Knowledge shared by our community

Weathering the storm of changing leadership within my department.

When the CTO of a company suddenly left, leaving many managers without direction, three managers and two directors took it upon themselves to meet with the new CTO and Head of Product and BI to push through and deliver on the roadmap they had been working on. Despite not knowing if it would matter in the end, it turned out to be successful and helped the new CTO get off to a good start. This experience taught them that in unfamiliar situations, it is important to go with what you know and who you are.

Make the Other Mistake

When receiving feedback, it can be difficult to self-correct to the level expected. To overcome this, it is suggested to "shoot for the extreme" and aim to exceed expectations. This approach is especially effective for team presence, assertiveness, and productivity. By pushing the limits, people can gain confidence in themselves and achieve more than their original goal.

Growing engineers into managers

A manager at Google wanted to transition to another role and asked a staff engineer to take on part of his work and team. The engineer was hesitant, but the manager pushed him to take on more responsibility. Eventually, the manager had to leave and the engineer was managing the team, but not doing a great job. After the manager left, the engineer started to flourish in the role, finding engineers he clicked with and trying his own things. The lesson learned was to be explicit with people transitioning to a new role that there are different ways to be a manager, and to leave room for them to grow.

Finding the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports

When taking over a new team, it is important for a manager to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their direct reports. This can be done through regular 1:1s, talking to the direct report's stakeholders, giving them small projects to work on, and using tools such as Strengths Finder. Quality feedback is key to discovering the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports, and it is important to remember that weaknesses can be overcome with growth and encouragement.

How to make engineers aware that they contribute to the company’s objectives?

During a planning meeting, the engineering team had difficulty connecting their individual goals to company-wide metrics. To address this, the team discussed how individual projects impacted team metrics and how team metrics impacted larger company-wide goals. Through conversations and one-on-ones, the team was able to better understand how their work contributed to the company's mission. The lesson learned was that it is important to spend time connecting individual goals to company-wide metrics.

The departure of someone seen as essential for your team

In this case study, the Research and Development director had to face the challenge of one of his team members leaving for a year to work on a personal project in China. He chose to be transparent with the team and worked on ways to share the team member's activities among the rest of the team. This resulted in the manager having to adapt his management style and the team having to adapt their communication, but it ultimately resulted in more accurate processes and a stronger team. The key takeaway is to be transparent with your team, even when faced with tricky issues.

Working as a team to improve prioritization

At Medium, the engineering team was struggling to prioritize their workload due to a lot of requests from both internally and externally. To solve this, the product manager and engineer created a multi-stage process to prioritize the workload. This included brainstorming, splitting into pairs, and then teams to allocate points to the projects. This process allowed the team to prioritize their projects, while also creating cohesiveness and understanding of product management.

Training a developer to fill a management role

When a company grows quickly, it may be necessary to add another layer of management. In this case, the team of seven people had no one with leadership skills, so the manager hired a senior developer and spent eight months training him for the role. This allowed the developer to gain legitimacy and the team to be happy with the promotion. The manager learned that it is difficult to delegate and that a new layer of management can have a big impact.

The manager’s paradox of filtering information versus transparency

As a manager, it is important to be able to filter and amplify information coming from both the team and higher up. This includes deciding what information to pass on and when, as well as amplifying team messages to higher up. It is important to consider the context of the message, the company culture, and the individual people when deciding how to handle the information.

Moving from being an IC to being a manager

After transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager, the author initially struggled to accept the responsibility of management and continued to do the same work they had done before. After reading the book "High Output Management" by Andrew Grove, the author gained a new perspective on the purpose of management and learned that the role of managers is to create the best environment possible for their team to work in, and to have an overall vision of the work being done. The author also learned that while managers may not be developing code, they are developing processes and environment.

The Bug-Solving, Underperforming Engineer

When an employee is not performing in a position, it is important to consider their strengths and weaknesses to figure out if they can be useful to the team. In this case, the engineer was downgraded to a software engineer and assigned the role of "sustaining engineer" which allowed him to focus on his strengths. This resulted in a win-win situation for the engineer and the team, as the engineer has now been working at the company for almost 10 years.

How to handle decision-makers when you want something from them

The lead dev of an overwhelmed team needed to hire an extra engineer, but their manager was too busy to make a decision. The lead dev took charge and measured their team's velocity, improved processes, and ran the math to prove the need for an extra person. After asking the manager what they needed and suggesting candidates, the lead dev was able to get a new engineer in a few weeks. The lesson learned was to be proactive and provide the required data when external people are decision-makers.

The Best Interview Question

This article discusses the importance of asking the right questions during an interview in order to hire the right people. The author's favorite interview question is "What is the most complex/difficult problem you have had to solve professionally? Explain to me how you solved it." This question allows the interviewer to learn two things: the most important problem the candidate has solved and how they go about solving problems. Asking questions around how much time it took to solve a problem, whether they got help from others, what sources of information they used, and the time they spent on diagnostics to gather further information can also be beneficial.

What to do when your client asks for an impossible new deadline

In a situation where a customer pressured a team to move a deadline forward, the team had to communicate the reality of the situation and the fact that the new deadline was not feasible. The team had to explain the time constraints for each part of the work and justify the original deadline. This avoided any further frustrations and ensured that false hope was not given.

Letting go of individuals when they reject your job offer

Atlassian's acquisition of Trello had a huge impact on hiring, and a good engineer who had accepted a job offer from Trello was given an offer by Atlassian, which he rejected. Through a conversation, it was revealed that others were offering him higher salaries and better terms. This experience taught the lesson that hiring is tough and competitive, but you should draw a line about what you are willing to do and learn to let go of individuals when they have decided not to accept your best reasonable offer.

