Knowledge shared by our community

Hiring the Right Staff and Knowing Who the Right Staff is

In order to ensure the right staff is hired and to maintain a great team, it is important to address problems quickly. This includes talking to team members about any issues that arise, pointing out unacceptable behavior, and taking remedial action such as training and helping team members. If the behavior continues, it is best to remove the person quickly.

Choosing the Right Technology Stack for Your Project

CTOs face the challenge of choosing the right technology stack to ensure their company is future-proof. To do this, they must consider the cloud provider and the technology stack itself, while also taking into account the experience of their developers. To address this challenge, the CTO must take an inventory of the business functions, organize data and product information, and leverage the existing staff resources. Additionally, they must consider API first development, make predictions for the future, and allocate enough time for retooling the organization and training staff.

Overcoming IT Challenges for Onboarding New Hires

This article outlines the steps taken to successfully onboard new hires. The tech lead identified a ramp-up expectation and created a framework to track progress. Weekly and monthly checkpoints were also established to ensure the new hires were on track. The framework proved to be a win-win situation for both employers and employees.

Dire Consequences of a Lack of Product Vision

This article discusses the problem of a company that was unable to ship an MVP due to a lack of product vision and understanding of their customer base. After joining the company, the author identified three main mistakes that were preventing them from shipping their product: incorrect market sizing, not talking to customers, and not having any constraints in place. The article also highlights the importance of serving smaller customers, having constraints, and staying accountable to customers.

Structuring a Large Team: A Two-Phase Approach

When the VP of Engineering joined their previous company, they inherited a team of 18 engineers. The processes remained the same, making the team inefficient and difficult to work with. To address this, they implemented a two-phase approach consisting of deciding on the right structure and conducting a domain analysis to establish what each team owns. This allowed them to form five smaller, self-sustainable squads and create consistency across the teams. They also learned lessons about standups, success metrics, ownership, and visibility.

Developing Better Incident Response Policies

This company needed to support higher levels of uptime and performance guarantees for customers, so they implemented automation of testing and on-call scheduling. Automated testing included unit, UI, click-through, and load tests. On-call scheduling included creating a checklist for people going on call and a playbook for incident response. These changes resulted in faster resolution of issues. Lessons learned include ensuring end-to-end testing, having a unified view of alerts, and creating a checklist and playbook for on-call scheduling.

Providing a Great User Experience When Expanding Internationally

This article discusses the problem of increased latency when connecting to servers based in the US over the public internet. It outlines the various options considered, such as optimizing the code, running different versions of the infrastructure in different regions, and using a hybrid system. Ultimately, the company decided to use tools that allowed for local points of presence and networking, such as Cloudflare and AWS Global Accelerator, to improve the user experience. The article also highlights the importance of understanding the business impact of saying yes and thinking creatively to solve the problem.

Balancing Work and Life as a New Mother

After becoming a mother, a woman was able to successfully balance her work and home life by organizing her time, setting boundaries between work and home life, and relying on her team both in the workplace and at home. She learned that having a sound mind and a strong support system is essential for a successful leader, and that choosing a company with a supportive culture is important for working mothers.

Fostering a Healthy One-on-One Mentorship

This article discusses the importance of establishing a one-on-one relationship with employees in order to increase interconnectivity between departments and provide immediate access to advice, direction, and support. It also emphasizes the importance of understanding the individual needs of employees and providing them with the tools they need to succeed. Finally, it suggests pairing employees with mentors who have already found success in their desired area of specialization.

When Delegation Means Growth

Many first-time managers struggle with delegating and letting things go, which can impede the growth of their reports. To create an environment for people to be autonomous, managers should act as coaches and mentors, guiding their team, having them make decisions, and letting them fail if needed. Managers should also assess if a problem is within the capacities of a person who raised it and ask them about the actions they would take to solve it. Delegation is about responsibility, trust, and accountability, and there are five levels of delegation depending on the seniority and competencies of each individual. Managers need to change their mindset from being problem-solvers to being coaches.

Creating Greater Alignment Among Managers

In order to create alignment among first-line managers, it is necessary to instill in them a sense of belonging to a team of their fellow managers. To do this, the leader created a buddy system, paired people up to work on joint projects, and did full transparent 360 feedback. This allowed the managers to get to know each other better and to ensure that the whole team was working in the same direction. Ultimately, this alignment is necessary to maximize the impact of the organization.

How to Communicate With Former Peers

After being promoted to Director of Engineering, the author found it difficult to maintain relationships with former peers due to the change in perception of their words. They learned to adjust their communication style to be more roundabout and open-ended, and to offer help before asking questions. They also learned that when climbing the ladder, people will perceive them differently and the purpose of their interactions will change. Lastly, they realized that perception shapes how we communicate more than anything else.

Making the Connection Between Developing a Product and the Real-World Consequences of Failure

An Engineering leader faced the challenge of figuring out and picking the OKRs to rally the team. At one of his previous companies, they were in the process of a massive transformation and timely delivery was essential. However, they faced the harsh lesson of the importance of resilience in design from the perspective of technology. To address the problem, they pivoted the framing in terms of investment portfolio allocation, strengthened communication between Engineering and Operations, and measured and understood metrics to give insight to the connections and investments they needed to make. This experience taught the leader the importance of taking accountability, hiring rank-and-file Engineers, and understanding the R&D investment portfolio.

Finding a Higher Calling as a Professional

This article discusses the importance of understanding why we do the work that we do in order to contribute to the world and find our higher purpose. It also emphasizes the importance of emotional intelligence and mentorship in order to define success and happiness. The author shares their journey of adapting to a new career and learning to grow in a foreign environment. They also discuss the importance of advocating for others and investing time and effort in understanding the people you mentor.

Paving the Way for the Women of Tomorrow

This is a story of a woman in the technology field who has experienced the lack of female representation and has taken it upon herself to do something about it. She has learned the importance of leaning in with a diversity initiative, and has taken steps to become an example for young women to follow. She has also learned the importance of mentoring and teaching skills to others, and is now focused on leaving a legacy behind. She is thankful for all the help she has received along the way.

