Knowledge shared by our community

Supporting Your Employees In Their Career Transition

This case study outlines the process of transitioning a QA engineer to a development role, including the challenges faced and lessons learned. The company had to assess the resources needed to support the transition and training, and create a timeline with milestones for the transition. The transition was successful and highlighted the company's goal of supporting career progressions of their employees. The manager learned that they should be more concerned with their employees' happiness and career progression.

Building a Prototype With Limited Resources

This article discusses the process of building a prototype with limited resources and how to manage the risks associated with it. It emphasizes the importance of setting clear objectives and success metrics, envisioning the MVP, and checking in regularly to ensure that the project is on track. It also highlights the need to keep a written trail to prevent misunderstandings and to make sure that everyone is aware of the risks associated with the project.

How to Achieve Cross-Departmental Alignment

Misunderstandings and misalignments between departments can be caused by different terminologies, agendas, and contexts. To overcome this, it is important to ask questions, listen carefully, and refer to first principles and annual business goals. Everyone should understand their role in the company and how it contributes to the company's success, and use first principles as pillars to safeguard that. If all else fails, people should take the calculated risk to choose the best approach.

Preventing Engineering Turnover

This article discusses how to retain software engineers, especially in smaller companies, in the face of competition from larger companies. The author's approach was to focus on creating a company culture of psychological safety, lightheartedness, empathy, autonomy, and transparency. This approach was successful in retaining talent, and the author believes that engineers often look beyond financial compensation when deciding on a company.

Staying Technical as a Mobile Engineering Manager

Mobile engineering managers often struggle to keep up with the rapidly evolving technologies in the industry. To stay up to date, they should read technical blogs, attend conferences, and become familiar with recent trends in software engineering. While it is possible to stay technical, managers should focus on developing a shared context between different departments and creating a synergy that will bring value to the business.

Handling Strong Personalities on the Team

A manager encountered a domineering engineer on their team who was overly concerned with tech debt and proposed a number of changes, but due to his domineering personality, everyone else on the team was taking his opinion for granted and avoiding confronting him. The manager had to confront the engineer and ask for a foolproof strategy for tech debt before moving forward, as well as repeatedly talk to other people on the team and encourage them to voice their opinions. The manager learned that they had to confront domineering engineers and make them accountable, do due diligence, and demonstrate the exact value of a project before moving forward.

Setting the Right OKRs With Your Team

A SEO team was tasked with increasing their page indexing in Google to 7 percent. To achieve this, the team was divided into small groups and encouraged to brainstorm ideas. After discussing the ideas and voting on them, five sprint stories were developed and tasks were assigned. At the end of the quarter, the team managed to reach 13 percent, a 17 percent increase. The lesson learned was that involving the team in goal-setting and having a collaborative brainstorming session was beneficial in terms of ownership and engagement.

Improving an Underperforming Team by Instilling in Them a Sense of Ownership

A small team of engineers was not producing satisfactory work due to the senior engineer's overburdening of knowledge from multiple projects. To solve this, the team was split into smaller squads and given ownership of specific services. Through documentation, brown bag sessions, and support from the manager, the team was able to become more organized and successful, eventually being assigned the most ambitious project. The manager learned that ownership and the right balance of support and motivation are key to success.

Deciding If a Management Is the Right Career Path for You

An engineer who wanted to stay on the technical route was asked to try out management. After struggling to juggle between too many things, they took management training and read books and articles about management. This helped them to adjust their management style to each individual on the team, ask the right questions, and become more comfortable with silence during one-on-ones. They learned that what made them an accomplished IC won't make them a good manager and that there are fewer opportunities for principal engineers than for managers.

Influencing People and Getting Your Items Into Their Backlog

A senior IC was interested in having teams work on reliability-related initiatives but lacked engineers to make it a reality. To make his case, he analyzed data, tailored his message to different audiences, and proposed solutions in iterative steps. He learned to align his goals with the organization's planning cadence, tie improvements to business outcomes and customer needs, talk to stakeholders separately, not leave anyone out, and make himself available.

Networking As an Introverted Engineer

An introvert engineer shares how they overcame their fear of networking and built the largest community for WomenInAI. They redefined networking to mean talking to people, learning from people, and helping people, and developed empathy for others. They also share tips on how to maximize their social battery life, such as scheduling time for themselves before and after meetings, and rescheduling if they are socially fatigued.

Staying Productive: A Resource-Rich Cheat Sheet You Will Ever Need

Productivity is a highly valued metric in the modern workplace, and there are many tools and processes available to help individuals become and stay productive. Eight areas of life have been identified where productivity can be improved, such as setting goals, making to-do lists, timeboxing, unboxing time, optimizing tasks, staying focused, feeling inspired, and reviewing progress. It is important to experiment with different tools and processes to find what works best for you, and to remember to take breaks and not become over-obsessed with productivity.

