Knowledge shared by our community

Building our career ladder from scratch

Talkdesk needed to create a career plan to provide transparency for their team. They adopted a plan from "Rent the Runway" and adapted it to their structure, needs and culture. They added communication, more levels, and other tracks. After implementing the ladder, some people were overcompensated and were considered "underperformers" until they reached the expectations for their salary levels. The transition was difficult, but it sent a message and clarified expectations.

Helping to resolve a long-standing conflict

Two senior engineers had a disagreement that escalated to the point where the team was afraid to push their own code. After a 1:1 meeting, the problem was resolved and the team implemented a "PR blocked" status check to prevent future issues. The lesson learned is that people may not realize the impact their behavior can have on their teams, unless it is pointed out to them.

The Mistake of Rewriting Products

The Manager of the iOS team at Venmo wanted to build credibility with the team, so they convinced Product to rewrite the iOS app in Swift. However, the rewrite took two years and caused enough frustration with the team that only one engineer remained by the end. The Manager also learned that sometimes they have to go back on their own decisions, as it resulted in a much better outcome.

Fostering A Collaborative Workplace In A Remote Setting

In order to encourage collaboration among a remote team of developers tasked with re-writing the core platform of an application, the team leader implemented overlapping hours, encouraged written designs and design reviews, assigned two or more developers to each codebase, encouraged pairing up when needed, and documented and socialized best practices. These practices resulted in better solutions and happier team members.

Let Your Team Make Technical Decisions

This story is about a manager who was struggling in their first management role. After talking to the team, it was found that the manager was trying to make all of the technical decisions instead of empowering the team. The manager was advised to go into meetings with goals in mind and to provide guidelines for the team to make their own technical decisions. This shift in mindset was difficult, but the manager was able to become one of the most successful managers in engineering.

How to improve collaboration between engineering and product management; Ingrain it into your culture.

A company's software engineering and product management teams were working on the wrong things due to a lack of distinction between the two roles. To address this, the company defined the roles of each group, empowered Scrum Masters to keep them in line, and made it a metric in SE performance evaluation. This allowed them to better understand the why and how of each role, and to ensure that the PMs and SEs were working together effectively.

Enabling an Engineer to Meet His Goals

This is a story of how an engineer was mentored to reach his goal of becoming a CTO. The mentor discussed the engineer's motivations and set out short, medium and long-term plans to help him reach his goal. The short-term plan focused on technical skills, the medium-term plan focused on people-management skills, and the long-term plan focused on his vision for technology. The mentor had monthly check-in meetings to track progress and make adjustments.

A new framework for organizational change

When the engineering team at a company grew from 7 to 18 people, the head of engineering realized that the structure was no longer scalable. To address this, they introduced two engineering leads to act as team leaders and developers, and organized teams based on competencies. This new structure allowed the leaders to act as mentors and for team members to switch teams without switching leaders, but it also made it harder for the leaders to see what their reports were doing.

Dealing With an Employee Performing Poorly

Bob, one of the developers, was not delivering good work and the problem was becoming more visible. The manager tried to coach him to improve, but it had a negative impact on the team. After months of coaching, the manager decided to dismiss Bob, which the team felt relieved about. The manager learned that it is important to set clear expectations and reasonable deadlines, and if they are not met, then the person should be let go.

Leading someone who is far more experienced and talented than you

A manager's first responsibility is to define reality for their employees by holding up a mirror and providing accurate feedback. This is how they can be valuable, regardless of the experience and talent of their employees. When a manager fails to do this, their employees can become egotistic and difficult to work with. To remedy this, the manager must have hard conversations with their employee to correct the distorted reality and replace the spotlight with the mirror.

Rebuilding a tech platform from scratch

After the CEO expressed dissatisfaction with the product, the team decided to rebuild the platform entirely. They chose a PHP framework and held meetings to get feedback and an estimate of the time needed. Despite launching a successful platform, mistakes were made such as not briefing the team, not cutting the task into manageable pieces, outsourcing design, and not getting the support team to test the product. By taking on feedback, the team was able to build an even greater company.

Delegation – a prerequisite for management

This article discusses the importance of delegation for scaling teams and motivating others. It outlines the author's experience transitioning from an execution-focused role to a management role, and how he learned to delegate tasks to his team's tech lead. He found that delegation enabled him to focus on problems he may not have anticipated, grow people faster, and have a better personal balance.

I struggled with giving critical feedback to a friendly employee

A new developer was hired for a team and their work was not up to par. After six months, the team leader gave feedback but didn't make it clear that expectations were not being met. After two projects, the team leader put the developer on a performance improvement plan, but there were no significant improvements. Eventually, the team leader had to let the developer go. Looking back, the team leader realized that they should have given critical feedback earlier and made it clear that expectations were not being met.

Interactions between Product and Engineering teams

At Datto, the product team and engineering team collaborate to create user stories that define business value and acceptance criteria. The PMs get Certified Product Owner training, the SM works with the PM to craft stories, and the SM, PM and team lead meet weekly to develop stories. Deadlines can not be set without iterations on the stories, and the business needs to buy into Agile work processes.

My basics for handling your own manager

When starting with a new manager, it is important to build trust and credibility quickly. This can be done by copying them in on emails, having regular sync-ups, and not joining in on gossip. Additionally, it is important to be a problem solver and to help fix any broken processes. Doing so will help build trust and credibility with the manager.