Seeing Past the “Dark Side” of Management

The speaker initially found pride in writing good code and solving problems, but was uninterested in the managerial role. After gaining experience, they learned that being a manager involves more than just watching over people and dealing with underperformers. They sought mentors and learned to be transparent about their vulnerabilities, reserve judgement, and cultivate a feeling of positivity. With more to learn, they continue on their journey.

Insights on Diversity and Inclusion

This article discusses the need for diversity and inclusion in the workplace and the practical steps that can be taken to achieve this. The author outlines their goals to improve diversity and inclusion, such as balancing the recruitment funnel, creating special experiences for diversity candidates, and fostering a culture of inclusion and respect. They also discuss the importance of measuring the impact of their efforts and the lessons they have learned.

Building a Structure for Scaling Teamwork

This article discusses the challenges of restructuring and reorganizing a team, and the actions taken to address them. Hiring was expedited by focusing on diversity and inclusion, and by hiring leaders of the future. The team was aligned through a shared vision and by introducing initiatives to align on engineering principles. Communication was kept open, honest, and transparent. The lessons learned were to align between squads, find suitable tools for communication, and keep communication open and transparent.

Leading a Team: A Short Introduction to Chaos

When joining a small Big Data Engineering team in chaos, the leader had to figure out how to set a vision and roadmap for the team. Through meaningful exercises, the team was able to build a shared vision and mission statement, and set objectives to achieve their goals. The team was able to turn around and hire new talent, and the team still exists today. The key lessons learned were to build a shared vision, put the team through meaningful exercises, and communicate the vision to the rest of the organization.

Achieving High Performance From a Cross-Functional Team

This article discusses how to encourage cross-functional teams to work better together. It is important to focus on building trust between team members, as this is the foundation of a high-performing team. Metrics are important, but they should not be the only measure of team performance. Leaders should step in sooner rather than later to coach teams that are not moving towards high performance, and should focus on healthy team behaviors such as problem solving, retrospectives, and productive conflict.

Hiring the Right Staff and Knowing Who the Right Staff is

In order to ensure the right staff is hired and to maintain a great team, it is important to address problems quickly. This includes talking to team members about any issues that arise, pointing out unacceptable behavior, and taking remedial action such as training and helping team members. If the behavior continues, it is best to remove the person quickly.

Choosing the Right Technology Stack for Your Project

CTOs face the challenge of choosing the right technology stack to ensure their company is future-proof. To do this, they must consider the cloud provider and the technology stack itself, while also taking into account the experience of their developers. To address this challenge, the CTO must take an inventory of the business functions, organize data and product information, and leverage the existing staff resources. Additionally, they must consider API first development, make predictions for the future, and allocate enough time for retooling the organization and training staff.

Overcoming IT Challenges for Onboarding New Hires

This article outlines the steps taken to successfully onboard new hires. The tech lead identified a ramp-up expectation and created a framework to track progress. Weekly and monthly checkpoints were also established to ensure the new hires were on track. The framework proved to be a win-win situation for both employers and employees.

Dire Consequences of a Lack of Product Vision

This article discusses the problem of a company that was unable to ship an MVP due to a lack of product vision and understanding of their customer base. After joining the company, the author identified three main mistakes that were preventing them from shipping their product: incorrect market sizing, not talking to customers, and not having any constraints in place. The article also highlights the importance of serving smaller customers, having constraints, and staying accountable to customers.

Structuring a Large Team: A Two-Phase Approach

When the VP of Engineering joined their previous company, they inherited a team of 18 engineers. The processes remained the same, making the team inefficient and difficult to work with. To address this, they implemented a two-phase approach consisting of deciding on the right structure and conducting a domain analysis to establish what each team owns. This allowed them to form five smaller, self-sustainable squads and create consistency across the teams. They also learned lessons about standups, success metrics, ownership, and visibility.

Developing Better Incident Response Policies

This company needed to support higher levels of uptime and performance guarantees for customers, so they implemented automation of testing and on-call scheduling. Automated testing included unit, UI, click-through, and load tests. On-call scheduling included creating a checklist for people going on call and a playbook for incident response. These changes resulted in faster resolution of issues. Lessons learned include ensuring end-to-end testing, having a unified view of alerts, and creating a checklist and playbook for on-call scheduling.

Providing a Great User Experience When Expanding Internationally

This article discusses the problem of increased latency when connecting to servers based in the US over the public internet. It outlines the various options considered, such as optimizing the code, running different versions of the infrastructure in different regions, and using a hybrid system. Ultimately, the company decided to use tools that allowed for local points of presence and networking, such as Cloudflare and AWS Global Accelerator, to improve the user experience. The article also highlights the importance of understanding the business impact of saying yes and thinking creatively to solve the problem.

Balancing Work and Life as a New Mother

After becoming a mother, a woman was able to successfully balance her work and home life by organizing her time, setting boundaries between work and home life, and relying on her team both in the workplace and at home. She learned that having a sound mind and a strong support system is essential for a successful leader, and that choosing a company with a supportive culture is important for working mothers.

Fostering a Healthy One-on-One Mentorship

This article discusses the importance of establishing a one-on-one relationship with employees in order to increase interconnectivity between departments and provide immediate access to advice, direction, and support. It also emphasizes the importance of understanding the individual needs of employees and providing them with the tools they need to succeed. Finally, it suggests pairing employees with mentors who have already found success in their desired area of specialization.

When Delegation Means Growth

Many first-time managers struggle with delegating and letting things go, which can impede the growth of their reports. To create an environment for people to be autonomous, managers should act as coaches and mentors, guiding their team, having them make decisions, and letting them fail if needed. Managers should also assess if a problem is within the capacities of a person who raised it and ask them about the actions they would take to solve it. Delegation is about responsibility, trust, and accountability, and there are five levels of delegation depending on the seniority and competencies of each individual. Managers need to change their mindset from being problem-solvers to being coaches.