Building an Exponential High-Performing Team

When starting a business, it is important to build a diverse team with different skill sets, backgrounds, knowledge, vision, and preferences. This will enable the team to try new technologies, modify processes quickly, and choose from a variety of perspectives. It is also important to think about duplicating roles as the team grows, and to mix up senior and junior employees, corporate and startup people, and extroverts and introverts. The lesson learned is to look for diversity that can generate more added value instead of hiring like-minded people.

Handing the Team Over To a New Manager

When transitioning a team to a new manager, it is important to be transparent and available to the team, while also avoiding micromanaging and ambiguity. The process should be broken down into three phases: pre-handover, handover, and post-handover. During the pre-handover phase, it is important to transfer operational and personnel knowledge and address any insecurities the team may have. During the handover phase, the transition should be as short as possible and the new manager should be publicly announced. During the post-handover phase, the former manager should check in with the team from a distance and address any issues the new manager may be having.

Skip-Level One-On-Ones: Skip Them of Keep Them?

A leader was struggling with too many reports and decided to hire new managers. To avoid undermining their authority, the leader canceled one-on-ones with their direct reports and instead introduced the Open Doors, a voluntary event that allowed them to stay close to their engineers without taking up too much time. Through this, the leader was able to identify potential problems in their early stages and stay connected with their team.

Growing Engineering Organization: One Step At a Time

This article discusses the challenges faced by a manager when their engineering team rapidly scaled from seven to thirty people. The manager initially tried to manage everything by themselves, but soon realized they needed to delegate responsibilities and hire managers. They developed an organizational structure that included roles and responsibilities and received feedback from their employees. They also followed the MECE principle and avoided managing dependencies. The article also provides lessons learned, such as the importance of thinking about the organizational structure in advance, structuring teams by their expertise, and hiring managers who can manage people, not capabilities.

Balancing Multiple Assignments: Determine What Is "Important" in Each of Them

As a senior engineer, the author was tasked with leading a large initiative while managing their regular day-to-day responsibilities. To ensure the success of the project, the author identified the skills and competencies of the team members, identified the critical things to get right, and worked closely with the Product Manager. The author also selectively attended meetings and worked on writing the design doc and reviewing the implementation. Through this process, the author learned to prioritize their time and be available for the team, while also ensuring that the most complex parts of the project were solved correctly.

The Power of Documentation Seen Through the Lens of a Manager

This article discusses the importance of comprehensive, reliable, and accessible documentation for managers to ensure consistency and alignment across the company. The author provides insight into the actions taken to create and maintain documentation, such as creating templates, reading documentation daily, and using tools that encourage team collaboration. The article also highlights the importance of providing a framework for documentation to help engineers grow in their careers and transfer knowledge to their colleagues.

Managing an Engineer’s Career Development in a Fast-Paced Environment

Managers play a critical role in the career development of engineers, especially in startups where job roles and departments are not well-defined. To ensure engineers are productive and happy, managers should customize one-on-ones to the engineer's preferences, set SMART objectives, and allow engineers to pursue their own projects. Managers should also listen to engineers to understand their preferences and clarify leadership and management roles to avoid confusion.

Ramping-Up a New Person

This article outlines a checklist of ramp-up activities to ensure successful onboarding of a new person. These activities include having a framework in place, setting clear expectations, having regular check-ins, documenting everything, tracking progress, delegating onboarding tasks, and keeping communication channels accessible. At the end of the six months introductory period, a small celebration is held and information about a successful onboarding is sent out to the whole company. The article also highlights the importance of having a functional and meaningful structure and setting clear expectations to ensure successful onboarding.

Supporting Your Employees In Their Career Transition

This case study outlines the process of transitioning a QA engineer to a development role, including the challenges faced and lessons learned. The company had to assess the resources needed to support the transition and training, and create a timeline with milestones for the transition. The transition was successful and highlighted the company's goal of supporting career progressions of their employees. The manager learned that they should be more concerned with their employees' happiness and career progression.

Building a Prototype With Limited Resources

This article discusses the process of building a prototype with limited resources and how to manage the risks associated with it. It emphasizes the importance of setting clear objectives and success metrics, envisioning the MVP, and checking in regularly to ensure that the project is on track. It also highlights the need to keep a written trail to prevent misunderstandings and to make sure that everyone is aware of the risks associated with the project.

How to Achieve Cross-Departmental Alignment

Misunderstandings and misalignments between departments can be caused by different terminologies, agendas, and contexts. To overcome this, it is important to ask questions, listen carefully, and refer to first principles and annual business goals. Everyone should understand their role in the company and how it contributes to the company's success, and use first principles as pillars to safeguard that. If all else fails, people should take the calculated risk to choose the best approach.

