had to provide the team with a vision and autonomy to figure out the details, while also looking for improvements.

What Companies Can Do to Reduce Technical Debt

This article discusses how to reduce technical debt in a product-based company. The author suggests convincing the upper management to focus on improving the quality of the product and to collaborate with product management to prioritize features based on data-driven information. The author also emphasizes the importance of communicating with the higher leadership and avoiding technical jargon.

Concrete Tips to Convince Senior Management

In order to convince the higher management to invest in new servers, the author demonstrated the performance improvement of 2-3 servers and extrapolated the results to hundreds. Visual representations of the data, such as graphs and charts, were used to show the potential of the investment. Additionally, the author made sure that everyone was on the same page and leaned on each other's expertise to make the project successful. The lesson learned was to use visuals and simplify concepts when communicating with non-techies.

How to Overcome Fear and Break Out of Your Comfort Zone

Moving out of your comfort zone can be a daunting experience, but it is necessary for personal growth. Embrace the challenges, try something new, and work on yourself to get out of your comfort zone. Don't be afraid to try something new, even if it's only for a short period of time, as it will help you discover your potential and core competencies.

Transition from Individual Contributor to People Manager

This article is about the author's experience transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager role. The author was initially hesitant due to fear of losing technical domain knowledge and being an introvert. After accepting the offer, the author took courses, read books, and joined Toastmasters International to become a better leader. The author learned the importance of providing constructive feedback and how to observe and grow from people around them.

Balancing Personal and Professional Life

In today's competitive business world, it can be difficult for female professionals to balance their work and personal lives. Prioritization is key to finding the right balance, and it is important to ask for help and support when needed. It is also important to have faith in yourself and believe that something will work out, and not to compare yourself to others. With the right balance, it is possible to have a successful career and family life.

Understanding Leadership Before Becoming a Manager

It is difficult for technical individual contributors to transition to a managerial role due to lack of preparation and guidance. Measuring output as a manager is challenging as it is no longer based on individual performance, but rather team success. To be successful in a managerial role, individuals should practice their leadership skills before transitioning, get clarifications on expectations, take any opportunity to practice leadership skills, look to positive role models, and delegate responsibilities to their team.

Channeling a Startup Mindset when Prioritizing

This article discusses the importance of taking small steps and measuring success when working on a project, especially for startups. It also recommends using the weighted shortest job first framework to prioritize tasks and features in order to maximize the team's time.

How Reminders can Unleash Your Full Potential

When transitioning from an IC to a manager, it is important to treat leadership like an engineering discipline. This includes maintaining a healthy calendar, setting reminders for tasks, and performing a retrospective on performance. Reading resources and owning consequences when something goes wrong are also important tips for new managers.

Building Teams who are Loyal to Customers

Loyalty to customers is an organization-wide behavior that is essential for successful businesses. Benefits of being loyal to customers include normalization of organizational hierarchy, self-empowerment, work fulfillment, and a positive feedback loop. Organizations can build teams loyal to customers by having a shared vision, business transparency, a safe space, and empowering leadership. Ultimately, customers become the King when there is a kingdom that loyally stands behind them.

Launching a Successful Product through an Acquisition

This article discusses the challenges of leading an acquisition of two startups and launching a new product to market. The author, a Program Manager, focused on cross-functional collaboration and transparency to address the challenges of combining two products on a unified platform. The author also emphasized the importance of building relationships, trust, and communication strategies to ensure the successful launch of the product within six months.

Aligning Strategic Business Objectives With Project Management Strategy

This article discusses the challenges of managing a product organization with over 80 products. It outlines the steps taken to ensure successful project management, such as communication, alignment, progress tracking, and ownership. It also emphasizes the importance of communication in planning and execution, and suggests ways to ensure that stakeholders are kept informed.

The Secret to Making Remote Work a Success

The Covid-era has caused a shift to remote work culture, which has created communication issues and a feeling of isolation. To overcome these obstacles, companies have implemented tools such as Slack, Huddle, and a "hot wall" to facilitate communication and create a sense of community. Additionally, managers have encouraged employees to take breaks and update their status, and have organized online happy hours and in-person gatherings when safe. Ultimately, it is important to never underestimate the value of social interactions and to create intentional opportunities for interpersonal relationships.

To Be a Strong Leader, Hire People Smarter Than You

Steve Jobs' quote, "It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do," encourages great managers to hire people better than themselves at their job. To manage this diverse group of highly-skilled people, managers should become great questioners, learn continually, and delegate responsibilities, not tasks. They should also set boundaries and know when to say no, and ensure that what their reports are doing connects back to the company and product needs.

Diamonds in the Rough: The Key to Recruitment Success

Startups often struggle to attract quality high-demand talent due to competition with tech giants and the need for hybrid skillsets. To source great candidates, startups should recruit for potential and intangibles, as well as demonstrated excellence. Additionally, investing in employees to help them grow and achieve their career goals can help to build loyalty and create a win-win situation.

Career Courage - Key to Career Progression

This article discusses the journey of a professional who felt her career had stagnated and how she was able to take the initiative to grow in her career. The key areas that helped her were dreaming, having a positive mindset, continuous learning, embracing change, networking, and effective communication. She learned that career courage and setting boundaries are critical to one's career advancement and that it is important to not blame external factors for lack of progress.