When to Fire Quickly

When dealing with an employee who is not performing well, a slow approach is generally taken. However, if the employee is making their coworkers uncomfortable, they should be let go quickly as it is difficult to fix personality and team dynamics issues. This was the case with a team whose happiness scores had dropped substantially, and the employee was being disrespectful to teammates. After the employee was fired, the team's communication improved and the unspoken tension evaporated quickly. This experience taught that it is important to act quickly when someone is making their team uncomfortable.

Adaptation to the company culture as a manager

A new Director of Engineering was hired at Box, but their behaviour was at odds with the company culture and caused a toxic atmosphere between them and the CTO. After a month of one-on-ones, the CTO let go of the DoE. The lesson learned is that company-culture fit should be evaluated during the hiring process to avoid similar issues.

How to promote the right engineers to management roles

This story recounts the experience of a former Evite employee who was promoted to manager after demonstrating leadership skills in helping a colleague adjust to the new scrum system. The employee's main concern was to maintain the same relationship with their peers, which was achieved by having open dialogues and listening to their needs. This experience has taught the employee that managing people is about listening to them and collaborating with them, which has been a philosophy they have applied in their career.

Making the best out of a rockstar developer

A tech lead was not performing well in their leadership role, so the manager decided to use their technical legitimacy to promote changes and assigned them the position of "Special Project Engineer". This allowed the team to make the best out of the individual and gain a key source of support. The lesson learned is that managers should be creative in finding ways to make the best out of their team members.

Five ways to build a thriving culture in a remote team

Mixmax CTO experienced "growing pains" when managing remote engineers, leading to decreased engagement and productivity. To improve the remote team culture, they raised the hiring bar for remote candidates, held company stand-ups and engineering co-working sessions, escalated conversations when chat didn't suffice, set core company hours, and brought the team together for off-sites. These actions improved the remote team culture and productivity.

Building our career ladder from scratch

Talkdesk needed to create a career plan to provide transparency for their team. They adopted a plan from "Rent the Runway" and adapted it to their structure, needs and culture. They added communication, more levels, and other tracks. After implementing the ladder, some people were overcompensated and were considered "underperformers" until they reached the expectations for their salary levels. The transition was difficult, but it sent a message and clarified expectations.

Helping to resolve a long-standing conflict

Two senior engineers had a disagreement that escalated to the point where the team was afraid to push their own code. After a 1:1 meeting, the problem was resolved and the team implemented a "PR blocked" status check to prevent future issues. The lesson learned is that people may not realize the impact their behavior can have on their teams, unless it is pointed out to them.

The Mistake of Rewriting Products

The Manager of the iOS team at Venmo wanted to build credibility with the team, so they convinced Product to rewrite the iOS app in Swift. However, the rewrite took two years and caused enough frustration with the team that only one engineer remained by the end. The Manager also learned that sometimes they have to go back on their own decisions, as it resulted in a much better outcome.

Fostering A Collaborative Workplace In A Remote Setting

In order to encourage collaboration among a remote team of developers tasked with re-writing the core platform of an application, the team leader implemented overlapping hours, encouraged written designs and design reviews, assigned two or more developers to each codebase, encouraged pairing up when needed, and documented and socialized best practices. These practices resulted in better solutions and happier team members.

Let Your Team Make Technical Decisions

This story is about a manager who was struggling in their first management role. After talking to the team, it was found that the manager was trying to make all of the technical decisions instead of empowering the team. The manager was advised to go into meetings with goals in mind and to provide guidelines for the team to make their own technical decisions. This shift in mindset was difficult, but the manager was able to become one of the most successful managers in engineering.

How to improve collaboration between engineering and product management; Ingrain it into your culture.

A company's software engineering and product management teams were working on the wrong things due to a lack of distinction between the two roles. To address this, the company defined the roles of each group, empowered Scrum Masters to keep them in line, and made it a metric in SE performance evaluation. This allowed them to better understand the why and how of each role, and to ensure that the PMs and SEs were working together effectively.

Enabling an Engineer to Meet His Goals

This is a story of how an engineer was mentored to reach his goal of becoming a CTO. The mentor discussed the engineer's motivations and set out short, medium and long-term plans to help him reach his goal. The short-term plan focused on technical skills, the medium-term plan focused on people-management skills, and the long-term plan focused on his vision for technology. The mentor had monthly check-in meetings to track progress and make adjustments.

A new framework for organizational change

When the engineering team at a company grew from 7 to 18 people, the head of engineering realized that the structure was no longer scalable. To address this, they introduced two engineering leads to act as team leaders and developers, and organized teams based on competencies. This new structure allowed the leaders to act as mentors and for team members to switch teams without switching leaders, but it also made it harder for the leaders to see what their reports were doing.

Dealing With an Employee Performing Poorly

Bob, one of the developers, was not delivering good work and the problem was becoming more visible. The manager tried to coach him to improve, but it had a negative impact on the team. After months of coaching, the manager decided to dismiss Bob, which the team felt relieved about. The manager learned that it is important to set clear expectations and reasonable deadlines, and if they are not met, then the person should be let go.

Leading someone who is far more experienced and talented than you

A manager's first responsibility is to define reality for their employees by holding up a mirror and providing accurate feedback. This is how they can be valuable, regardless of the experience and talent of their employees. When a manager fails to do this, their employees can become egotistic and difficult to work with. To remedy this, the manager must have hard conversations with their employee to correct the distorted reality and replace the spotlight with the mirror.