Preventing Engineering Turnover

This article discusses how to retain software engineers, especially in smaller companies, in the face of competition from larger companies. The author's approach was to focus on creating a company culture of psychological safety, lightheartedness, empathy, autonomy, and transparency. This approach was successful in retaining talent, and the author believes that engineers often look beyond financial compensation when deciding on a company.

Staying Technical as a Mobile Engineering Manager

Mobile engineering managers often struggle to keep up with the rapidly evolving technologies in the industry. To stay up to date, they should read technical blogs, attend conferences, and become familiar with recent trends in software engineering. While it is possible to stay technical, managers should focus on developing a shared context between different departments and creating a synergy that will bring value to the business.

Handling Strong Personalities on the Team

A manager encountered a domineering engineer on their team who was overly concerned with tech debt and proposed a number of changes, but due to his domineering personality, everyone else on the team was taking his opinion for granted and avoiding confronting him. The manager had to confront the engineer and ask for a foolproof strategy for tech debt before moving forward, as well as repeatedly talk to other people on the team and encourage them to voice their opinions. The manager learned that they had to confront domineering engineers and make them accountable, do due diligence, and demonstrate the exact value of a project before moving forward.

Setting the Right OKRs With Your Team

A SEO team was tasked with increasing their page indexing in Google to 7 percent. To achieve this, the team was divided into small groups and encouraged to brainstorm ideas. After discussing the ideas and voting on them, five sprint stories were developed and tasks were assigned. At the end of the quarter, the team managed to reach 13 percent, a 17 percent increase. The lesson learned was that involving the team in goal-setting and having a collaborative brainstorming session was beneficial in terms of ownership and engagement.

Improving an Underperforming Team by Instilling in Them a Sense of Ownership

A small team of engineers was not producing satisfactory work due to the senior engineer's overburdening of knowledge from multiple projects. To solve this, the team was split into smaller squads and given ownership of specific services. Through documentation, brown bag sessions, and support from the manager, the team was able to become more organized and successful, eventually being assigned the most ambitious project. The manager learned that ownership and the right balance of support and motivation are key to success.

Deciding If a Management Is the Right Career Path for You

An engineer who wanted to stay on the technical route was asked to try out management. After struggling to juggle between too many things, they took management training and read books and articles about management. This helped them to adjust their management style to each individual on the team, ask the right questions, and become more comfortable with silence during one-on-ones. They learned that what made them an accomplished IC won't make them a good manager and that there are fewer opportunities for principal engineers than for managers.

Influencing People and Getting Your Items Into Their Backlog

A senior IC was interested in having teams work on reliability-related initiatives but lacked engineers to make it a reality. To make his case, he analyzed data, tailored his message to different audiences, and proposed solutions in iterative steps. He learned to align his goals with the organization's planning cadence, tie improvements to business outcomes and customer needs, talk to stakeholders separately, not leave anyone out, and make himself available.

Networking As an Introverted Engineer

An introvert engineer shares how they overcame their fear of networking and built the largest community for WomenInAI. They redefined networking to mean talking to people, learning from people, and helping people, and developed empathy for others. They also share tips on how to maximize their social battery life, such as scheduling time for themselves before and after meetings, and rescheduling if they are socially fatigued.

Staying Productive: A Resource-Rich Cheat Sheet You Will Ever Need

Productivity is a highly valued metric in the modern workplace, and there are many tools and processes available to help individuals become and stay productive. Eight areas of life have been identified where productivity can be improved, such as setting goals, making to-do lists, timeboxing, unboxing time, optimizing tasks, staying focused, feeling inspired, and reviewing progress. It is important to experiment with different tools and processes to find what works best for you, and to remember to take breaks and not become over-obsessed with productivity.

Building an Exponential High-Performing Team

When starting a business, it is important to build a diverse team with different skill sets, backgrounds, knowledge, vision, and preferences. This will enable the team to try new technologies, modify processes quickly, and choose from a variety of perspectives. It is also important to think about duplicating roles as the team grows, and to mix up senior and junior employees, corporate and startup people, and extroverts and introverts. The lesson learned is to look for diversity that can generate more added value instead of hiring like-minded people.

Handing the Team Over To a New Manager

When transitioning a team to a new manager, it is important to be transparent and available to the team, while also avoiding micromanaging and ambiguity. The process should be broken down into three phases: pre-handover, handover, and post-handover. During the pre-handover phase, it is important to transfer operational and personnel knowledge and address any insecurities the team may have. During the handover phase, the transition should be as short as possible and the new manager should be publicly announced. During the post-handover phase, the former manager should check in with the team from a distance and address any issues the new manager may be having.

Skip-Level One-On-Ones: Skip Them of Keep Them?