Build V.S. Buy: Empowering Teams with a Data-Driven Approach

In large organizations, product leaders must assess the build v.s. buy decision when initiatives come up. Ten years ago, a company partnered with two vendors for a novel product involving AI and modeling, despite some team members wanting to do it in-house. The product leader encouraged experimentation and professional development, and if something high impact was created, the team would bring it to life. An engineer created a machine learning model with only 60% accuracy, but the product leader empowered the team to make data-driven decisions, leading the engineer to recommend leveraging the vendors.

How to Move Past Bureaucracies of Larger Organizations

This article discusses how to take advantage of opportunities in a large organization. It explains the process of creating a partnership product, which involves identifying the opportunity, connecting with the leadership of the partnering organization, involving all necessary stakeholders, and receiving buy-in from each stakeholder. It also emphasizes the importance of having a strong business case and data to validate the opportunity.

Overcoming the Imposter Syndrome to Land More Opportunities

This article details the experience of a person struggling with imposter syndrome while taking ownership of a major redesign project. After much internal deliberation, the person decided to take on the challenge and worked hard for three months to complete the redesign. The experience taught them to not second guess themselves and to take opportunities to grow and push themselves. The CEO was impressed with the decision and mentioned it in a positive light in a subsequent board meeting.

Designing a Career Ladder

The author experienced a drop in productivity due to too many meetings and not having a person to delegate duties to. To address this, the team was split into two and three leaders were assigned, one for the full-stack team and two for the product teams. This allowed for more focus time and the feedback has been positive. The author also learned that leading managers is a different sport than leading ICs and involves providing advice on leadership and feedback.

Scaling Your Developers Team: When and How to Start?

Doist had two products, Todoist and Twist, and needed to scale their team of three frontend developers. To do this, they hired more developers and appointed a team lead. The lead had to manage both the technical and people aspects of the team, and introduced processes such as one-on-one meetings, product roadmaps, and planning processes. They also renewed their codebase to newer technology. The lead had to provide the team with a vision and autonomy to figure out the details, while also looking for improvements.

What Companies Can Do to Reduce Technical Debt

This article discusses how to reduce technical debt in a product-based company. The author suggests convincing the upper management to focus on improving the quality of the product and to collaborate with product management to prioritize features based on data-driven information. The author also emphasizes the importance of communicating with the higher leadership and avoiding technical jargon.

Concrete Tips to Convince Senior Management

In order to convince the higher management to invest in new servers, the author demonstrated the performance improvement of 2-3 servers and extrapolated the results to hundreds. Visual representations of the data, such as graphs and charts, were used to show the potential of the investment. Additionally, the author made sure that everyone was on the same page and leaned on each other's expertise to make the project successful. The lesson learned was to use visuals and simplify concepts when communicating with non-techies.

How to Overcome Fear and Break Out of Your Comfort Zone

Moving out of your comfort zone can be a daunting experience, but it is necessary for personal growth. Embrace the challenges, try something new, and work on yourself to get out of your comfort zone. Don't be afraid to try something new, even if it's only for a short period of time, as it will help you discover your potential and core competencies.

Transition from Individual Contributor to People Manager

This article is about the author's experience transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager role. The author was initially hesitant due to fear of losing technical domain knowledge and being an introvert. After accepting the offer, the author took courses, read books, and joined Toastmasters International to become a better leader. The author learned the importance of providing constructive feedback and how to observe and grow from people around them.

Balancing Personal and Professional Life

In today's competitive business world, it can be difficult for female professionals to balance their work and personal lives. Prioritization is key to finding the right balance, and it is important to ask for help and support when needed. It is also important to have faith in yourself and believe that something will work out, and not to compare yourself to others. With the right balance, it is possible to have a successful career and family life.

Understanding Leadership Before Becoming a Manager

It is difficult for technical individual contributors to transition to a managerial role due to lack of preparation and guidance. Measuring output as a manager is challenging as it is no longer based on individual performance, but rather team success. To be successful in a managerial role, individuals should practice their leadership skills before transitioning, get clarifications on expectations, take any opportunity to practice leadership skills, look to positive role models, and delegate responsibilities to their team.

Channeling a Startup Mindset when Prioritizing

This article discusses the importance of taking small steps and measuring success when working on a project, especially for startups. It also recommends using the weighted shortest job first framework to prioritize tasks and features in order to maximize the team's time.

How Reminders can Unleash Your Full Potential

When transitioning from an IC to a manager, it is important to treat leadership like an engineering discipline. This includes maintaining a healthy calendar, setting reminders for tasks, and performing a retrospective on performance. Reading resources and owning consequences when something goes wrong are also important tips for new managers.

Building Teams who are Loyal to Customers

Loyalty to customers is an organization-wide behavior that is essential for successful businesses. Benefits of being loyal to customers include normalization of organizational hierarchy, self-empowerment, work fulfillment, and a positive feedback loop. Organizations can build teams loyal to customers by having a shared vision, business transparency, a safe space, and empowering leadership. Ultimately, customers become the King when there is a kingdom that loyally stands behind them.

Launching a Successful Product through an Acquisition

This article discusses the challenges of leading an acquisition of two startups and launching a new product to market. The author, a Program Manager, focused on cross-functional collaboration and transparency to address the challenges of combining two products on a unified platform. The author also emphasized the importance of building relationships, trust, and communication strategies to ensure the successful launch of the product within six months.

Aligning Strategic Business Objectives With Project Management Strategy

This article discusses the challenges of managing a product organization with over 80 products. It outlines the steps taken to ensure successful project management, such as communication, alignment, progress tracking, and ownership. It also emphasizes the importance of communication in planning and execution, and suggests ways to ensure that stakeholders are kept informed.