Making sure no one is indispensable to ensure a team’s consistent performance.

This article reflects on a manager's experience when one of their team members left the company and how it affected the team's performance. As a result, the manager reevaluated how they assessed their team's performance and now looks at how the team is improving over time and how indispensable each team member is. The lesson learned is that no one should be indispensable, including the manager, and that having a rockstar in the team is a good thing, but it should not be the only factor in assessing team performance.

I tried to go too fast when building my engineering team

In an effort to quickly build a team, the author made hasty decisions in the hiring process, resulting in two hires that were not a good fit for the company. The author learned that it is important to take time when hiring and to leverage the team's knowledge in the process.

Building a new team internally

An engineer was tasked with setting up a new master scheduling team to improve production line efficiency, but had difficulty deciding on success criteria. After talking with people and understanding the landscape, a 30-minute presentation was given to executives to show what was learned, what was needed, and why. After approval, the hiring process began and the team was developed over the course of a year. Lessons learned include making sure the team understands their purpose, having a clear vision and messaging it to stakeholders, and using personal communication to get detailed information.

Making one-on-ones less related to day-to-day work.

When first starting in management, the author did not understand the purpose of one-on-ones and would avoid conversations about personal matters. After trying to blend work-related and personal matters in one conversation, the author realized that it was important to have a good split between the two. Taking employees out of the office and changing the setting of one-on-ones helps to ensure that day-to-day work-related matters are not the only topics discussed. One-on-ones are a way to get a sense of where employees are at with the company and to know if they are happy, sad, frustrated, or about to leave.

Changing the culture of lax deadlines in my new team

A team of engineers was not meeting deadlines, and the product manager was about to quit. The new team leader took action by having informal one-on-ones and lunches with each engineer to understand the problem and show them that they were all on the same boat. He also promised them infrastructure releases with less deadlines. The lesson learned is that it is important to get to know the team and show that you are there to help, not judge, and to make tradeoffs to reassure them.

Weathering the storm of changing leadership within my department.

When the CTO of a company suddenly left, leaving many managers without direction, three managers and two directors took it upon themselves to meet with the new CTO and Head of Product and BI to push through and deliver on the roadmap they had been working on. Despite not knowing if it would matter in the end, it turned out to be successful and helped the new CTO get off to a good start. This experience taught them that in unfamiliar situations, it is important to go with what you know and who you are.

Make the Other Mistake

When receiving feedback, it can be difficult to self-correct to the level expected. To overcome this, it is suggested to "shoot for the extreme" and aim to exceed expectations. This approach is especially effective for team presence, assertiveness, and productivity. By pushing the limits, people can gain confidence in themselves and achieve more than their original goal.

Growing engineers into managers

A manager at Google wanted to transition to another role and asked a staff engineer to take on part of his work and team. The engineer was hesitant, but the manager pushed him to take on more responsibility. Eventually, the manager had to leave and the engineer was managing the team, but not doing a great job. After the manager left, the engineer started to flourish in the role, finding engineers he clicked with and trying his own things. The lesson learned was to be explicit with people transitioning to a new role that there are different ways to be a manager, and to leave room for them to grow.

Finding the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports

When taking over a new team, it is important for a manager to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their direct reports. This can be done through regular 1:1s, talking to the direct report's stakeholders, giving them small projects to work on, and using tools such as Strengths Finder. Quality feedback is key to discovering the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports, and it is important to remember that weaknesses can be overcome with growth and encouragement.

How to make engineers aware that they contribute to the company’s objectives?

During a planning meeting, the engineering team had difficulty connecting their individual goals to company-wide metrics. To address this, the team discussed how individual projects impacted team metrics and how team metrics impacted larger company-wide goals. Through conversations and one-on-ones, the team was able to better understand how their work contributed to the company's mission. The lesson learned was that it is important to spend time connecting individual goals to company-wide metrics.

The departure of someone seen as essential for your team

In this case study, the Research and Development director had to face the challenge of one of his team members leaving for a year to work on a personal project in China. He chose to be transparent with the team and worked on ways to share the team member's activities among the rest of the team. This resulted in the manager having to adapt his management style and the team having to adapt their communication, but it ultimately resulted in more accurate processes and a stronger team. The key takeaway is to be transparent with your team, even when faced with tricky issues.

Working as a team to improve prioritization

At Medium, the engineering team was struggling to prioritize their workload due to a lot of requests from both internally and externally. To solve this, the product manager and engineer created a multi-stage process to prioritize the workload. This included brainstorming, splitting into pairs, and then teams to allocate points to the projects. This process allowed the team to prioritize their projects, while also creating cohesiveness and understanding of product management.

Training a developer to fill a management role

When a company grows quickly, it may be necessary to add another layer of management. In this case, the team of seven people had no one with leadership skills, so the manager hired a senior developer and spent eight months training him for the role. This allowed the developer to gain legitimacy and the team to be happy with the promotion. The manager learned that it is difficult to delegate and that a new layer of management can have a big impact.

The manager’s paradox of filtering information versus transparency

As a manager, it is important to be able to filter and amplify information coming from both the team and higher up. This includes deciding what information to pass on and when, as well as amplifying team messages to higher up. It is important to consider the context of the message, the company culture, and the individual people when deciding how to handle the information.

Moving from being an IC to being a manager

After transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager, the author initially struggled to accept the responsibility of management and continued to do the same work they had done before. After reading the book "High Output Management" by Andrew Grove, the author gained a new perspective on the purpose of management and learned that the role of managers is to create the best environment possible for their team to work in, and to have an overall vision of the work being done. The author also learned that while managers may not be developing code, they are developing processes and environment.