Creating Greater Alignment Among Managers

In order to create alignment among first-line managers, it is necessary to instill in them a sense of belonging to a team of their fellow managers. To do this, the leader created a buddy system, paired people up to work on joint projects, and did full transparent 360 feedback. This allowed the managers to get to know each other better and to ensure that the whole team was working in the same direction. Ultimately, this alignment is necessary to maximize the impact of the organization.

How to Communicate With Former Peers

After being promoted to Director of Engineering, the author found it difficult to maintain relationships with former peers due to the change in perception of their words. They learned to adjust their communication style to be more roundabout and open-ended, and to offer help before asking questions. They also learned that when climbing the ladder, people will perceive them differently and the purpose of their interactions will change. Lastly, they realized that perception shapes how we communicate more than anything else.

Making the Connection Between Developing a Product and the Real-World Consequences of Failure

An Engineering leader faced the challenge of figuring out and picking the OKRs to rally the team. At one of his previous companies, they were in the process of a massive transformation and timely delivery was essential. However, they faced the harsh lesson of the importance of resilience in design from the perspective of technology. To address the problem, they pivoted the framing in terms of investment portfolio allocation, strengthened communication between Engineering and Operations, and measured and understood metrics to give insight to the connections and investments they needed to make. This experience taught the leader the importance of taking accountability, hiring rank-and-file Engineers, and understanding the R&D investment portfolio.

Finding a Higher Calling as a Professional

This article discusses the importance of understanding why we do the work that we do in order to contribute to the world and find our higher purpose. It also emphasizes the importance of emotional intelligence and mentorship in order to define success and happiness. The author shares their journey of adapting to a new career and learning to grow in a foreign environment. They also discuss the importance of advocating for others and investing time and effort in understanding the people you mentor.

Paving the Way for the Women of Tomorrow

This is a story of a woman in the technology field who has experienced the lack of female representation and has taken it upon herself to do something about it. She has learned the importance of leaning in with a diversity initiative, and has taken steps to become an example for young women to follow. She has also learned the importance of mentoring and teaching skills to others, and is now focused on leaving a legacy behind. She is thankful for all the help she has received along the way.

Seeing Past the “Dark Side” of Management

The speaker initially found pride in writing good code and solving problems, but was uninterested in the managerial role. After gaining experience, they learned that being a manager involves more than just watching over people and dealing with underperformers. They sought mentors and learned to be transparent about their vulnerabilities, reserve judgement, and cultivate a feeling of positivity. With more to learn, they continue on their journey.

Insights on Diversity and Inclusion

This article discusses the need for diversity and inclusion in the workplace and the practical steps that can be taken to achieve this. The author outlines their goals to improve diversity and inclusion, such as balancing the recruitment funnel, creating special experiences for diversity candidates, and fostering a culture of inclusion and respect. They also discuss the importance of measuring the impact of their efforts and the lessons they have learned.

Building a Structure for Scaling Teamwork

This article discusses the challenges of restructuring and reorganizing a team, and the actions taken to address them. Hiring was expedited by focusing on diversity and inclusion, and by hiring leaders of the future. The team was aligned through a shared vision and by introducing initiatives to align on engineering principles. Communication was kept open, honest, and transparent. The lessons learned were to align between squads, find suitable tools for communication, and keep communication open and transparent.

Leading a Team: A Short Introduction to Chaos

When joining a small Big Data Engineering team in chaos, the leader had to figure out how to set a vision and roadmap for the team. Through meaningful exercises, the team was able to build a shared vision and mission statement, and set objectives to achieve their goals. The team was able to turn around and hire new talent, and the team still exists today. The key lessons learned were to build a shared vision, put the team through meaningful exercises, and communicate the vision to the rest of the organization.

Achieving High Performance From a Cross-Functional Team

This article discusses how to encourage cross-functional teams to work better together. It is important to focus on building trust between team members, as this is the foundation of a high-performing team. Metrics are important, but they should not be the only measure of team performance. Leaders should step in sooner rather than later to coach teams that are not moving towards high performance, and should focus on healthy team behaviors such as problem solving, retrospectives, and productive conflict.

Hiring the Right Staff and Knowing Who the Right Staff is

In order to ensure the right staff is hired and to maintain a great team, it is important to address problems quickly. This includes talking to team members about any issues that arise, pointing out unacceptable behavior, and taking remedial action such as training and helping team members. If the behavior continues, it is best to remove the person quickly.

Choosing the Right Technology Stack for Your Project

CTOs face the challenge of choosing the right technology stack to ensure their company is future-proof. To do this, they must consider the cloud provider and the technology stack itself, while also taking into account the experience of their developers. To address this challenge, the CTO must take an inventory of the business functions, organize data and product information, and leverage the existing staff resources. Additionally, they must consider API first development, make predictions for the future, and allocate enough time for retooling the organization and training staff.

Overcoming IT Challenges for Onboarding New Hires

This article outlines the steps taken to successfully onboard new hires. The tech lead identified a ramp-up expectation and created a framework to track progress. Weekly and monthly checkpoints were also established to ensure the new hires were on track. The framework proved to be a win-win situation for both employers and employees.

Dire Consequences of a Lack of Product Vision

This article discusses the problem of a company that was unable to ship an MVP due to a lack of product vision and understanding of their customer base. After joining the company, the author identified three main mistakes that were preventing them from shipping their product: incorrect market sizing, not talking to customers, and not having any constraints in place. The article also highlights the importance of serving smaller customers, having constraints, and staying accountable to customers.

Structuring a Large Team: A Two-Phase Approach

When the VP of Engineering joined their previous company, they inherited a team of 18 engineers. The processes remained the same, making the team inefficient and difficult to work with. To address this, they implemented a two-phase approach consisting of deciding on the right structure and conducting a domain analysis to establish what each team owns. This allowed them to form five smaller, self-sustainable squads and create consistency across the teams. They also learned lessons about standups, success metrics, ownership, and visibility.