Rebuilding a tech platform from scratch

After the CEO expressed dissatisfaction with the product, the team decided to rebuild the platform entirely. They chose a PHP framework and held meetings to get feedback and an estimate of the time needed. Despite launching a successful platform, mistakes were made such as not briefing the team, not cutting the task into manageable pieces, outsourcing design, and not getting the support team to test the product. By taking on feedback, the team was able to build an even greater company.

Delegation – a prerequisite for management

This article discusses the importance of delegation for scaling teams and motivating others. It outlines the author's experience transitioning from an execution-focused role to a management role, and how he learned to delegate tasks to his team's tech lead. He found that delegation enabled him to focus on problems he may not have anticipated, grow people faster, and have a better personal balance.

I struggled with giving critical feedback to a friendly employee

A new developer was hired for a team and their work was not up to par. After six months, the team leader gave feedback but didn't make it clear that expectations were not being met. After two projects, the team leader put the developer on a performance improvement plan, but there were no significant improvements. Eventually, the team leader had to let the developer go. Looking back, the team leader realized that they should have given critical feedback earlier and made it clear that expectations were not being met.

Interactions between Product and Engineering teams

At Datto, the product team and engineering team collaborate to create user stories that define business value and acceptance criteria. The PMs get Certified Product Owner training, the SM works with the PM to craft stories, and the SM, PM and team lead meet weekly to develop stories. Deadlines can not be set without iterations on the stories, and the business needs to buy into Agile work processes.

My basics for handling your own manager

When starting with a new manager, it is important to build trust and credibility quickly. This can be done by copying them in on emails, having regular sync-ups, and not joining in on gossip. Additionally, it is important to be a problem solver and to help fix any broken processes. Doing so will help build trust and credibility with the manager.

When to Fire Quickly

When dealing with an employee who is not performing well, a slow approach is generally taken. However, if the employee is making their coworkers uncomfortable, they should be let go quickly as it is difficult to fix personality and team dynamics issues. This was the case with a team whose happiness scores had dropped substantially, and the employee was being disrespectful to teammates. After the employee was fired, the team's communication improved and the unspoken tension evaporated quickly. This experience taught that it is important to act quickly when someone is making their team uncomfortable.

Adaptation to the company culture as a manager

A new Director of Engineering was hired at Box, but their behaviour was at odds with the company culture and caused a toxic atmosphere between them and the CTO. After a month of one-on-ones, the CTO let go of the DoE. The lesson learned is that company-culture fit should be evaluated during the hiring process to avoid similar issues.

How to promote the right engineers to management roles

This story recounts the experience of a former Evite employee who was promoted to manager after demonstrating leadership skills in helping a colleague adjust to the new scrum system. The employee's main concern was to maintain the same relationship with their peers, which was achieved by having open dialogues and listening to their needs. This experience has taught the employee that managing people is about listening to them and collaborating with them, which has been a philosophy they have applied in their career.

Making the best out of a rockstar developer

A tech lead was not performing well in their leadership role, so the manager decided to use their technical legitimacy to promote changes and assigned them the position of "Special Project Engineer". This allowed the team to make the best out of the individual and gain a key source of support. The lesson learned is that managers should be creative in finding ways to make the best out of their team members.

Five ways to build a thriving culture in a remote team

Mixmax CTO experienced "growing pains" when managing remote engineers, leading to decreased engagement and productivity. To improve the remote team culture, they raised the hiring bar for remote candidates, held company stand-ups and engineering co-working sessions, escalated conversations when chat didn't suffice, set core company hours, and brought the team together for off-sites. These actions improved the remote team culture and productivity.

Building our career ladder from scratch

Talkdesk needed to create a career plan to provide transparency for their team. They adopted a plan from "Rent the Runway" and adapted it to their structure, needs and culture. They added communication, more levels, and other tracks. After implementing the ladder, some people were overcompensated and were considered "underperformers" until they reached the expectations for their salary levels. The transition was difficult, but it sent a message and clarified expectations.

Helping to resolve a long-standing conflict

Two senior engineers had a disagreement that escalated to the point where the team was afraid to push their own code. After a 1:1 meeting, the problem was resolved and the team implemented a "PR blocked" status check to prevent future issues. The lesson learned is that people may not realize the impact their behavior can have on their teams, unless it is pointed out to them.

The Mistake of Rewriting Products

The Manager of the iOS team at Venmo wanted to build credibility with the team, so they convinced Product to rewrite the iOS app in Swift. However, the rewrite took two years and caused enough frustration with the team that only one engineer remained by the end. The Manager also learned that sometimes they have to go back on their own decisions, as it resulted in a much better outcome.

Fostering A Collaborative Workplace In A Remote Setting

In order to encourage collaboration among a remote team of developers tasked with re-writing the core platform of an application, the team leader implemented overlapping hours, encouraged written designs and design reviews, assigned two or more developers to each codebase, encouraged pairing up when needed, and documented and socialized best practices. These practices resulted in better solutions and happier team members.

Let Your Team Make Technical Decisions

This story is about a manager who was struggling in their first management role. After talking to the team, it was found that the manager was trying to make all of the technical decisions instead of empowering the team. The manager was advised to go into meetings with goals in mind and to provide guidelines for the team to make their own technical decisions. This shift in mindset was difficult, but the manager was able to become one of the most successful managers in engineering.

How to improve collaboration between engineering and product management; Ingrain it into your culture.