A leader was struggling with too many reports and decided to hire new managers. To avoid undermining their authority, the leader canceled one-on-ones with their direct reports and instead introduced the Open Doors, a voluntary event that allowed them to stay close to their engineers without taking up too much time. Through this, the leader was able to identify potential problems in their early stages and stay connected with their team.

Growing Engineering Organization: One Step At a Time

This article discusses the challenges faced by a manager when their engineering team rapidly scaled from seven to thirty people. The manager initially tried to manage everything by themselves, but soon realized they needed to delegate responsibilities and hire managers. They developed an organizational structure that included roles and responsibilities and received feedback from their employees. They also followed the MECE principle and avoided managing dependencies. The article also provides lessons learned, such as the importance of thinking about the organizational structure in advance, structuring teams by their expertise, and hiring managers who can manage people, not capabilities.

Balancing Multiple Assignments: Determine What Is "Important" in Each of Them

As a senior engineer, the author was tasked with leading a large initiative while managing their regular day-to-day responsibilities. To ensure the success of the project, the author identified the skills and competencies of the team members, identified the critical things to get right, and worked closely with the Product Manager. The author also selectively attended meetings and worked on writing the design doc and reviewing the implementation. Through this process, the author learned to prioritize their time and be available for the team, while also ensuring that the most complex parts of the project were solved correctly.

The Power of Documentation Seen Through the Lens of a Manager

This article discusses the importance of comprehensive, reliable, and accessible documentation for managers to ensure consistency and alignment across the company. The author provides insight into the actions taken to create and maintain documentation, such as creating templates, reading documentation daily, and using tools that encourage team collaboration. The article also highlights the importance of providing a framework for documentation to help engineers grow in their careers and transfer knowledge to their colleagues.

Managing an Engineer’s Career Development in a Fast-Paced Environment

Managers play a critical role in the career development of engineers, especially in startups where job roles and departments are not well-defined. To ensure engineers are productive and happy, managers should customize one-on-ones to the engineer's preferences, set SMART objectives, and allow engineers to pursue their own projects. Managers should also listen to engineers to understand their preferences and clarify leadership and management roles to avoid confusion.

Ramping-Up a New Person

This article outlines a checklist of ramp-up activities to ensure successful onboarding of a new person. These activities include having a framework in place, setting clear expectations, having regular check-ins, documenting everything, tracking progress, delegating onboarding tasks, and keeping communication channels accessible. At the end of the six months introductory period, a small celebration is held and information about a successful onboarding is sent out to the whole company. The article also highlights the importance of having a functional and meaningful structure and setting clear expectations to ensure successful onboarding.

Supporting Your Employees In Their Career Transition

This case study outlines the process of transitioning a QA engineer to a development role, including the challenges faced and lessons learned. The company had to assess the resources needed to support the transition and training, and create a timeline with milestones for the transition. The transition was successful and highlighted the company's goal of supporting career progressions of their employees. The manager learned that they should be more concerned with their employees' happiness and career progression.

Building a Prototype With Limited Resources

This article discusses the process of building a prototype with limited resources and how to manage the risks associated with it. It emphasizes the importance of setting clear objectives and success metrics, envisioning the MVP, and checking in regularly to ensure that the project is on track. It also highlights the need to keep a written trail to prevent misunderstandings and to make sure that everyone is aware of the risks associated with the project.

How to Achieve Cross-Departmental Alignment

Misunderstandings and misalignments between departments can be caused by different terminologies, agendas, and contexts. To overcome this, it is important to ask questions, listen carefully, and refer to first principles and annual business goals. Everyone should understand their role in the company and how it contributes to the company's success, and use first principles as pillars to safeguard that. If all else fails, people should take the calculated risk to choose the best approach.

Preventing Engineering Turnover

This article discusses how to retain software engineers, especially in smaller companies, in the face of competition from larger companies. The author's approach was to focus on creating a company culture of psychological safety, lightheartedness, empathy, autonomy, and transparency. This approach was successful in retaining talent, and the author believes that engineers often look beyond financial compensation when deciding on a company.

Staying Technical as a Mobile Engineering Manager

Mobile engineering managers often struggle to keep up with the rapidly evolving technologies in the industry. To stay up to date, they should read technical blogs, attend conferences, and become familiar with recent trends in software engineering. While it is possible to stay technical, managers should focus on developing a shared context between different departments and creating a synergy that will bring value to the business.

Handling Strong Personalities on the Team

A manager encountered a domineering engineer on their team who was overly concerned with tech debt and proposed a number of changes, but due to his domineering personality, everyone else on the team was taking his opinion for granted and avoiding confronting him. The manager had to confront the engineer and ask for a foolproof strategy for tech debt before moving forward, as well as repeatedly talk to other people on the team and encourage them to voice their opinions. The manager learned that they had to confront domineering engineers and make them accountable, do due diligence, and demonstrate the exact value of a project before moving forward.