Developing Better Incident Response Policies

This company needed to support higher levels of uptime and performance guarantees for customers, so they implemented automation of testing and on-call scheduling. Automated testing included unit, UI, click-through, and load tests. On-call scheduling included creating a checklist for people going on call and a playbook for incident response. These changes resulted in faster resolution of issues. Lessons learned include ensuring end-to-end testing, having a unified view of alerts, and creating a checklist and playbook for on-call scheduling.

Providing a Great User Experience When Expanding Internationally

This article discusses the problem of increased latency when connecting to servers based in the US over the public internet. It outlines the various options considered, such as optimizing the code, running different versions of the infrastructure in different regions, and using a hybrid system. Ultimately, the company decided to use tools that allowed for local points of presence and networking, such as Cloudflare and AWS Global Accelerator, to improve the user experience. The article also highlights the importance of understanding the business impact of saying yes and thinking creatively to solve the problem.

Balancing Work and Life as a New Mother

After becoming a mother, a woman was able to successfully balance her work and home life by organizing her time, setting boundaries between work and home life, and relying on her team both in the workplace and at home. She learned that having a sound mind and a strong support system is essential for a successful leader, and that choosing a company with a supportive culture is important for working mothers.

Fostering a Healthy One-on-One Mentorship

This article discusses the importance of establishing a one-on-one relationship with employees in order to increase interconnectivity between departments and provide immediate access to advice, direction, and support. It also emphasizes the importance of understanding the individual needs of employees and providing them with the tools they need to succeed. Finally, it suggests pairing employees with mentors who have already found success in their desired area of specialization.

When Delegation Means Growth

Many first-time managers struggle with delegating and letting things go, which can impede the growth of their reports. To create an environment for people to be autonomous, managers should act as coaches and mentors, guiding their team, having them make decisions, and letting them fail if needed. Managers should also assess if a problem is within the capacities of a person who raised it and ask them about the actions they would take to solve it. Delegation is about responsibility, trust, and accountability, and there are five levels of delegation depending on the seniority and competencies of each individual. Managers need to change their mindset from being problem-solvers to being coaches.

Creating Greater Alignment Among Managers

In order to create alignment among first-line managers, it is necessary to instill in them a sense of belonging to a team of their fellow managers. To do this, the leader created a buddy system, paired people up to work on joint projects, and did full transparent 360 feedback. This allowed the managers to get to know each other better and to ensure that the whole team was working in the same direction. Ultimately, this alignment is necessary to maximize the impact of the organization.

How to Communicate With Former Peers

After being promoted to Director of Engineering, the author found it difficult to maintain relationships with former peers due to the change in perception of their words. They learned to adjust their communication style to be more roundabout and open-ended, and to offer help before asking questions. They also learned that when climbing the ladder, people will perceive them differently and the purpose of their interactions will change. Lastly, they realized that perception shapes how we communicate more than anything else.

Making the Connection Between Developing a Product and the Real-World Consequences of Failure

An Engineering leader faced the challenge of figuring out and picking the OKRs to rally the team. At one of his previous companies, they were in the process of a massive transformation and timely delivery was essential. However, they faced the harsh lesson of the importance of resilience in design from the perspective of technology. To address the problem, they pivoted the framing in terms of investment portfolio allocation, strengthened communication between Engineering and Operations, and measured and understood metrics to give insight to the connections and investments they needed to make. This experience taught the leader the importance of taking accountability, hiring rank-and-file Engineers, and understanding the R&D investment portfolio.

Finding a Higher Calling as a Professional

This article discusses the importance of understanding why we do the work that we do in order to contribute to the world and find our higher purpose. It also emphasizes the importance of emotional intelligence and mentorship in order to define success and happiness. The author shares their journey of adapting to a new career and learning to grow in a foreign environment. They also discuss the importance of advocating for others and investing time and effort in understanding the people you mentor.

Paving the Way for the Women of Tomorrow

This is a story of a woman in the technology field who has experienced the lack of female representation and has taken it upon herself to do something about it. She has learned the importance of leaning in with a diversity initiative, and has taken steps to become an example for young women to follow. She has also learned the importance of mentoring and teaching skills to others, and is now focused on leaving a legacy behind. She is thankful for all the help she has received along the way.

Seeing Past the “Dark Side” of Management

The speaker initially found pride in writing good code and solving problems, but was uninterested in the managerial role. After gaining experience, they learned that being a manager involves more than just watching over people and dealing with underperformers. They sought mentors and learned to be transparent about their vulnerabilities, reserve judgement, and cultivate a feeling of positivity. With more to learn, they continue on their journey.

Insights on Diversity and Inclusion

This article discusses the need for diversity and inclusion in the workplace and the practical steps that can be taken to achieve this. The author outlines their goals to improve diversity and inclusion, such as balancing the recruitment funnel, creating special experiences for diversity candidates, and fostering a culture of inclusion and respect. They also discuss the importance of measuring the impact of their efforts and the lessons they have learned.

Building a Structure for Scaling Teamwork

This article discusses the challenges of restructuring and reorganizing a team, and the actions taken to address them. Hiring was expedited by focusing on diversity and inclusion, and by hiring leaders of the future. The team was aligned through a shared vision and by introducing initiatives to align on engineering principles. Communication was kept open, honest, and transparent. The lessons learned were to align between squads, find suitable tools for communication, and keep communication open and transparent.

Leading a Team: A Short Introduction to Chaos

When joining a small Big Data Engineering team in chaos, the leader had to figure out how to set a vision and roadmap for the team. Through meaningful exercises, the team was able to build a shared vision and mission statement, and set objectives to achieve their goals. The team was able to turn around and hire new talent, and the team still exists today. The key lessons learned were to build a shared vision, put the team through meaningful exercises, and communicate the vision to the rest of the organization.

Achieving High Performance From a Cross-Functional Team

This article discusses how to encourage cross-functional teams to work better together. It is important to focus on building trust between team members, as this is the foundation of a high-performing team. Metrics are important, but they should not be the only measure of team performance. Leaders should step in sooner rather than later to coach teams that are not moving towards high performance, and should focus on healthy team behaviors such as problem solving, retrospectives, and productive conflict.