The Bug-Solving, Underperforming Engineer

When an employee is not performing in a position, it is important to consider their strengths and weaknesses to figure out if they can be useful to the team. In this case, the engineer was downgraded to a software engineer and assigned the role of "sustaining engineer" which allowed him to focus on his strengths. This resulted in a win-win situation for the engineer and the team, as the engineer has now been working at the company for almost 10 years.

How to handle decision-makers when you want something from them

The lead dev of an overwhelmed team needed to hire an extra engineer, but their manager was too busy to make a decision. The lead dev took charge and measured their team's velocity, improved processes, and ran the math to prove the need for an extra person. After asking the manager what they needed and suggesting candidates, the lead dev was able to get a new engineer in a few weeks. The lesson learned was to be proactive and provide the required data when external people are decision-makers.

The Best Interview Question

This article discusses the importance of asking the right questions during an interview in order to hire the right people. The author's favorite interview question is "What is the most complex/difficult problem you have had to solve professionally? Explain to me how you solved it." This question allows the interviewer to learn two things: the most important problem the candidate has solved and how they go about solving problems. Asking questions around how much time it took to solve a problem, whether they got help from others, what sources of information they used, and the time they spent on diagnostics to gather further information can also be beneficial.

What to do when your client asks for an impossible new deadline

In a situation where a customer pressured a team to move a deadline forward, the team had to communicate the reality of the situation and the fact that the new deadline was not feasible. The team had to explain the time constraints for each part of the work and justify the original deadline. This avoided any further frustrations and ensured that false hope was not given.

Letting go of individuals when they reject your job offer

Atlassian's acquisition of Trello had a huge impact on hiring, and a good engineer who had accepted a job offer from Trello was given an offer by Atlassian, which he rejected. Through a conversation, it was revealed that others were offering him higher salaries and better terms. This experience taught the lesson that hiring is tough and competitive, but you should draw a line about what you are willing to do and learn to let go of individuals when they have decided not to accept your best reasonable offer.

Making sure no one is indispensable to ensure a team’s consistent performance.

This article reflects on a manager's experience when one of their team members left the company and how it affected the team's performance. As a result, the manager reevaluated how they assessed their team's performance and now looks at how the team is improving over time and how indispensable each team member is. The lesson learned is that no one should be indispensable, including the manager, and that having a rockstar in the team is a good thing, but it should not be the only factor in assessing team performance.

I tried to go too fast when building my engineering team

In an effort to quickly build a team, the author made hasty decisions in the hiring process, resulting in two hires that were not a good fit for the company. The author learned that it is important to take time when hiring and to leverage the team's knowledge in the process.

Building a new team internally

An engineer was tasked with setting up a new master scheduling team to improve production line efficiency, but had difficulty deciding on success criteria. After talking with people and understanding the landscape, a 30-minute presentation was given to executives to show what was learned, what was needed, and why. After approval, the hiring process began and the team was developed over the course of a year. Lessons learned include making sure the team understands their purpose, having a clear vision and messaging it to stakeholders, and using personal communication to get detailed information.

Making one-on-ones less related to day-to-day work.

When first starting in management, the author did not understand the purpose of one-on-ones and would avoid conversations about personal matters. After trying to blend work-related and personal matters in one conversation, the author realized that it was important to have a good split between the two. Taking employees out of the office and changing the setting of one-on-ones helps to ensure that day-to-day work-related matters are not the only topics discussed. One-on-ones are a way to get a sense of where employees are at with the company and to know if they are happy, sad, frustrated, or about to leave.

Changing the culture of lax deadlines in my new team

A team of engineers was not meeting deadlines, and the product manager was about to quit. The new team leader took action by having informal one-on-ones and lunches with each engineer to understand the problem and show them that they were all on the same boat. He also promised them infrastructure releases with less deadlines. The lesson learned is that it is important to get to know the team and show that you are there to help, not judge, and to make tradeoffs to reassure them.

Weathering the storm of changing leadership within my department.

When the CTO of a company suddenly left, leaving many managers without direction, three managers and two directors took it upon themselves to meet with the new CTO and Head of Product and BI to push through and deliver on the roadmap they had been working on. Despite not knowing if it would matter in the end, it turned out to be successful and helped the new CTO get off to a good start. This experience taught them that in unfamiliar situations, it is important to go with what you know and who you are.

Make the Other Mistake

When receiving feedback, it can be difficult to self-correct to the level expected. To overcome this, it is suggested to "shoot for the extreme" and aim to exceed expectations. This approach is especially effective for team presence, assertiveness, and productivity. By pushing the limits, people can gain confidence in themselves and achieve more than their original goal.

Growing engineers into managers

A manager at Google wanted to transition to another role and asked a staff engineer to take on part of his work and team. The engineer was hesitant, but the manager pushed him to take on more responsibility. Eventually, the manager had to leave and the engineer was managing the team, but not doing a great job. After the manager left, the engineer started to flourish in the role, finding engineers he clicked with and trying his own things. The lesson learned was to be explicit with people transitioning to a new role that there are different ways to be a manager, and to leave room for them to grow.

Finding the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports

When taking over a new team, it is important for a manager to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their direct reports. This can be done through regular 1:1s, talking to the direct report's stakeholders, giving them small projects to work on, and using tools such as Strengths Finder. Quality feedback is key to discovering the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports, and it is important to remember that weaknesses can be overcome with growth and encouragement.

How to make engineers aware that they contribute to the company’s objectives?

During a planning meeting, the engineering team had difficulty connecting their individual goals to company-wide metrics. To address this, the team discussed how individual projects impacted team metrics and how team metrics impacted larger company-wide goals. Through conversations and one-on-ones, the team was able to better understand how their work contributed to the company's mission. The lesson learned was that it is important to spend time connecting individual goals to company-wide metrics.