Setting the Right OKRs With Your Team

A SEO team was tasked with increasing their page indexing in Google to 7 percent. To achieve this, the team was divided into small groups and encouraged to brainstorm ideas. After discussing the ideas and voting on them, five sprint stories were developed and tasks were assigned. At the end of the quarter, the team managed to reach 13 percent, a 17 percent increase. The lesson learned was that involving the team in goal-setting and having a collaborative brainstorming session was beneficial in terms of ownership and engagement.

Improving an Underperforming Team by Instilling in Them a Sense of Ownership

A small team of engineers was not producing satisfactory work due to the senior engineer's overburdening of knowledge from multiple projects. To solve this, the team was split into smaller squads and given ownership of specific services. Through documentation, brown bag sessions, and support from the manager, the team was able to become more organized and successful, eventually being assigned the most ambitious project. The manager learned that ownership and the right balance of support and motivation are key to success.

Deciding If a Management Is the Right Career Path for You

An engineer who wanted to stay on the technical route was asked to try out management. After struggling to juggle between too many things, they took management training and read books and articles about management. This helped them to adjust their management style to each individual on the team, ask the right questions, and become more comfortable with silence during one-on-ones. They learned that what made them an accomplished IC won't make them a good manager and that there are fewer opportunities for principal engineers than for managers.

Influencing People and Getting Your Items Into Their Backlog

A senior IC was interested in having teams work on reliability-related initiatives but lacked engineers to make it a reality. To make his case, he analyzed data, tailored his message to different audiences, and proposed solutions in iterative steps. He learned to align his goals with the organization's planning cadence, tie improvements to business outcomes and customer needs, talk to stakeholders separately, not leave anyone out, and make himself available.

Networking As an Introverted Engineer

An introvert engineer shares how they overcame their fear of networking and built the largest community for WomenInAI. They redefined networking to mean talking to people, learning from people, and helping people, and developed empathy for others. They also share tips on how to maximize their social battery life, such as scheduling time for themselves before and after meetings, and rescheduling if they are socially fatigued.

Staying Productive: A Resource-Rich Cheat Sheet You Will Ever Need

Productivity is a highly valued metric in the modern workplace, and there are many tools and processes available to help individuals become and stay productive. Eight areas of life have been identified where productivity can be improved, such as setting goals, making to-do lists, timeboxing, unboxing time, optimizing tasks, staying focused, feeling inspired, and reviewing progress. It is important to experiment with different tools and processes to find what works best for you, and to remember to take breaks and not become over-obsessed with productivity.

Building an Exponential High-Performing Team

When starting a business, it is important to build a diverse team with different skill sets, backgrounds, knowledge, vision, and preferences. This will enable the team to try new technologies, modify processes quickly, and choose from a variety of perspectives. It is also important to think about duplicating roles as the team grows, and to mix up senior and junior employees, corporate and startup people, and extroverts and introverts. The lesson learned is to look for diversity that can generate more added value instead of hiring like-minded people.

Handing the Team Over To a New Manager

When transitioning a team to a new manager, it is important to be transparent and available to the team, while also avoiding micromanaging and ambiguity. The process should be broken down into three phases: pre-handover, handover, and post-handover. During the pre-handover phase, it is important to transfer operational and personnel knowledge and address any insecurities the team may have. During the handover phase, the transition should be as short as possible and the new manager should be publicly announced. During the post-handover phase, the former manager should check in with the team from a distance and address any issues the new manager may be having.

Skip-Level One-On-Ones: Skip Them of Keep Them?

A leader was struggling with too many reports and decided to hire new managers. To avoid undermining their authority, the leader canceled one-on-ones with their direct reports and instead introduced the Open Doors, a voluntary event that allowed them to stay close to their engineers without taking up too much time. Through this, the leader was able to identify potential problems in their early stages and stay connected with their team.

Growing Engineering Organization: One Step At a Time

This article discusses the challenges faced by a manager when their engineering team rapidly scaled from seven to thirty people. The manager initially tried to manage everything by themselves, but soon realized they needed to delegate responsibilities and hire managers. They developed an organizational structure that included roles and responsibilities and received feedback from their employees. They also followed the MECE principle and avoided managing dependencies. The article also provides lessons learned, such as the importance of thinking about the organizational structure in advance, structuring teams by their expertise, and hiring managers who can manage people, not capabilities.

Balancing Multiple Assignments: Determine What Is "Important" in Each of Them

As a senior engineer, the author was tasked with leading a large initiative while managing their regular day-to-day responsibilities. To ensure the success of the project, the author identified the skills and competencies of the team members, identified the critical things to get right, and worked closely with the Product Manager. The author also selectively attended meetings and worked on writing the design doc and reviewing the implementation. Through this process, the author learned to prioritize their time and be available for the team, while also ensuring that the most complex parts of the project were solved correctly.