A company's software engineering and product management teams were working on the wrong things due to a lack of distinction between the two roles. To address this, the company defined the roles of each group, empowered Scrum Masters to keep them in line, and made it a metric in SE performance evaluation. This allowed them to better understand the why and how of each role, and to ensure that the PMs and SEs were working together effectively.

Enabling an Engineer to Meet His Goals

This is a story of how an engineer was mentored to reach his goal of becoming a CTO. The mentor discussed the engineer's motivations and set out short, medium and long-term plans to help him reach his goal. The short-term plan focused on technical skills, the medium-term plan focused on people-management skills, and the long-term plan focused on his vision for technology. The mentor had monthly check-in meetings to track progress and make adjustments.

A new framework for organizational change

When the engineering team at a company grew from 7 to 18 people, the head of engineering realized that the structure was no longer scalable. To address this, they introduced two engineering leads to act as team leaders and developers, and organized teams based on competencies. This new structure allowed the leaders to act as mentors and for team members to switch teams without switching leaders, but it also made it harder for the leaders to see what their reports were doing.

Dealing With an Employee Performing Poorly

Bob, one of the developers, was not delivering good work and the problem was becoming more visible. The manager tried to coach him to improve, but it had a negative impact on the team. After months of coaching, the manager decided to dismiss Bob, which the team felt relieved about. The manager learned that it is important to set clear expectations and reasonable deadlines, and if they are not met, then the person should be let go.

Leading someone who is far more experienced and talented than you

A manager's first responsibility is to define reality for their employees by holding up a mirror and providing accurate feedback. This is how they can be valuable, regardless of the experience and talent of their employees. When a manager fails to do this, their employees can become egotistic and difficult to work with. To remedy this, the manager must have hard conversations with their employee to correct the distorted reality and replace the spotlight with the mirror.

Rebuilding a tech platform from scratch

After the CEO expressed dissatisfaction with the product, the team decided to rebuild the platform entirely. They chose a PHP framework and held meetings to get feedback and an estimate of the time needed. Despite launching a successful platform, mistakes were made such as not briefing the team, not cutting the task into manageable pieces, outsourcing design, and not getting the support team to test the product. By taking on feedback, the team was able to build an even greater company.

Delegation – a prerequisite for management

This article discusses the importance of delegation for scaling teams and motivating others. It outlines the author's experience transitioning from an execution-focused role to a management role, and how he learned to delegate tasks to his team's tech lead. He found that delegation enabled him to focus on problems he may not have anticipated, grow people faster, and have a better personal balance.

I struggled with giving critical feedback to a friendly employee

A new developer was hired for a team and their work was not up to par. After six months, the team leader gave feedback but didn't make it clear that expectations were not being met. After two projects, the team leader put the developer on a performance improvement plan, but there were no significant improvements. Eventually, the team leader had to let the developer go. Looking back, the team leader realized that they should have given critical feedback earlier and made it clear that expectations were not being met.

Interactions between Product and Engineering teams

At Datto, the product team and engineering team collaborate to create user stories that define business value and acceptance criteria. The PMs get Certified Product Owner training, the SM works with the PM to craft stories, and the SM, PM and team lead meet weekly to develop stories. Deadlines can not be set without iterations on the stories, and the business needs to buy into Agile work processes.

My basics for handling your own manager

When starting with a new manager, it is important to build trust and credibility quickly. This can be done by copying them in on emails, having regular sync-ups, and not joining in on gossip. Additionally, it is important to be a problem solver and to help fix any broken processes. Doing so will help build trust and credibility with the manager.

When to Fire Quickly

When dealing with an employee who is not performing well, a slow approach is generally taken. However, if the employee is making their coworkers uncomfortable, they should be let go quickly as it is difficult to fix personality and team dynamics issues. This was the case with a team whose happiness scores had dropped substantially, and the employee was being disrespectful to teammates. After the employee was fired, the team's communication improved and the unspoken tension evaporated quickly. This experience taught that it is important to act quickly when someone is making their team uncomfortable.

Adaptation to the company culture as a manager

A new Director of Engineering was hired at Box, but their behaviour was at odds with the company culture and caused a toxic atmosphere between them and the CTO. After a month of one-on-ones, the CTO let go of the DoE. The lesson learned is that company-culture fit should be evaluated during the hiring process to avoid similar issues.

How to promote the right engineers to management roles

This story recounts the experience of a former Evite employee who was promoted to manager after demonstrating leadership skills in helping a colleague adjust to the new scrum system. The employee's main concern was to maintain the same relationship with their peers, which was achieved by having open dialogues and listening to their needs. This experience has taught the employee that managing people is about listening to them and collaborating with them, which has been a philosophy they have applied in their career.

Making the best out of a rockstar developer

A tech lead was not performing well in their leadership role, so the manager decided to use their technical legitimacy to promote changes and assigned them the position of "Special Project Engineer". This allowed the team to make the best out of the individual and gain a key source of support. The lesson learned is that managers should be creative in finding ways to make the best out of their team members.

Five ways to build a thriving culture in a remote team

Mixmax CTO experienced "growing pains" when managing remote engineers, leading to decreased engagement and productivity. To improve the remote team culture, they raised the hiring bar for remote candidates, held company stand-ups and engineering co-working sessions, escalated conversations when chat didn't suffice, set core company hours, and brought the team together for off-sites. These actions improved the remote team culture and productivity.