The departure of someone seen as essential for your team

In this case study, the Research and Development director had to face the challenge of one of his team members leaving for a year to work on a personal project in China. He chose to be transparent with the team and worked on ways to share the team member's activities among the rest of the team. This resulted in the manager having to adapt his management style and the team having to adapt their communication, but it ultimately resulted in more accurate processes and a stronger team. The key takeaway is to be transparent with your team, even when faced with tricky issues.

Working as a team to improve prioritization

At Medium, the engineering team was struggling to prioritize their workload due to a lot of requests from both internally and externally. To solve this, the product manager and engineer created a multi-stage process to prioritize the workload. This included brainstorming, splitting into pairs, and then teams to allocate points to the projects. This process allowed the team to prioritize their projects, while also creating cohesiveness and understanding of product management.

Training a developer to fill a management role

When a company grows quickly, it may be necessary to add another layer of management. In this case, the team of seven people had no one with leadership skills, so the manager hired a senior developer and spent eight months training him for the role. This allowed the developer to gain legitimacy and the team to be happy with the promotion. The manager learned that it is difficult to delegate and that a new layer of management can have a big impact.

The manager’s paradox of filtering information versus transparency

As a manager, it is important to be able to filter and amplify information coming from both the team and higher up. This includes deciding what information to pass on and when, as well as amplifying team messages to higher up. It is important to consider the context of the message, the company culture, and the individual people when deciding how to handle the information.

Moving from being an IC to being a manager

After transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager, the author initially struggled to accept the responsibility of management and continued to do the same work they had done before. After reading the book "High Output Management" by Andrew Grove, the author gained a new perspective on the purpose of management and learned that the role of managers is to create the best environment possible for their team to work in, and to have an overall vision of the work being done. The author also learned that while managers may not be developing code, they are developing processes and environment.

The Bug-Solving, Underperforming Engineer

When an employee is not performing in a position, it is important to consider their strengths and weaknesses to figure out if they can be useful to the team. In this case, the engineer was downgraded to a software engineer and assigned the role of "sustaining engineer" which allowed him to focus on his strengths. This resulted in a win-win situation for the engineer and the team, as the engineer has now been working at the company for almost 10 years.

How to handle decision-makers when you want something from them

The lead dev of an overwhelmed team needed to hire an extra engineer, but their manager was too busy to make a decision. The lead dev took charge and measured their team's velocity, improved processes, and ran the math to prove the need for an extra person. After asking the manager what they needed and suggesting candidates, the lead dev was able to get a new engineer in a few weeks. The lesson learned was to be proactive and provide the required data when external people are decision-makers.

The Best Interview Question

This article discusses the importance of asking the right questions during an interview in order to hire the right people. The author's favorite interview question is "What is the most complex/difficult problem you have had to solve professionally? Explain to me how you solved it." This question allows the interviewer to learn two things: the most important problem the candidate has solved and how they go about solving problems. Asking questions around how much time it took to solve a problem, whether they got help from others, what sources of information they used, and the time they spent on diagnostics to gather further information can also be beneficial.

What to do when your client asks for an impossible new deadline

In a situation where a customer pressured a team to move a deadline forward, the team had to communicate the reality of the situation and the fact that the new deadline was not feasible. The team had to explain the time constraints for each part of the work and justify the original deadline. This avoided any further frustrations and ensured that false hope was not given.

Letting go of individuals when they reject your job offer

Atlassian's acquisition of Trello had a huge impact on hiring, and a good engineer who had accepted a job offer from Trello was given an offer by Atlassian, which he rejected. Through a conversation, it was revealed that others were offering him higher salaries and better terms. This experience taught the lesson that hiring is tough and competitive, but you should draw a line about what you are willing to do and learn to let go of individuals when they have decided not to accept your best reasonable offer.

Making sure no one is indispensable to ensure a team’s consistent performance.

This article reflects on a manager's experience when one of their team members left the company and how it affected the team's performance. As a result, the manager reevaluated how they assessed their team's performance and now looks at how the team is improving over time and how indispensable each team member is. The lesson learned is that no one should be indispensable, including the manager, and that having a rockstar in the team is a good thing, but it should not be the only factor in assessing team performance.

I tried to go too fast when building my engineering team

In an effort to quickly build a team, the author made hasty decisions in the hiring process, resulting in two hires that were not a good fit for the company. The author learned that it is important to take time when hiring and to leverage the team's knowledge in the process.

Building a new team internally

An engineer was tasked with setting up a new master scheduling team to improve production line efficiency, but had difficulty deciding on success criteria. After talking with people and understanding the landscape, a 30-minute presentation was given to executives to show what was learned, what was needed, and why. After approval, the hiring process began and the team was developed over the course of a year. Lessons learned include making sure the team understands their purpose, having a clear vision and messaging it to stakeholders, and using personal communication to get detailed information.

Making one-on-ones less related to day-to-day work.

When first starting in management, the author did not understand the purpose of one-on-ones and would avoid conversations about personal matters. After trying to blend work-related and personal matters in one conversation, the author realized that it was important to have a good split between the two. Taking employees out of the office and changing the setting of one-on-ones helps to ensure that day-to-day work-related matters are not the only topics discussed. One-on-ones are a way to get a sense of where employees are at with the company and to know if they are happy, sad, frustrated, or about to leave.

Changing the culture of lax deadlines in my new team

A team of engineers was not meeting deadlines, and the product manager was about to quit. The new team leader took action by having informal one-on-ones and lunches with each engineer to understand the problem and show them that they were all on the same boat. He also promised them infrastructure releases with less deadlines. The lesson learned is that it is important to get to know the team and show that you are there to help, not judge, and to make tradeoffs to reassure them.