The Power of Documentation Seen Through the Lens of a Manager

This article discusses the importance of comprehensive, reliable, and accessible documentation for managers to ensure consistency and alignment across the company. The author provides insight into the actions taken to create and maintain documentation, such as creating templates, reading documentation daily, and using tools that encourage team collaboration. The article also highlights the importance of providing a framework for documentation to help engineers grow in their careers and transfer knowledge to their colleagues.

Managing an Engineer’s Career Development in a Fast-Paced Environment

Managers play a critical role in the career development of engineers, especially in startups where job roles and departments are not well-defined. To ensure engineers are productive and happy, managers should customize one-on-ones to the engineer's preferences, set SMART objectives, and allow engineers to pursue their own projects. Managers should also listen to engineers to understand their preferences and clarify leadership and management roles to avoid confusion.

Ramping-Up a New Person

This article outlines a checklist of ramp-up activities to ensure successful onboarding of a new person. These activities include having a framework in place, setting clear expectations, having regular check-ins, documenting everything, tracking progress, delegating onboarding tasks, and keeping communication channels accessible. At the end of the six months introductory period, a small celebration is held and information about a successful onboarding is sent out to the whole company. The article also highlights the importance of having a functional and meaningful structure and setting clear expectations to ensure successful onboarding.

Supporting Your Employees In Their Career Transition

This case study outlines the process of transitioning a QA engineer to a development role, including the challenges faced and lessons learned. The company had to assess the resources needed to support the transition and training, and create a timeline with milestones for the transition. The transition was successful and highlighted the company's goal of supporting career progressions of their employees. The manager learned that they should be more concerned with their employees' happiness and career progression.

Building a Prototype With Limited Resources

This article discusses the process of building a prototype with limited resources and how to manage the risks associated with it. It emphasizes the importance of setting clear objectives and success metrics, envisioning the MVP, and checking in regularly to ensure that the project is on track. It also highlights the need to keep a written trail to prevent misunderstandings and to make sure that everyone is aware of the risks associated with the project.

How to Achieve Cross-Departmental Alignment

Misunderstandings and misalignments between departments can be caused by different terminologies, agendas, and contexts. To overcome this, it is important to ask questions, listen carefully, and refer to first principles and annual business goals. Everyone should understand their role in the company and how it contributes to the company's success, and use first principles as pillars to safeguard that. If all else fails, people should take the calculated risk to choose the best approach.

Preventing Engineering Turnover

This article discusses how to retain software engineers, especially in smaller companies, in the face of competition from larger companies. The author's approach was to focus on creating a company culture of psychological safety, lightheartedness, empathy, autonomy, and transparency. This approach was successful in retaining talent, and the author believes that engineers often look beyond financial compensation when deciding on a company.

Staying Technical as a Mobile Engineering Manager

Mobile engineering managers often struggle to keep up with the rapidly evolving technologies in the industry. To stay up to date, they should read technical blogs, attend conferences, and become familiar with recent trends in software engineering. While it is possible to stay technical, managers should focus on developing a shared context between different departments and creating a synergy that will bring value to the business.

Handling Strong Personalities on the Team

A manager encountered a domineering engineer on their team who was overly concerned with tech debt and proposed a number of changes, but due to his domineering personality, everyone else on the team was taking his opinion for granted and avoiding confronting him. The manager had to confront the engineer and ask for a foolproof strategy for tech debt before moving forward, as well as repeatedly talk to other people on the team and encourage them to voice their opinions. The manager learned that they had to confront domineering engineers and make them accountable, do due diligence, and demonstrate the exact value of a project before moving forward.

Setting the Right OKRs With Your Team

A SEO team was tasked with increasing their page indexing in Google to 7 percent. To achieve this, the team was divided into small groups and encouraged to brainstorm ideas. After discussing the ideas and voting on them, five sprint stories were developed and tasks were assigned. At the end of the quarter, the team managed to reach 13 percent, a 17 percent increase. The lesson learned was that involving the team in goal-setting and having a collaborative brainstorming session was beneficial in terms of ownership and engagement.

Improving an Underperforming Team by Instilling in Them a Sense of Ownership

A small team of engineers was not producing satisfactory work due to the senior engineer's overburdening of knowledge from multiple projects. To solve this, the team was split into smaller squads and given ownership of specific services. Through documentation, brown bag sessions, and support from the manager, the team was able to become more organized and successful, eventually being assigned the most ambitious project. The manager learned that ownership and the right balance of support and motivation are key to success.