Hiring the Right Staff and Knowing Who the Right Staff is

In order to ensure the right staff is hired and to maintain a great team, it is important to address problems quickly. This includes talking to team members about any issues that arise, pointing out unacceptable behavior, and taking remedial action such as training and helping team members. If the behavior continues, it is best to remove the person quickly.

Choosing the Right Technology Stack for Your Project

CTOs face the challenge of choosing the right technology stack to ensure their company is future-proof. To do this, they must consider the cloud provider and the technology stack itself, while also taking into account the experience of their developers. To address this challenge, the CTO must take an inventory of the business functions, organize data and product information, and leverage the existing staff resources. Additionally, they must consider API first development, make predictions for the future, and allocate enough time for retooling the organization and training staff.

Overcoming IT Challenges for Onboarding New Hires

This article outlines the steps taken to successfully onboard new hires. The tech lead identified a ramp-up expectation and created a framework to track progress. Weekly and monthly checkpoints were also established to ensure the new hires were on track. The framework proved to be a win-win situation for both employers and employees.

Dire Consequences of a Lack of Product Vision

This article discusses the problem of a company that was unable to ship an MVP due to a lack of product vision and understanding of their customer base. After joining the company, the author identified three main mistakes that were preventing them from shipping their product: incorrect market sizing, not talking to customers, and not having any constraints in place. The article also highlights the importance of serving smaller customers, having constraints, and staying accountable to customers.

Structuring a Large Team: A Two-Phase Approach

When the VP of Engineering joined their previous company, they inherited a team of 18 engineers. The processes remained the same, making the team inefficient and difficult to work with. To address this, they implemented a two-phase approach consisting of deciding on the right structure and conducting a domain analysis to establish what each team owns. This allowed them to form five smaller, self-sustainable squads and create consistency across the teams. They also learned lessons about standups, success metrics, ownership, and visibility.

Developing Better Incident Response Policies

This company needed to support higher levels of uptime and performance guarantees for customers, so they implemented automation of testing and on-call scheduling. Automated testing included unit, UI, click-through, and load tests. On-call scheduling included creating a checklist for people going on call and a playbook for incident response. These changes resulted in faster resolution of issues. Lessons learned include ensuring end-to-end testing, having a unified view of alerts, and creating a checklist and playbook for on-call scheduling.

Providing a Great User Experience When Expanding Internationally

This article discusses the problem of increased latency when connecting to servers based in the US over the public internet. It outlines the various options considered, such as optimizing the code, running different versions of the infrastructure in different regions, and using a hybrid system. Ultimately, the company decided to use tools that allowed for local points of presence and networking, such as Cloudflare and AWS Global Accelerator, to improve the user experience. The article also highlights the importance of understanding the business impact of saying yes and thinking creatively to solve the problem.

Balancing Work and Life as a New Mother

After becoming a mother, a woman was able to successfully balance her work and home life by organizing her time, setting boundaries between work and home life, and relying on her team both in the workplace and at home. She learned that having a sound mind and a strong support system is essential for a successful leader, and that choosing a company with a supportive culture is important for working mothers.

Fostering a Healthy One-on-One Mentorship

This article discusses the importance of establishing a one-on-one relationship with employees in order to increase interconnectivity between departments and provide immediate access to advice, direction, and support. It also emphasizes the importance of understanding the individual needs of employees and providing them with the tools they need to succeed. Finally, it suggests pairing employees with mentors who have already found success in their desired area of specialization.

When Delegation Means Growth

Many first-time managers struggle with delegating and letting things go, which can impede the growth of their reports. To create an environment for people to be autonomous, managers should act as coaches and mentors, guiding their team, having them make decisions, and letting them fail if needed. Managers should also assess if a problem is within the capacities of a person who raised it and ask them about the actions they would take to solve it. Delegation is about responsibility, trust, and accountability, and there are five levels of delegation depending on the seniority and competencies of each individual. Managers need to change their mindset from being problem-solvers to being coaches.

Creating Greater Alignment Among Managers

In order to create alignment among first-line managers, it is necessary to instill in them a sense of belonging to a team of their fellow managers. To do this, the leader created a buddy system, paired people up to work on joint projects, and did full transparent 360 feedback. This allowed the managers to get to know each other better and to ensure that the whole team was working in the same direction. Ultimately, this alignment is necessary to maximize the impact of the organization.

How to Communicate With Former Peers

After being promoted to Director of Engineering, the author found it difficult to maintain relationships with former peers due to the change in perception of their words. They learned to adjust their communication style to be more roundabout and open-ended, and to offer help before asking questions. They also learned that when climbing the ladder, people will perceive them differently and the purpose of their interactions will change. Lastly, they realized that perception shapes how we communicate more than anything else.

Making the Connection Between Developing a Product and the Real-World Consequences of Failure

An Engineering leader faced the challenge of figuring out and picking the OKRs to rally the team. At one of his previous companies, they were in the process of a massive transformation and timely delivery was essential. However, they faced the harsh lesson of the importance of resilience in design from the perspective of technology. To address the problem, they pivoted the framing in terms of investment portfolio allocation, strengthened communication between Engineering and Operations, and measured and understood metrics to give insight to the connections and investments they needed to make. This experience taught the leader the importance of taking accountability, hiring rank-and-file Engineers, and understanding the R&D investment portfolio.

Finding a Higher Calling as a Professional

This article discusses the importance of understanding why we do the work that we do in order to contribute to the world and find our higher purpose. It also emphasizes the importance of emotional intelligence and mentorship in order to define success and happiness. The author shares their journey of adapting to a new career and learning to grow in a foreign environment. They also discuss the importance of advocating for others and investing time and effort in understanding the people you mentor.

Paving the Way for the Women of Tomorrow

This is a story of a woman in the technology field who has experienced the lack of female representation and has taken it upon herself to do something about it. She has learned the importance of leaning in with a diversity initiative, and has taken steps to become an example for young women to follow. She has also learned the importance of mentoring and teaching skills to others, and is now focused on leaving a legacy behind. She is thankful for all the help she has received along the way.