Weathering the storm of changing leadership within my department.

When the CTO of a company suddenly left, leaving many managers without direction, three managers and two directors took it upon themselves to meet with the new CTO and Head of Product and BI to push through and deliver on the roadmap they had been working on. Despite not knowing if it would matter in the end, it turned out to be successful and helped the new CTO get off to a good start. This experience taught them that in unfamiliar situations, it is important to go with what you know and who you are.

Make the Other Mistake

When receiving feedback, it can be difficult to self-correct to the level expected. To overcome this, it is suggested to "shoot for the extreme" and aim to exceed expectations. This approach is especially effective for team presence, assertiveness, and productivity. By pushing the limits, people can gain confidence in themselves and achieve more than their original goal.

Growing engineers into managers

A manager at Google wanted to transition to another role and asked a staff engineer to take on part of his work and team. The engineer was hesitant, but the manager pushed him to take on more responsibility. Eventually, the manager had to leave and the engineer was managing the team, but not doing a great job. After the manager left, the engineer started to flourish in the role, finding engineers he clicked with and trying his own things. The lesson learned was to be explicit with people transitioning to a new role that there are different ways to be a manager, and to leave room for them to grow.

Finding the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports

When taking over a new team, it is important for a manager to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their direct reports. This can be done through regular 1:1s, talking to the direct report's stakeholders, giving them small projects to work on, and using tools such as Strengths Finder. Quality feedback is key to discovering the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports, and it is important to remember that weaknesses can be overcome with growth and encouragement.

How to make engineers aware that they contribute to the company’s objectives?

During a planning meeting, the engineering team had difficulty connecting their individual goals to company-wide metrics. To address this, the team discussed how individual projects impacted team metrics and how team metrics impacted larger company-wide goals. Through conversations and one-on-ones, the team was able to better understand how their work contributed to the company's mission. The lesson learned was that it is important to spend time connecting individual goals to company-wide metrics.

The departure of someone seen as essential for your team

In this case study, the Research and Development director had to face the challenge of one of his team members leaving for a year to work on a personal project in China. He chose to be transparent with the team and worked on ways to share the team member's activities among the rest of the team. This resulted in the manager having to adapt his management style and the team having to adapt their communication, but it ultimately resulted in more accurate processes and a stronger team. The key takeaway is to be transparent with your team, even when faced with tricky issues.

Working as a team to improve prioritization

At Medium, the engineering team was struggling to prioritize their workload due to a lot of requests from both internally and externally. To solve this, the product manager and engineer created a multi-stage process to prioritize the workload. This included brainstorming, splitting into pairs, and then teams to allocate points to the projects. This process allowed the team to prioritize their projects, while also creating cohesiveness and understanding of product management.

Training a developer to fill a management role

When a company grows quickly, it may be necessary to add another layer of management. In this case, the team of seven people had no one with leadership skills, so the manager hired a senior developer and spent eight months training him for the role. This allowed the developer to gain legitimacy and the team to be happy with the promotion. The manager learned that it is difficult to delegate and that a new layer of management can have a big impact.

The manager’s paradox of filtering information versus transparency

As a manager, it is important to be able to filter and amplify information coming from both the team and higher up. This includes deciding what information to pass on and when, as well as amplifying team messages to higher up. It is important to consider the context of the message, the company culture, and the individual people when deciding how to handle the information.

Moving from being an IC to being a manager

After transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager, the author initially struggled to accept the responsibility of management and continued to do the same work they had done before. After reading the book "High Output Management" by Andrew Grove, the author gained a new perspective on the purpose of management and learned that the role of managers is to create the best environment possible for their team to work in, and to have an overall vision of the work being done. The author also learned that while managers may not be developing code, they are developing processes and environment.

The Bug-Solving, Underperforming Engineer

When an employee is not performing in a position, it is important to consider their strengths and weaknesses to figure out if they can be useful to the team. In this case, the engineer was downgraded to a software engineer and assigned the role of "sustaining engineer" which allowed him to focus on his strengths. This resulted in a win-win situation for the engineer and the team, as the engineer has now been working at the company for almost 10 years.

How to handle decision-makers when you want something from them

The lead dev of an overwhelmed team needed to hire an extra engineer, but their manager was too busy to make a decision. The lead dev took charge and measured their team's velocity, improved processes, and ran the math to prove the need for an extra person. After asking the manager what they needed and suggesting candidates, the lead dev was able to get a new engineer in a few weeks. The lesson learned was to be proactive and provide the required data when external people are decision-makers.

The Best Interview Question

This article discusses the importance of asking the right questions during an interview in order to hire the right people. The author's favorite interview question is "What is the most complex/difficult problem you have had to solve professionally? Explain to me how you solved it." This question allows the interviewer to learn two things: the most important problem the candidate has solved and how they go about solving problems. Asking questions around how much time it took to solve a problem, whether they got help from others, what sources of information they used, and the time they spent on diagnostics to gather further information can also be beneficial.

What to do when your client asks for an impossible new deadline

In a situation where a customer pressured a team to move a deadline forward, the team had to communicate the reality of the situation and the fact that the new deadline was not feasible. The team had to explain the time constraints for each part of the work and justify the original deadline. This avoided any further frustrations and ensured that false hope was not given.

Letting go of individuals when they reject your job offer

Atlassian's acquisition of Trello had a huge impact on hiring, and a good engineer who had accepted a job offer from Trello was given an offer by Atlassian, which he rejected. Through a conversation, it was revealed that others were offering him higher salaries and better terms. This experience taught the lesson that hiring is tough and competitive, but you should draw a line about what you are willing to do and learn to let go of individuals when they have decided not to accept your best reasonable offer.