Deciding If a Management Is the Right Career Path for You

An engineer who wanted to stay on the technical route was asked to try out management. After struggling to juggle between too many things, they took management training and read books and articles about management. This helped them to adjust their management style to each individual on the team, ask the right questions, and become more comfortable with silence during one-on-ones. They learned that what made them an accomplished IC won't make them a good manager and that there are fewer opportunities for principal engineers than for managers.

Influencing People and Getting Your Items Into Their Backlog

A senior IC was interested in having teams work on reliability-related initiatives but lacked engineers to make it a reality. To make his case, he analyzed data, tailored his message to different audiences, and proposed solutions in iterative steps. He learned to align his goals with the organization's planning cadence, tie improvements to business outcomes and customer needs, talk to stakeholders separately, not leave anyone out, and make himself available.

Networking As an Introverted Engineer

An introvert engineer shares how they overcame their fear of networking and built the largest community for WomenInAI. They redefined networking to mean talking to people, learning from people, and helping people, and developed empathy for others. They also share tips on how to maximize their social battery life, such as scheduling time for themselves before and after meetings, and rescheduling if they are socially fatigued.

Staying Productive: A Resource-Rich Cheat Sheet You Will Ever Need

Productivity is a highly valued metric in the modern workplace, and there are many tools and processes available to help individuals become and stay productive. Eight areas of life have been identified where productivity can be improved, such as setting goals, making to-do lists, timeboxing, unboxing time, optimizing tasks, staying focused, feeling inspired, and reviewing progress. It is important to experiment with different tools and processes to find what works best for you, and to remember to take breaks and not become over-obsessed with productivity.

Building an Exponential High-Performing Team

When starting a business, it is important to build a diverse team with different skill sets, backgrounds, knowledge, vision, and preferences. This will enable the team to try new technologies, modify processes quickly, and choose from a variety of perspectives. It is also important to think about duplicating roles as the team grows, and to mix up senior and junior employees, corporate and startup people, and extroverts and introverts. The lesson learned is to look for diversity that can generate more added value instead of hiring like-minded people.

Handing the Team Over To a New Manager

When transitioning a team to a new manager, it is important to be transparent and available to the team, while also avoiding micromanaging and ambiguity. The process should be broken down into three phases: pre-handover, handover, and post-handover. During the pre-handover phase, it is important to transfer operational and personnel knowledge and address any insecurities the team may have. During the handover phase, the transition should be as short as possible and the new manager should be publicly announced. During the post-handover phase, the former manager should check in with the team from a distance and address any issues the new manager may be having.

Skip-Level One-On-Ones: Skip Them of Keep Them?

A leader was struggling with too many reports and decided to hire new managers. To avoid undermining their authority, the leader canceled one-on-ones with their direct reports and instead introduced the Open Doors, a voluntary event that allowed them to stay close to their engineers without taking up too much time. Through this, the leader was able to identify potential problems in their early stages and stay connected with their team.

Growing Engineering Organization: One Step At a Time

This article discusses the challenges faced by a manager when their engineering team rapidly scaled from seven to thirty people. The manager initially tried to manage everything by themselves, but soon realized they needed to delegate responsibilities and hire managers. They developed an organizational structure that included roles and responsibilities and received feedback from their employees. They also followed the MECE principle and avoided managing dependencies. The article also provides lessons learned, such as the importance of thinking about the organizational structure in advance, structuring teams by their expertise, and hiring managers who can manage people, not capabilities.

Balancing Multiple Assignments: Determine What Is "Important" in Each of Them

As a senior engineer, the author was tasked with leading a large initiative while managing their regular day-to-day responsibilities. To ensure the success of the project, the author identified the skills and competencies of the team members, identified the critical things to get right, and worked closely with the Product Manager. The author also selectively attended meetings and worked on writing the design doc and reviewing the implementation. Through this process, the author learned to prioritize their time and be available for the team, while also ensuring that the most complex parts of the project were solved correctly.

The Power of Documentation Seen Through the Lens of a Manager

This article discusses the importance of comprehensive, reliable, and accessible documentation for managers to ensure consistency and alignment across the company. The author provides insight into the actions taken to create and maintain documentation, such as creating templates, reading documentation daily, and using tools that encourage team collaboration. The article also highlights the importance of providing a framework for documentation to help engineers grow in their careers and transfer knowledge to their colleagues.

Managing an Engineer’s Career Development in a Fast-Paced Environment

Managers play a critical role in the career development of engineers, especially in startups where job roles and departments are not well-defined. To ensure engineers are productive and happy, managers should customize one-on-ones to the engineer's preferences, set SMART objectives, and allow engineers to pursue their own projects. Managers should also listen to engineers to understand their preferences and clarify leadership and management roles to avoid confusion.