Building our career ladder from scratch

Talkdesk needed to create a career plan to provide transparency for their team. They adopted a plan from "Rent the Runway" and adapted it to their structure, needs and culture. They added communication, more levels, and other tracks. After implementing the ladder, some people were overcompensated and were considered "underperformers" until they reached the expectations for their salary levels. The transition was difficult, but it sent a message and clarified expectations.

Helping to resolve a long-standing conflict

Two senior engineers had a disagreement that escalated to the point where the team was afraid to push their own code. After a 1:1 meeting, the problem was resolved and the team implemented a "PR blocked" status check to prevent future issues. The lesson learned is that people may not realize the impact their behavior can have on their teams, unless it is pointed out to them.

The Mistake of Rewriting Products

The Manager of the iOS team at Venmo wanted to build credibility with the team, so they convinced Product to rewrite the iOS app in Swift. However, the rewrite took two years and caused enough frustration with the team that only one engineer remained by the end. The Manager also learned that sometimes they have to go back on their own decisions, as it resulted in a much better outcome.

Fostering A Collaborative Workplace In A Remote Setting

In order to encourage collaboration among a remote team of developers tasked with re-writing the core platform of an application, the team leader implemented overlapping hours, encouraged written designs and design reviews, assigned two or more developers to each codebase, encouraged pairing up when needed, and documented and socialized best practices. These practices resulted in better solutions and happier team members.

Let Your Team Make Technical Decisions

This story is about a manager who was struggling in their first management role. After talking to the team, it was found that the manager was trying to make all of the technical decisions instead of empowering the team. The manager was advised to go into meetings with goals in mind and to provide guidelines for the team to make their own technical decisions. This shift in mindset was difficult, but the manager was able to become one of the most successful managers in engineering.

How to improve collaboration between engineering and product management; Ingrain it into your culture.

A company's software engineering and product management teams were working on the wrong things due to a lack of distinction between the two roles. To address this, the company defined the roles of each group, empowered Scrum Masters to keep them in line, and made it a metric in SE performance evaluation. This allowed them to better understand the why and how of each role, and to ensure that the PMs and SEs were working together effectively.

Enabling an Engineer to Meet His Goals

This is a story of how an engineer was mentored to reach his goal of becoming a CTO. The mentor discussed the engineer's motivations and set out short, medium and long-term plans to help him reach his goal. The short-term plan focused on technical skills, the medium-term plan focused on people-management skills, and the long-term plan focused on his vision for technology. The mentor had monthly check-in meetings to track progress and make adjustments.

A new framework for organizational change

When the engineering team at a company grew from 7 to 18 people, the head of engineering realized that the structure was no longer scalable. To address this, they introduced two engineering leads to act as team leaders and developers, and organized teams based on competencies. This new structure allowed the leaders to act as mentors and for team members to switch teams without switching leaders, but it also made it harder for the leaders to see what their reports were doing.

Dealing With an Employee Performing Poorly

Bob, one of the developers, was not delivering good work and the problem was becoming more visible. The manager tried to coach him to improve, but it had a negative impact on the team. After months of coaching, the manager decided to dismiss Bob, which the team felt relieved about. The manager learned that it is important to set clear expectations and reasonable deadlines, and if they are not met, then the person should be let go.

Leading someone who is far more experienced and talented than you

A manager's first responsibility is to define reality for their employees by holding up a mirror and providing accurate feedback. This is how they can be valuable, regardless of the experience and talent of their employees. When a manager fails to do this, their employees can become egotistic and difficult to work with. To remedy this, the manager must have hard conversations with their employee to correct the distorted reality and replace the spotlight with the mirror.

Rebuilding a tech platform from scratch

After the CEO expressed dissatisfaction with the product, the team decided to rebuild the platform entirely. They chose a PHP framework and held meetings to get feedback and an estimate of the time needed. Despite launching a successful platform, mistakes were made such as not briefing the team, not cutting the task into manageable pieces, outsourcing design, and not getting the support team to test the product. By taking on feedback, the team was able to build an even greater company.

Delegation – a prerequisite for management

This article discusses the importance of delegation for scaling teams and motivating others. It outlines the author's experience transitioning from an execution-focused role to a management role, and how he learned to delegate tasks to his team's tech lead. He found that delegation enabled him to focus on problems he may not have anticipated, grow people faster, and have a better personal balance.

I struggled with giving critical feedback to a friendly employee

A new developer was hired for a team and their work was not up to par. After six months, the team leader gave feedback but didn't make it clear that expectations were not being met. After two projects, the team leader put the developer on a performance improvement plan, but there were no significant improvements. Eventually, the team leader had to let the developer go. Looking back, the team leader realized that they should have given critical feedback earlier and made it clear that expectations were not being met.

Interactions between Product and Engineering teams

At Datto, the product team and engineering team collaborate to create user stories that define business value and acceptance criteria. The PMs get Certified Product Owner training, the SM works with the PM to craft stories, and the SM, PM and team lead meet weekly to develop stories. Deadlines can not be set without iterations on the stories, and the business needs to buy into Agile work processes.

My basics for handling your own manager

When starting with a new manager, it is important to build trust and credibility quickly. This can be done by copying them in on emails, having regular sync-ups, and not joining in on gossip. Additionally, it is important to be a problem solver and to help fix any broken processes. Doing so will help build trust and credibility with the manager.