Making sure no one is indispensable to ensure a team’s consistent performance.

This article reflects on a manager's experience when one of their team members left the company and how it affected the team's performance. As a result, the manager reevaluated how they assessed their team's performance and now looks at how the team is improving over time and how indispensable each team member is. The lesson learned is that no one should be indispensable, including the manager, and that having a rockstar in the team is a good thing, but it should not be the only factor in assessing team performance.

I tried to go too fast when building my engineering team

In an effort to quickly build a team, the author made hasty decisions in the hiring process, resulting in two hires that were not a good fit for the company. The author learned that it is important to take time when hiring and to leverage the team's knowledge in the process.

Building a new team internally

An engineer was tasked with setting up a new master scheduling team to improve production line efficiency, but had difficulty deciding on success criteria. After talking with people and understanding the landscape, a 30-minute presentation was given to executives to show what was learned, what was needed, and why. After approval, the hiring process began and the team was developed over the course of a year. Lessons learned include making sure the team understands their purpose, having a clear vision and messaging it to stakeholders, and using personal communication to get detailed information.

Making one-on-ones less related to day-to-day work.

When first starting in management, the author did not understand the purpose of one-on-ones and would avoid conversations about personal matters. After trying to blend work-related and personal matters in one conversation, the author realized that it was important to have a good split between the two. Taking employees out of the office and changing the setting of one-on-ones helps to ensure that day-to-day work-related matters are not the only topics discussed. One-on-ones are a way to get a sense of where employees are at with the company and to know if they are happy, sad, frustrated, or about to leave.

Changing the culture of lax deadlines in my new team

A team of engineers was not meeting deadlines, and the product manager was about to quit. The new team leader took action by having informal one-on-ones and lunches with each engineer to understand the problem and show them that they were all on the same boat. He also promised them infrastructure releases with less deadlines. The lesson learned is that it is important to get to know the team and show that you are there to help, not judge, and to make tradeoffs to reassure them.

Weathering the storm of changing leadership within my department.

When the CTO of a company suddenly left, leaving many managers without direction, three managers and two directors took it upon themselves to meet with the new CTO and Head of Product and BI to push through and deliver on the roadmap they had been working on. Despite not knowing if it would matter in the end, it turned out to be successful and helped the new CTO get off to a good start. This experience taught them that in unfamiliar situations, it is important to go with what you know and who you are.

Make the Other Mistake

When receiving feedback, it can be difficult to self-correct to the level expected. To overcome this, it is suggested to "shoot for the extreme" and aim to exceed expectations. This approach is especially effective for team presence, assertiveness, and productivity. By pushing the limits, people can gain confidence in themselves and achieve more than their original goal.

Growing engineers into managers

A manager at Google wanted to transition to another role and asked a staff engineer to take on part of his work and team. The engineer was hesitant, but the manager pushed him to take on more responsibility. Eventually, the manager had to leave and the engineer was managing the team, but not doing a great job. After the manager left, the engineer started to flourish in the role, finding engineers he clicked with and trying his own things. The lesson learned was to be explicit with people transitioning to a new role that there are different ways to be a manager, and to leave room for them to grow.

Finding the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports

When taking over a new team, it is important for a manager to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their direct reports. This can be done through regular 1:1s, talking to the direct report's stakeholders, giving them small projects to work on, and using tools such as Strengths Finder. Quality feedback is key to discovering the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports, and it is important to remember that weaknesses can be overcome with growth and encouragement.

How to make engineers aware that they contribute to the company’s objectives?

During a planning meeting, the engineering team had difficulty connecting their individual goals to company-wide metrics. To address this, the team discussed how individual projects impacted team metrics and how team metrics impacted larger company-wide goals. Through conversations and one-on-ones, the team was able to better understand how their work contributed to the company's mission. The lesson learned was that it is important to spend time connecting individual goals to company-wide metrics.

The departure of someone seen as essential for your team

In this case study, the Research and Development director had to face the challenge of one of his team members leaving for a year to work on a personal project in China. He chose to be transparent with the team and worked on ways to share the team member's activities among the rest of the team. This resulted in the manager having to adapt his management style and the team having to adapt their communication, but it ultimately resulted in more accurate processes and a stronger team. The key takeaway is to be transparent with your team, even when faced with tricky issues.

Working as a team to improve prioritization

At Medium, the engineering team was struggling to prioritize their workload due to a lot of requests from both internally and externally. To solve this, the product manager and engineer created a multi-stage process to prioritize the workload. This included brainstorming, splitting into pairs, and then teams to allocate points to the projects. This process allowed the team to prioritize their projects, while also creating cohesiveness and understanding of product management.

Training a developer to fill a management role

When a company grows quickly, it may be necessary to add another layer of management. In this case, the team of seven people had no one with leadership skills, so the manager hired a senior developer and spent eight months training him for the role. This allowed the developer to gain legitimacy and the team to be happy with the promotion. The manager learned that it is difficult to delegate and that a new layer of management can have a big impact.

The manager’s paradox of filtering information versus transparency

As a manager, it is important to be able to filter and amplify information coming from both the team and higher up. This includes deciding what information to pass on and when, as well as amplifying team messages to higher up. It is important to consider the context of the message, the company culture, and the individual people when deciding how to handle the information.

Moving from being an IC to being a manager

After transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager, the author initially struggled to accept the responsibility of management and continued to do the same work they had done before. After reading the book "High Output Management" by Andrew Grove, the author gained a new perspective on the purpose of management and learned that the role of managers is to create the best environment possible for their team to work in, and to have an overall vision of the work being done. The author also learned that while managers may not be developing code, they are developing processes and environment.