Seeing Past the “Dark Side” of Management

The speaker initially found pride in writing good code and solving problems, but was uninterested in the managerial role. After gaining experience, they learned that being a manager involves more than just watching over people and dealing with underperformers. They sought mentors and learned to be transparent about their vulnerabilities, reserve judgement, and cultivate a feeling of positivity. With more to learn, they continue on their journey.

Insights on Diversity and Inclusion

This article discusses the need for diversity and inclusion in the workplace and the practical steps that can be taken to achieve this. The author outlines their goals to improve diversity and inclusion, such as balancing the recruitment funnel, creating special experiences for diversity candidates, and fostering a culture of inclusion and respect. They also discuss the importance of measuring the impact of their efforts and the lessons they have learned.

Building a Structure for Scaling Teamwork

This article discusses the challenges of restructuring and reorganizing a team, and the actions taken to address them. Hiring was expedited by focusing on diversity and inclusion, and by hiring leaders of the future. The team was aligned through a shared vision and by introducing initiatives to align on engineering principles. Communication was kept open, honest, and transparent. The lessons learned were to align between squads, find suitable tools for communication, and keep communication open and transparent.

Leading a Team: A Short Introduction to Chaos

When joining a small Big Data Engineering team in chaos, the leader had to figure out how to set a vision and roadmap for the team. Through meaningful exercises, the team was able to build a shared vision and mission statement, and set objectives to achieve their goals. The team was able to turn around and hire new talent, and the team still exists today. The key lessons learned were to build a shared vision, put the team through meaningful exercises, and communicate the vision to the rest of the organization.

Achieving High Performance From a Cross-Functional Team

This article discusses how to encourage cross-functional teams to work better together. It is important to focus on building trust between team members, as this is the foundation of a high-performing team. Metrics are important, but they should not be the only measure of team performance. Leaders should step in sooner rather than later to coach teams that are not moving towards high performance, and should focus on healthy team behaviors such as problem solving, retrospectives, and productive conflict.

Hiring the Right Staff and Knowing Who the Right Staff is

In order to ensure the right staff is hired and to maintain a great team, it is important to address problems quickly. This includes talking to team members about any issues that arise, pointing out unacceptable behavior, and taking remedial action such as training and helping team members. If the behavior continues, it is best to remove the person quickly.

Choosing the Right Technology Stack for Your Project

CTOs face the challenge of choosing the right technology stack to ensure their company is future-proof. To do this, they must consider the cloud provider and the technology stack itself, while also taking into account the experience of their developers. To address this challenge, the CTO must take an inventory of the business functions, organize data and product information, and leverage the existing staff resources. Additionally, they must consider API first development, make predictions for the future, and allocate enough time for retooling the organization and training staff.

Overcoming IT Challenges for Onboarding New Hires

This article outlines the steps taken to successfully onboard new hires. The tech lead identified a ramp-up expectation and created a framework to track progress. Weekly and monthly checkpoints were also established to ensure the new hires were on track. The framework proved to be a win-win situation for both employers and employees.

Dire Consequences of a Lack of Product Vision

This article discusses the problem of a company that was unable to ship an MVP due to a lack of product vision and understanding of their customer base. After joining the company, the author identified three main mistakes that were preventing them from shipping their product: incorrect market sizing, not talking to customers, and not having any constraints in place. The article also highlights the importance of serving smaller customers, having constraints, and staying accountable to customers.

Structuring a Large Team: A Two-Phase Approach

When the VP of Engineering joined their previous company, they inherited a team of 18 engineers. The processes remained the same, making the team inefficient and difficult to work with. To address this, they implemented a two-phase approach consisting of deciding on the right structure and conducting a domain analysis to establish what each team owns. This allowed them to form five smaller, self-sustainable squads and create consistency across the teams. They also learned lessons about standups, success metrics, ownership, and visibility.

Developing Better Incident Response Policies

This company needed to support higher levels of uptime and performance guarantees for customers, so they implemented automation of testing and on-call scheduling. Automated testing included unit, UI, click-through, and load tests. On-call scheduling included creating a checklist for people going on call and a playbook for incident response. These changes resulted in faster resolution of issues. Lessons learned include ensuring end-to-end testing, having a unified view of alerts, and creating a checklist and playbook for on-call scheduling.

Providing a Great User Experience When Expanding Internationally

This article discusses the problem of increased latency when connecting to servers based in the US over the public internet. It outlines the various options considered, such as optimizing the code, running different versions of the infrastructure in different regions, and using a hybrid system. Ultimately, the company decided to use tools that allowed for local points of presence and networking, such as Cloudflare and AWS Global Accelerator, to improve the user experience. The article also highlights the importance of understanding the business impact of saying yes and thinking creatively to solve the problem.

Balancing Work and Life as a New Mother

After becoming a mother, a woman was able to successfully balance her work and home life by organizing her time, setting boundaries between work and home life, and relying on her team both in the workplace and at home. She learned that having a sound mind and a strong support system is essential for a successful leader, and that choosing a company with a supportive culture is important for working mothers.

Fostering a Healthy One-on-One Mentorship

This article discusses the importance of establishing a one-on-one relationship with employees in order to increase interconnectivity between departments and provide immediate access to advice, direction, and support. It also emphasizes the importance of understanding the individual needs of employees and providing them with the tools they need to succeed. Finally, it suggests pairing employees with mentors who have already found success in their desired area of specialization.

When Delegation Means Growth

Many first-time managers struggle with delegating and letting things go, which can impede the growth of their reports. To create an environment for people to be autonomous, managers should act as coaches and mentors, guiding their team, having them make decisions, and letting them fail if needed. Managers should also assess if a problem is within the capacities of a person who raised it and ask them about the actions they would take to solve it. Delegation is about responsibility, trust, and accountability, and there are five levels of delegation depending on the seniority and competencies of each individual. Managers need to change their mindset from being problem-solvers to being coaches.