When to Fire Quickly

When dealing with an employee who is not performing well, a slow approach is generally taken. However, if the employee is making their coworkers uncomfortable, they should be let go quickly as it is difficult to fix personality and team dynamics issues. This was the case with a team whose happiness scores had dropped substantially, and the employee was being disrespectful to teammates. After the employee was fired, the team's communication improved and the unspoken tension evaporated quickly. This experience taught that it is important to act quickly when someone is making their team uncomfortable.

Adaptation to the company culture as a manager

A new Director of Engineering was hired at Box, but their behaviour was at odds with the company culture and caused a toxic atmosphere between them and the CTO. After a month of one-on-ones, the CTO let go of the DoE. The lesson learned is that company-culture fit should be evaluated during the hiring process to avoid similar issues.

How to promote the right engineers to management roles

This story recounts the experience of a former Evite employee who was promoted to manager after demonstrating leadership skills in helping a colleague adjust to the new scrum system. The employee's main concern was to maintain the same relationship with their peers, which was achieved by having open dialogues and listening to their needs. This experience has taught the employee that managing people is about listening to them and collaborating with them, which has been a philosophy they have applied in their career.

Making the best out of a rockstar developer

A tech lead was not performing well in their leadership role, so the manager decided to use their technical legitimacy to promote changes and assigned them the position of "Special Project Engineer". This allowed the team to make the best out of the individual and gain a key source of support. The lesson learned is that managers should be creative in finding ways to make the best out of their team members.

Five ways to build a thriving culture in a remote team

Mixmax CTO experienced "growing pains" when managing remote engineers, leading to decreased engagement and productivity. To improve the remote team culture, they raised the hiring bar for remote candidates, held company stand-ups and engineering co-working sessions, escalated conversations when chat didn't suffice, set core company hours, and brought the team together for off-sites. These actions improved the remote team culture and productivity.

Building our career ladder from scratch

Talkdesk needed to create a career plan to provide transparency for their team. They adopted a plan from "Rent the Runway" and adapted it to their structure, needs and culture. They added communication, more levels, and other tracks. After implementing the ladder, some people were overcompensated and were considered "underperformers" until they reached the expectations for their salary levels. The transition was difficult, but it sent a message and clarified expectations.

Helping to resolve a long-standing conflict

Two senior engineers had a disagreement that escalated to the point where the team was afraid to push their own code. After a 1:1 meeting, the problem was resolved and the team implemented a "PR blocked" status check to prevent future issues. The lesson learned is that people may not realize the impact their behavior can have on their teams, unless it is pointed out to them.

The Mistake of Rewriting Products

The Manager of the iOS team at Venmo wanted to build credibility with the team, so they convinced Product to rewrite the iOS app in Swift. However, the rewrite took two years and caused enough frustration with the team that only one engineer remained by the end. The Manager also learned that sometimes they have to go back on their own decisions, as it resulted in a much better outcome.

Fostering A Collaborative Workplace In A Remote Setting

In order to encourage collaboration among a remote team of developers tasked with re-writing the core platform of an application, the team leader implemented overlapping hours, encouraged written designs and design reviews, assigned two or more developers to each codebase, encouraged pairing up when needed, and documented and socialized best practices. These practices resulted in better solutions and happier team members.

Let Your Team Make Technical Decisions

This story is about a manager who was struggling in their first management role. After talking to the team, it was found that the manager was trying to make all of the technical decisions instead of empowering the team. The manager was advised to go into meetings with goals in mind and to provide guidelines for the team to make their own technical decisions. This shift in mindset was difficult, but the manager was able to become one of the most successful managers in engineering.

How to improve collaboration between engineering and product management; Ingrain it into your culture.

A company's software engineering and product management teams were working on the wrong things due to a lack of distinction between the two roles. To address this, the company defined the roles of each group, empowered Scrum Masters to keep them in line, and made it a metric in SE performance evaluation. This allowed them to better understand the why and how of each role, and to ensure that the PMs and SEs were working together effectively.

Enabling an Engineer to Meet His Goals

This is a story of how an engineer was mentored to reach his goal of becoming a CTO. The mentor discussed the engineer's motivations and set out short, medium and long-term plans to help him reach his goal. The short-term plan focused on technical skills, the medium-term plan focused on people-management skills, and the long-term plan focused on his vision for technology. The mentor had monthly check-in meetings to track progress and make adjustments.

A new framework for organizational change

When the engineering team at a company grew from 7 to 18 people, the head of engineering realized that the structure was no longer scalable. To address this, they introduced two engineering leads to act as team leaders and developers, and organized teams based on competencies. This new structure allowed the leaders to act as mentors and for team members to switch teams without switching leaders, but it also made it harder for the leaders to see what their reports were doing.

Dealing With an Employee Performing Poorly

Bob, one of the developers, was not delivering good work and the problem was becoming more visible. The manager tried to coach him to improve, but it had a negative impact on the team. After months of coaching, the manager decided to dismiss Bob, which the team felt relieved about. The manager learned that it is important to set clear expectations and reasonable deadlines, and if they are not met, then the person should be let go.

Leading someone who is far more experienced and talented than you

A manager's first responsibility is to define reality for their employees by holding up a mirror and providing accurate feedback. This is how they can be valuable, regardless of the experience and talent of their employees. When a manager fails to do this, their employees can become egotistic and difficult to work with. To remedy this, the manager must have hard conversations with their employee to correct the distorted reality and replace the spotlight with the mirror.