The Bug-Solving, Underperforming Engineer

When an employee is not performing in a position, it is important to consider their strengths and weaknesses to figure out if they can be useful to the team. In this case, the engineer was downgraded to a software engineer and assigned the role of "sustaining engineer" which allowed him to focus on his strengths. This resulted in a win-win situation for the engineer and the team, as the engineer has now been working at the company for almost 10 years.

How to handle decision-makers when you want something from them

The lead dev of an overwhelmed team needed to hire an extra engineer, but their manager was too busy to make a decision. The lead dev took charge and measured their team's velocity, improved processes, and ran the math to prove the need for an extra person. After asking the manager what they needed and suggesting candidates, the lead dev was able to get a new engineer in a few weeks. The lesson learned was to be proactive and provide the required data when external people are decision-makers.

The Best Interview Question

This article discusses the importance of asking the right questions during an interview in order to hire the right people. The author's favorite interview question is "What is the most complex/difficult problem you have had to solve professionally? Explain to me how you solved it." This question allows the interviewer to learn two things: the most important problem the candidate has solved and how they go about solving problems. Asking questions around how much time it took to solve a problem, whether they got help from others, what sources of information they used, and the time they spent on diagnostics to gather further information can also be beneficial.

What to do when your client asks for an impossible new deadline

In a situation where a customer pressured a team to move a deadline forward, the team had to communicate the reality of the situation and the fact that the new deadline was not feasible. The team had to explain the time constraints for each part of the work and justify the original deadline. This avoided any further frustrations and ensured that false hope was not given.

Letting go of individuals when they reject your job offer

Atlassian's acquisition of Trello had a huge impact on hiring, and a good engineer who had accepted a job offer from Trello was given an offer by Atlassian, which he rejected. Through a conversation, it was revealed that others were offering him higher salaries and better terms. This experience taught the lesson that hiring is tough and competitive, but you should draw a line about what you are willing to do and learn to let go of individuals when they have decided not to accept your best reasonable offer.

Making sure no one is indispensable to ensure a team’s consistent performance.

This article reflects on a manager's experience when one of their team members left the company and how it affected the team's performance. As a result, the manager reevaluated how they assessed their team's performance and now looks at how the team is improving over time and how indispensable each team member is. The lesson learned is that no one should be indispensable, including the manager, and that having a rockstar in the team is a good thing, but it should not be the only factor in assessing team performance.

I tried to go too fast when building my engineering team

In an effort to quickly build a team, the author made hasty decisions in the hiring process, resulting in two hires that were not a good fit for the company. The author learned that it is important to take time when hiring and to leverage the team's knowledge in the process.

Building a new team internally

An engineer was tasked with setting up a new master scheduling team to improve production line efficiency, but had difficulty deciding on success criteria. After talking with people and understanding the landscape, a 30-minute presentation was given to executives to show what was learned, what was needed, and why. After approval, the hiring process began and the team was developed over the course of a year. Lessons learned include making sure the team understands their purpose, having a clear vision and messaging it to stakeholders, and using personal communication to get detailed information.

Making one-on-ones less related to day-to-day work.

When first starting in management, the author did not understand the purpose of one-on-ones and would avoid conversations about personal matters. After trying to blend work-related and personal matters in one conversation, the author realized that it was important to have a good split between the two. Taking employees out of the office and changing the setting of one-on-ones helps to ensure that day-to-day work-related matters are not the only topics discussed. One-on-ones are a way to get a sense of where employees are at with the company and to know if they are happy, sad, frustrated, or about to leave.

Changing the culture of lax deadlines in my new team

A team of engineers was not meeting deadlines, and the product manager was about to quit. The new team leader took action by having informal one-on-ones and lunches with each engineer to understand the problem and show them that they were all on the same boat. He also promised them infrastructure releases with less deadlines. The lesson learned is that it is important to get to know the team and show that you are there to help, not judge, and to make tradeoffs to reassure them.

Weathering the storm of changing leadership within my department.

When the CTO of a company suddenly left, leaving many managers without direction, three managers and two directors took it upon themselves to meet with the new CTO and Head of Product and BI to push through and deliver on the roadmap they had been working on. Despite not knowing if it would matter in the end, it turned out to be successful and helped the new CTO get off to a good start. This experience taught them that in unfamiliar situations, it is important to go with what you know and who you are.

Make the Other Mistake

When receiving feedback, it can be difficult to self-correct to the level expected. To overcome this, it is suggested to "shoot for the extreme" and aim to exceed expectations. This approach is especially effective for team presence, assertiveness, and productivity. By pushing the limits, people can gain confidence in themselves and achieve more than their original goal.

Growing engineers into managers

A manager at Google wanted to transition to another role and asked a staff engineer to take on part of his work and team. The engineer was hesitant, but the manager pushed him to take on more responsibility. Eventually, the manager had to leave and the engineer was managing the team, but not doing a great job. After the manager left, the engineer started to flourish in the role, finding engineers he clicked with and trying his own things. The lesson learned was to be explicit with people transitioning to a new role that there are different ways to be a manager, and to leave room for them to grow.

Finding the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports

When taking over a new team, it is important for a manager to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their direct reports. This can be done through regular 1:1s, talking to the direct report's stakeholders, giving them small projects to work on, and using tools such as Strengths Finder. Quality feedback is key to discovering the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports, and it is important to remember that weaknesses can be overcome with growth and encouragement.

How to make engineers aware that they contribute to the company’s objectives?

During a planning meeting, the engineering team had difficulty connecting their individual goals to company-wide metrics. To address this, the team discussed how individual projects impacted team metrics and how team metrics impacted larger company-wide goals. Through conversations and one-on-ones, the team was able to better understand how their work contributed to the company's mission. The lesson learned was that it is important to spend time connecting individual goals to company-wide metrics.