Creating Greater Alignment Among Managers

In order to create alignment among first-line managers, it is necessary to instill in them a sense of belonging to a team of their fellow managers. To do this, the leader created a buddy system, paired people up to work on joint projects, and did full transparent 360 feedback. This allowed the managers to get to know each other better and to ensure that the whole team was working in the same direction. Ultimately, this alignment is necessary to maximize the impact of the organization.

How to Communicate With Former Peers

After being promoted to Director of Engineering, the author found it difficult to maintain relationships with former peers due to the change in perception of their words. They learned to adjust their communication style to be more roundabout and open-ended, and to offer help before asking questions. They also learned that when climbing the ladder, people will perceive them differently and the purpose of their interactions will change. Lastly, they realized that perception shapes how we communicate more than anything else.

Making the Connection Between Developing a Product and the Real-World Consequences of Failure

An Engineering leader faced the challenge of figuring out and picking the OKRs to rally the team. At one of his previous companies, they were in the process of a massive transformation and timely delivery was essential. However, they faced the harsh lesson of the importance of resilience in design from the perspective of technology. To address the problem, they pivoted the framing in terms of investment portfolio allocation, strengthened communication between Engineering and Operations, and measured and understood metrics to give insight to the connections and investments they needed to make. This experience taught the leader the importance of taking accountability, hiring rank-and-file Engineers, and understanding the R&D investment portfolio.

Finding a Higher Calling as a Professional

This article discusses the importance of understanding why we do the work that we do in order to contribute to the world and find our higher purpose. It also emphasizes the importance of emotional intelligence and mentorship in order to define success and happiness. The author shares their journey of adapting to a new career and learning to grow in a foreign environment. They also discuss the importance of advocating for others and investing time and effort in understanding the people you mentor.

Paving the Way for the Women of Tomorrow

This is a story of a woman in the technology field who has experienced the lack of female representation and has taken it upon herself to do something about it. She has learned the importance of leaning in with a diversity initiative, and has taken steps to become an example for young women to follow. She has also learned the importance of mentoring and teaching skills to others, and is now focused on leaving a legacy behind. She is thankful for all the help she has received along the way.

Seeing Past the “Dark Side” of Management

The speaker initially found pride in writing good code and solving problems, but was uninterested in the managerial role. After gaining experience, they learned that being a manager involves more than just watching over people and dealing with underperformers. They sought mentors and learned to be transparent about their vulnerabilities, reserve judgement, and cultivate a feeling of positivity. With more to learn, they continue on their journey.

Insights on Diversity and Inclusion

This article discusses the need for diversity and inclusion in the workplace and the practical steps that can be taken to achieve this. The author outlines their goals to improve diversity and inclusion, such as balancing the recruitment funnel, creating special experiences for diversity candidates, and fostering a culture of inclusion and respect. They also discuss the importance of measuring the impact of their efforts and the lessons they have learned.

Building a Structure for Scaling Teamwork

This article discusses the challenges of restructuring and reorganizing a team, and the actions taken to address them. Hiring was expedited by focusing on diversity and inclusion, and by hiring leaders of the future. The team was aligned through a shared vision and by introducing initiatives to align on engineering principles. Communication was kept open, honest, and transparent. The lessons learned were to align between squads, find suitable tools for communication, and keep communication open and transparent.

Leading a Team: A Short Introduction to Chaos

When joining a small Big Data Engineering team in chaos, the leader had to figure out how to set a vision and roadmap for the team. Through meaningful exercises, the team was able to build a shared vision and mission statement, and set objectives to achieve their goals. The team was able to turn around and hire new talent, and the team still exists today. The key lessons learned were to build a shared vision, put the team through meaningful exercises, and communicate the vision to the rest of the organization.

Achieving High Performance From a Cross-Functional Team

This article discusses how to encourage cross-functional teams to work better together. It is important to focus on building trust between team members, as this is the foundation of a high-performing team. Metrics are important, but they should not be the only measure of team performance. Leaders should step in sooner rather than later to coach teams that are not moving towards high performance, and should focus on healthy team behaviors such as problem solving, retrospectives, and productive conflict.

Hiring the Right Staff and Knowing Who the Right Staff is

In order to ensure the right staff is hired and to maintain a great team, it is important to address problems quickly. This includes talking to team members about any issues that arise, pointing out unacceptable behavior, and taking remedial action such as training and helping team members. If the behavior continues, it is best to remove the person quickly.

Choosing the Right Technology Stack for Your Project

CTOs face the challenge of choosing the right technology stack to ensure their company is future-proof. To do this, they must consider the cloud provider and the technology stack itself, while also taking into account the experience of their developers. To address this challenge, the CTO must take an inventory of the business functions, organize data and product information, and leverage the existing staff resources. Additionally, they must consider API first development, make predictions for the future, and allocate enough time for retooling the organization and training staff.

Overcoming IT Challenges for Onboarding New Hires

This article outlines the steps taken to successfully onboard new hires. The tech lead identified a ramp-up expectation and created a framework to track progress. Weekly and monthly checkpoints were also established to ensure the new hires were on track. The framework proved to be a win-win situation for both employers and employees.

Dire Consequences of a Lack of Product Vision

This article discusses the problem of a company that was unable to ship an MVP due to a lack of product vision and understanding of their customer base. After joining the company, the author identified three main mistakes that were preventing them from shipping their product: incorrect market sizing, not talking to customers, and not having any constraints in place. The article also highlights the importance of serving smaller customers, having constraints, and staying accountable to customers.

Structuring a Large Team: A Two-Phase Approach

When the VP of Engineering joined their previous company, they inherited a team of 18 engineers. The processes remained the same, making the team inefficient and difficult to work with. To address this, they implemented a two-phase approach consisting of deciding on the right structure and conducting a domain analysis to establish what each team owns. This allowed them to form five smaller, self-sustainable squads and create consistency across the teams. They also learned lessons about standups, success metrics, ownership, and visibility.