Rebuilding a tech platform from scratch

After the CEO expressed dissatisfaction with the product, the team decided to rebuild the platform entirely. They chose a PHP framework and held meetings to get feedback and an estimate of the time needed. Despite launching a successful platform, mistakes were made such as not briefing the team, not cutting the task into manageable pieces, outsourcing design, and not getting the support team to test the product. By taking on feedback, the team was able to build an even greater company.

Delegation – a prerequisite for management

This article discusses the importance of delegation for scaling teams and motivating others. It outlines the author's experience transitioning from an execution-focused role to a management role, and how he learned to delegate tasks to his team's tech lead. He found that delegation enabled him to focus on problems he may not have anticipated, grow people faster, and have a better personal balance.

I struggled with giving critical feedback to a friendly employee

A new developer was hired for a team and their work was not up to par. After six months, the team leader gave feedback but didn't make it clear that expectations were not being met. After two projects, the team leader put the developer on a performance improvement plan, but there were no significant improvements. Eventually, the team leader had to let the developer go. Looking back, the team leader realized that they should have given critical feedback earlier and made it clear that expectations were not being met.

Interactions between Product and Engineering teams

At Datto, the product team and engineering team collaborate to create user stories that define business value and acceptance criteria. The PMs get Certified Product Owner training, the SM works with the PM to craft stories, and the SM, PM and team lead meet weekly to develop stories. Deadlines can not be set without iterations on the stories, and the business needs to buy into Agile work processes.

My basics for handling your own manager

When starting with a new manager, it is important to build trust and credibility quickly. This can be done by copying them in on emails, having regular sync-ups, and not joining in on gossip. Additionally, it is important to be a problem solver and to help fix any broken processes. Doing so will help build trust and credibility with the manager.

When to Fire Quickly

When dealing with an employee who is not performing well, a slow approach is generally taken. However, if the employee is making their coworkers uncomfortable, they should be let go quickly as it is difficult to fix personality and team dynamics issues. This was the case with a team whose happiness scores had dropped substantially, and the employee was being disrespectful to teammates. After the employee was fired, the team's communication improved and the unspoken tension evaporated quickly. This experience taught that it is important to act quickly when someone is making their team uncomfortable.

Adaptation to the company culture as a manager

A new Director of Engineering was hired at Box, but their behaviour was at odds with the company culture and caused a toxic atmosphere between them and the CTO. After a month of one-on-ones, the CTO let go of the DoE. The lesson learned is that company-culture fit should be evaluated during the hiring process to avoid similar issues.

How to promote the right engineers to management roles

This story recounts the experience of a former Evite employee who was promoted to manager after demonstrating leadership skills in helping a colleague adjust to the new scrum system. The employee's main concern was to maintain the same relationship with their peers, which was achieved by having open dialogues and listening to their needs. This experience has taught the employee that managing people is about listening to them and collaborating with them, which has been a philosophy they have applied in their career.

Making the best out of a rockstar developer

A tech lead was not performing well in their leadership role, so the manager decided to use their technical legitimacy to promote changes and assigned them the position of "Special Project Engineer". This allowed the team to make the best out of the individual and gain a key source of support. The lesson learned is that managers should be creative in finding ways to make the best out of their team members.

Five ways to build a thriving culture in a remote team

Mixmax CTO experienced "growing pains" when managing remote engineers, leading to decreased engagement and productivity. To improve the remote team culture, they raised the hiring bar for remote candidates, held company stand-ups and engineering co-working sessions, escalated conversations when chat didn't suffice, set core company hours, and brought the team together for off-sites. These actions improved the remote team culture and productivity.

Building our career ladder from scratch

Talkdesk needed to create a career plan to provide transparency for their team. They adopted a plan from "Rent the Runway" and adapted it to their structure, needs and culture. They added communication, more levels, and other tracks. After implementing the ladder, some people were overcompensated and were considered "underperformers" until they reached the expectations for their salary levels. The transition was difficult, but it sent a message and clarified expectations.

Helping to resolve a long-standing conflict

Two senior engineers had a disagreement that escalated to the point where the team was afraid to push their own code. After a 1:1 meeting, the problem was resolved and the team implemented a "PR blocked" status check to prevent future issues. The lesson learned is that people may not realize the impact their behavior can have on their teams, unless it is pointed out to them.

The Mistake of Rewriting Products

The Manager of the iOS team at Venmo wanted to build credibility with the team, so they convinced Product to rewrite the iOS app in Swift. However, the rewrite took two years and caused enough frustration with the team that only one engineer remained by the end. The Manager also learned that sometimes they have to go back on their own decisions, as it resulted in a much better outcome.

Fostering A Collaborative Workplace In A Remote Setting

In order to encourage collaboration among a remote team of developers tasked with re-writing the core platform of an application, the team leader implemented overlapping hours, encouraged written designs and design reviews, assigned two or more developers to each codebase, encouraged pairing up when needed, and documented and socialized best practices. These practices resulted in better solutions and happier team members.

Let Your Team Make Technical Decisions

This story is about a manager who was struggling in their first management role. After talking to the team, it was found that the manager was trying to make all of the technical decisions instead of empowering the team. The manager was advised to go into meetings with goals in mind and to provide guidelines for the team to make their own technical decisions. This shift in mindset was difficult, but the manager was able to become one of the most successful managers in engineering.

How to improve collaboration between engineering and product management; Ingrain it into your culture.