The departure of someone seen as essential for your team

In this case study, the Research and Development director had to face the challenge of one of his team members leaving for a year to work on a personal project in China. He chose to be transparent with the team and worked on ways to share the team member's activities among the rest of the team. This resulted in the manager having to adapt his management style and the team having to adapt their communication, but it ultimately resulted in more accurate processes and a stronger team. The key takeaway is to be transparent with your team, even when faced with tricky issues.

Working as a team to improve prioritization

At Medium, the engineering team was struggling to prioritize their workload due to a lot of requests from both internally and externally. To solve this, the product manager and engineer created a multi-stage process to prioritize the workload. This included brainstorming, splitting into pairs, and then teams to allocate points to the projects. This process allowed the team to prioritize their projects, while also creating cohesiveness and understanding of product management.

Training a developer to fill a management role

When a company grows quickly, it may be necessary to add another layer of management. In this case, the team of seven people had no one with leadership skills, so the manager hired a senior developer and spent eight months training him for the role. This allowed the developer to gain legitimacy and the team to be happy with the promotion. The manager learned that it is difficult to delegate and that a new layer of management can have a big impact.

The manager’s paradox of filtering information versus transparency

As a manager, it is important to be able to filter and amplify information coming from both the team and higher up. This includes deciding what information to pass on and when, as well as amplifying team messages to higher up. It is important to consider the context of the message, the company culture, and the individual people when deciding how to handle the information.

Moving from being an IC to being a manager

After transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager, the author initially struggled to accept the responsibility of management and continued to do the same work they had done before. After reading the book "High Output Management" by Andrew Grove, the author gained a new perspective on the purpose of management and learned that the role of managers is to create the best environment possible for their team to work in, and to have an overall vision of the work being done. The author also learned that while managers may not be developing code, they are developing processes and environment.

The Bug-Solving, Underperforming Engineer

When an employee is not performing in a position, it is important to consider their strengths and weaknesses to figure out if they can be useful to the team. In this case, the engineer was downgraded to a software engineer and assigned the role of "sustaining engineer" which allowed him to focus on his strengths. This resulted in a win-win situation for the engineer and the team, as the engineer has now been working at the company for almost 10 years.

How to handle decision-makers when you want something from them

The lead dev of an overwhelmed team needed to hire an extra engineer, but their manager was too busy to make a decision. The lead dev took charge and measured their team's velocity, improved processes, and ran the math to prove the need for an extra person. After asking the manager what they needed and suggesting candidates, the lead dev was able to get a new engineer in a few weeks. The lesson learned was to be proactive and provide the required data when external people are decision-makers.

The Best Interview Question

This article discusses the importance of asking the right questions during an interview in order to hire the right people. The author's favorite interview question is "What is the most complex/difficult problem you have had to solve professionally? Explain to me how you solved it." This question allows the interviewer to learn two things: the most important problem the candidate has solved and how they go about solving problems. Asking questions around how much time it took to solve a problem, whether they got help from others, what sources of information they used, and the time they spent on diagnostics to gather further information can also be beneficial.

What to do when your client asks for an impossible new deadline

In a situation where a customer pressured a team to move a deadline forward, the team had to communicate the reality of the situation and the fact that the new deadline was not feasible. The team had to explain the time constraints for each part of the work and justify the original deadline. This avoided any further frustrations and ensured that false hope was not given.

Letting go of individuals when they reject your job offer

Atlassian's acquisition of Trello had a huge impact on hiring, and a good engineer who had accepted a job offer from Trello was given an offer by Atlassian, which he rejected. Through a conversation, it was revealed that others were offering him higher salaries and better terms. This experience taught the lesson that hiring is tough and competitive, but you should draw a line about what you are willing to do and learn to let go of individuals when they have decided not to accept your best reasonable offer.

Making sure no one is indispensable to ensure a team’s consistent performance.

This article reflects on a manager's experience when one of their team members left the company and how it affected the team's performance. As a result, the manager reevaluated how they assessed their team's performance and now looks at how the team is improving over time and how indispensable each team member is. The lesson learned is that no one should be indispensable, including the manager, and that having a rockstar in the team is a good thing, but it should not be the only factor in assessing team performance.

I tried to go too fast when building my engineering team

In an effort to quickly build a team, the author made hasty decisions in the hiring process, resulting in two hires that were not a good fit for the company. The author learned that it is important to take time when hiring and to leverage the team's knowledge in the process.

Building a new team internally

An engineer was tasked with setting up a new master scheduling team to improve production line efficiency, but had difficulty deciding on success criteria. After talking with people and understanding the landscape, a 30-minute presentation was given to executives to show what was learned, what was needed, and why. After approval, the hiring process began and the team was developed over the course of a year. Lessons learned include making sure the team understands their purpose, having a clear vision and messaging it to stakeholders, and using personal communication to get detailed information.

Making one-on-ones less related to day-to-day work.

When first starting in management, the author did not understand the purpose of one-on-ones and would avoid conversations about personal matters. After trying to blend work-related and personal matters in one conversation, the author realized that it was important to have a good split between the two. Taking employees out of the office and changing the setting of one-on-ones helps to ensure that day-to-day work-related matters are not the only topics discussed. One-on-ones are a way to get a sense of where employees are at with the company and to know if they are happy, sad, frustrated, or about to leave.

Changing the culture of lax deadlines in my new team

A team of engineers was not meeting deadlines, and the product manager was about to quit. The new team leader took action by having informal one-on-ones and lunches with each engineer to understand the problem and show them that they were all on the same boat. He also promised them infrastructure releases with less deadlines. The lesson learned is that it is important to get to know the team and show that you are there to help, not judge, and to make tradeoffs to reassure them.