Developing Better Incident Response Policies

This company needed to support higher levels of uptime and performance guarantees for customers, so they implemented automation of testing and on-call scheduling. Automated testing included unit, UI, click-through, and load tests. On-call scheduling included creating a checklist for people going on call and a playbook for incident response. These changes resulted in faster resolution of issues. Lessons learned include ensuring end-to-end testing, having a unified view of alerts, and creating a checklist and playbook for on-call scheduling.

Providing a Great User Experience When Expanding Internationally

This article discusses the problem of increased latency when connecting to servers based in the US over the public internet. It outlines the various options considered, such as optimizing the code, running different versions of the infrastructure in different regions, and using a hybrid system. Ultimately, the company decided to use tools that allowed for local points of presence and networking, such as Cloudflare and AWS Global Accelerator, to improve the user experience. The article also highlights the importance of understanding the business impact of saying yes and thinking creatively to solve the problem.

Balancing Work and Life as a New Mother

After becoming a mother, a woman was able to successfully balance her work and home life by organizing her time, setting boundaries between work and home life, and relying on her team both in the workplace and at home. She learned that having a sound mind and a strong support system is essential for a successful leader, and that choosing a company with a supportive culture is important for working mothers.

Fostering a Healthy One-on-One Mentorship

This article discusses the importance of establishing a one-on-one relationship with employees in order to increase interconnectivity between departments and provide immediate access to advice, direction, and support. It also emphasizes the importance of understanding the individual needs of employees and providing them with the tools they need to succeed. Finally, it suggests pairing employees with mentors who have already found success in their desired area of specialization.

When Delegation Means Growth

Many first-time managers struggle with delegating and letting things go, which can impede the growth of their reports. To create an environment for people to be autonomous, managers should act as coaches and mentors, guiding their team, having them make decisions, and letting them fail if needed. Managers should also assess if a problem is within the capacities of a person who raised it and ask them about the actions they would take to solve it. Delegation is about responsibility, trust, and accountability, and there are five levels of delegation depending on the seniority and competencies of each individual. Managers need to change their mindset from being problem-solvers to being coaches.

Creating Greater Alignment Among Managers

In order to create alignment among first-line managers, it is necessary to instill in them a sense of belonging to a team of their fellow managers. To do this, the leader created a buddy system, paired people up to work on joint projects, and did full transparent 360 feedback. This allowed the managers to get to know each other better and to ensure that the whole team was working in the same direction. Ultimately, this alignment is necessary to maximize the impact of the organization.

How to Communicate With Former Peers

After being promoted to Director of Engineering, the author found it difficult to maintain relationships with former peers due to the change in perception of their words. They learned to adjust their communication style to be more roundabout and open-ended, and to offer help before asking questions. They also learned that when climbing the ladder, people will perceive them differently and the purpose of their interactions will change. Lastly, they realized that perception shapes how we communicate more than anything else.

Making the Connection Between Developing a Product and the Real-World Consequences of Failure

An Engineering leader faced the challenge of figuring out and picking the OKRs to rally the team. At one of his previous companies, they were in the process of a massive transformation and timely delivery was essential. However, they faced the harsh lesson of the importance of resilience in design from the perspective of technology. To address the problem, they pivoted the framing in terms of investment portfolio allocation, strengthened communication between Engineering and Operations, and measured and understood metrics to give insight to the connections and investments they needed to make. This experience taught the leader the importance of taking accountability, hiring rank-and-file Engineers, and understanding the R&D investment portfolio.

Finding a Higher Calling as a Professional

This article discusses the importance of understanding why we do the work that we do in order to contribute to the world and find our higher purpose. It also emphasizes the importance of emotional intelligence and mentorship in order to define success and happiness. The author shares their journey of adapting to a new career and learning to grow in a foreign environment. They also discuss the importance of advocating for others and investing time and effort in understanding the people you mentor.

Paving the Way for the Women of Tomorrow

This is a story of a woman in the technology field who has experienced the lack of female representation and has taken it upon herself to do something about it. She has learned the importance of leaning in with a diversity initiative, and has taken steps to become an example for young women to follow. She has also learned the importance of mentoring and teaching skills to others, and is now focused on leaving a legacy behind. She is thankful for all the help she has received along the way.

Seeing Past the “Dark Side” of Management

The speaker initially found pride in writing good code and solving problems, but was uninterested in the managerial role. After gaining experience, they learned that being a manager involves more than just watching over people and dealing with underperformers. They sought mentors and learned to be transparent about their vulnerabilities, reserve judgement, and cultivate a feeling of positivity. With more to learn, they continue on their journey.

Insights on Diversity and Inclusion

This article discusses the need for diversity and inclusion in the workplace and the practical steps that can be taken to achieve this. The author outlines their goals to improve diversity and inclusion, such as balancing the recruitment funnel, creating special experiences for diversity candidates, and fostering a culture of inclusion and respect. They also discuss the importance of measuring the impact of their efforts and the lessons they have learned.

Building a Structure for Scaling Teamwork

This article discusses the challenges of restructuring and reorganizing a team, and the actions taken to address them. Hiring was expedited by focusing on diversity and inclusion, and by hiring leaders of the future. The team was aligned through a shared vision and by introducing initiatives to align on engineering principles. Communication was kept open, honest, and transparent. The lessons learned were to align between squads, find suitable tools for communication, and keep communication open and transparent.

Leading a Team: A Short Introduction to Chaos

When joining a small Big Data Engineering team in chaos, the leader had to figure out how to set a vision and roadmap for the team. Through meaningful exercises, the team was able to build a shared vision and mission statement, and set objectives to achieve their goals. The team was able to turn around and hire new talent, and the team still exists today. The key lessons learned were to build a shared vision, put the team through meaningful exercises, and communicate the vision to the rest of the organization.

Achieving High Performance From a Cross-Functional Team

This article discusses how to encourage cross-functional teams to work better together. It is important to focus on building trust between team members, as this is the foundation of a high-performing team. Metrics are important, but they should not be the only measure of team performance. Leaders should step in sooner rather than later to coach teams that are not moving towards high performance, and should focus on healthy team behaviors such as problem solving, retrospectives, and productive conflict.