A company's software engineering and product management teams were working on the wrong things due to a lack of distinction between the two roles. To address this, the company defined the roles of each group, empowered Scrum Masters to keep them in line, and made it a metric in SE performance evaluation. This allowed them to better understand the why and how of each role, and to ensure that the PMs and SEs were working together effectively.

Enabling an Engineer to Meet His Goals

This is a story of how an engineer was mentored to reach his goal of becoming a CTO. The mentor discussed the engineer's motivations and set out short, medium and long-term plans to help him reach his goal. The short-term plan focused on technical skills, the medium-term plan focused on people-management skills, and the long-term plan focused on his vision for technology. The mentor had monthly check-in meetings to track progress and make adjustments.

A new framework for organizational change

When the engineering team at a company grew from 7 to 18 people, the head of engineering realized that the structure was no longer scalable. To address this, they introduced two engineering leads to act as team leaders and developers, and organized teams based on competencies. This new structure allowed the leaders to act as mentors and for team members to switch teams without switching leaders, but it also made it harder for the leaders to see what their reports were doing.

Dealing With an Employee Performing Poorly

Bob, one of the developers, was not delivering good work and the problem was becoming more visible. The manager tried to coach him to improve, but it had a negative impact on the team. After months of coaching, the manager decided to dismiss Bob, which the team felt relieved about. The manager learned that it is important to set clear expectations and reasonable deadlines, and if they are not met, then the person should be let go.

Leading someone who is far more experienced and talented than you

A manager's first responsibility is to define reality for their employees by holding up a mirror and providing accurate feedback. This is how they can be valuable, regardless of the experience and talent of their employees. When a manager fails to do this, their employees can become egotistic and difficult to work with. To remedy this, the manager must have hard conversations with their employee to correct the distorted reality and replace the spotlight with the mirror.

Rebuilding a tech platform from scratch

After the CEO expressed dissatisfaction with the product, the team decided to rebuild the platform entirely. They chose a PHP framework and held meetings to get feedback and an estimate of the time needed. Despite launching a successful platform, mistakes were made such as not briefing the team, not cutting the task into manageable pieces, outsourcing design, and not getting the support team to test the product. By taking on feedback, the team was able to build an even greater company.

Delegation – a prerequisite for management

This article discusses the importance of delegation for scaling teams and motivating others. It outlines the author's experience transitioning from an execution-focused role to a management role, and how he learned to delegate tasks to his team's tech lead. He found that delegation enabled him to focus on problems he may not have anticipated, grow people faster, and have a better personal balance.

I struggled with giving critical feedback to a friendly employee

A new developer was hired for a team and their work was not up to par. After six months, the team leader gave feedback but didn't make it clear that expectations were not being met. After two projects, the team leader put the developer on a performance improvement plan, but there were no significant improvements. Eventually, the team leader had to let the developer go. Looking back, the team leader realized that they should have given critical feedback earlier and made it clear that expectations were not being met.

Interactions between Product and Engineering teams

At Datto, the product team and engineering team collaborate to create user stories that define business value and acceptance criteria. The PMs get Certified Product Owner training, the SM works with the PM to craft stories, and the SM, PM and team lead meet weekly to develop stories. Deadlines can not be set without iterations on the stories, and the business needs to buy into Agile work processes.

My basics for handling your own manager

When starting with a new manager, it is important to build trust and credibility quickly. This can be done by copying them in on emails, having regular sync-ups, and not joining in on gossip. Additionally, it is important to be a problem solver and to help fix any broken processes. Doing so will help build trust and credibility with the manager.

When to Fire Quickly

When dealing with an employee who is not performing well, a slow approach is generally taken. However, if the employee is making their coworkers uncomfortable, they should be let go quickly as it is difficult to fix personality and team dynamics issues. This was the case with a team whose happiness scores had dropped substantially, and the employee was being disrespectful to teammates. After the employee was fired, the team's communication improved and the unspoken tension evaporated quickly. This experience taught that it is important to act quickly when someone is making their team uncomfortable.

Adaptation to the company culture as a manager

A new Director of Engineering was hired at Box, but their behaviour was at odds with the company culture and caused a toxic atmosphere between them and the CTO. After a month of one-on-ones, the CTO let go of the DoE. The lesson learned is that company-culture fit should be evaluated during the hiring process to avoid similar issues.

How to promote the right engineers to management roles

This story recounts the experience of a former Evite employee who was promoted to manager after demonstrating leadership skills in helping a colleague adjust to the new scrum system. The employee's main concern was to maintain the same relationship with their peers, which was achieved by having open dialogues and listening to their needs. This experience has taught the employee that managing people is about listening to them and collaborating with them, which has been a philosophy they have applied in their career.

Making the best out of a rockstar developer

A tech lead was not performing well in their leadership role, so the manager decided to use their technical legitimacy to promote changes and assigned them the position of "Special Project Engineer". This allowed the team to make the best out of the individual and gain a key source of support. The lesson learned is that managers should be creative in finding ways to make the best out of their team members.

Five ways to build a thriving culture in a remote team

Mixmax CTO experienced "growing pains" when managing remote engineers, leading to decreased engagement and productivity. To improve the remote team culture, they raised the hiring bar for remote candidates, held company stand-ups and engineering co-working sessions, escalated conversations when chat didn't suffice, set core company hours, and brought the team together for off-sites. These actions improved the remote team culture and productivity.