Ramping-Up a New Person

This article outlines a checklist of ramp-up activities to ensure successful onboarding of a new person. These activities include having a framework in place, setting clear expectations, having regular check-ins, documenting everything, tracking progress, delegating onboarding tasks, and keeping communication channels accessible. At the end of the six months introductory period, a small celebration is held and information about a successful onboarding is sent out to the whole company. The article also highlights the importance of having a functional and meaningful structure and setting clear expectations to ensure successful onboarding.

Supporting Your Employees In Their Career Transition

This case study outlines the process of transitioning a QA engineer to a development role, including the challenges faced and lessons learned. The company had to assess the resources needed to support the transition and training, and create a timeline with milestones for the transition. The transition was successful and highlighted the company's goal of supporting career progressions of their employees. The manager learned that they should be more concerned with their employees' happiness and career progression.

Building a Prototype With Limited Resources

This article discusses the process of building a prototype with limited resources and how to manage the risks associated with it. It emphasizes the importance of setting clear objectives and success metrics, envisioning the MVP, and checking in regularly to ensure that the project is on track. It also highlights the need to keep a written trail to prevent misunderstandings and to make sure that everyone is aware of the risks associated with the project.

How to Achieve Cross-Departmental Alignment

Misunderstandings and misalignments between departments can be caused by different terminologies, agendas, and contexts. To overcome this, it is important to ask questions, listen carefully, and refer to first principles and annual business goals. Everyone should understand their role in the company and how it contributes to the company's success, and use first principles as pillars to safeguard that. If all else fails, people should take the calculated risk to choose the best approach.

Preventing Engineering Turnover

This article discusses how to retain software engineers, especially in smaller companies, in the face of competition from larger companies. The author's approach was to focus on creating a company culture of psychological safety, lightheartedness, empathy, autonomy, and transparency. This approach was successful in retaining talent, and the author believes that engineers often look beyond financial compensation when deciding on a company.

Staying Technical as a Mobile Engineering Manager

Mobile engineering managers often struggle to keep up with the rapidly evolving technologies in the industry. To stay up to date, they should read technical blogs, attend conferences, and become familiar with recent trends in software engineering. While it is possible to stay technical, managers should focus on developing a shared context between different departments and creating a synergy that will bring value to the business.

Handling Strong Personalities on the Team

A manager encountered a domineering engineer on their team who was overly concerned with tech debt and proposed a number of changes, but due to his domineering personality, everyone else on the team was taking his opinion for granted and avoiding confronting him. The manager had to confront the engineer and ask for a foolproof strategy for tech debt before moving forward, as well as repeatedly talk to other people on the team and encourage them to voice their opinions. The manager learned that they had to confront domineering engineers and make them accountable, do due diligence, and demonstrate the exact value of a project before moving forward.

Setting the Right OKRs With Your Team

A SEO team was tasked with increasing their page indexing in Google to 7 percent. To achieve this, the team was divided into small groups and encouraged to brainstorm ideas. After discussing the ideas and voting on them, five sprint stories were developed and tasks were assigned. At the end of the quarter, the team managed to reach 13 percent, a 17 percent increase. The lesson learned was that involving the team in goal-setting and having a collaborative brainstorming session was beneficial in terms of ownership and engagement.

Improving an Underperforming Team by Instilling in Them a Sense of Ownership

A small team of engineers was not producing satisfactory work due to the senior engineer's overburdening of knowledge from multiple projects. To solve this, the team was split into smaller squads and given ownership of specific services. Through documentation, brown bag sessions, and support from the manager, the team was able to become more organized and successful, eventually being assigned the most ambitious project. The manager learned that ownership and the right balance of support and motivation are key to success.

Deciding If a Management Is the Right Career Path for You

An engineer who wanted to stay on the technical route was asked to try out management. After struggling to juggle between too many things, they took management training and read books and articles about management. This helped them to adjust their management style to each individual on the team, ask the right questions, and become more comfortable with silence during one-on-ones. They learned that what made them an accomplished IC won't make them a good manager and that there are fewer opportunities for principal engineers than for managers.

Influencing People and Getting Your Items Into Their Backlog

A senior IC was interested in having teams work on reliability-related initiatives but lacked engineers to make it a reality. To make his case, he analyzed data, tailored his message to different audiences, and proposed solutions in iterative steps. He learned to align his goals with the organization's planning cadence, tie improvements to business outcomes and customer needs, talk to stakeholders separately, not leave anyone out, and make himself available.

Networking As an Introverted Engineer

An introvert engineer shares how they overcame their fear of networking and built the largest community for WomenInAI. They redefined networking to mean talking to people, learning from people, and helping people, and developed empathy for others. They also share tips on how to maximize their social battery life, such as scheduling time for themselves before and after meetings, and rescheduling if they are socially fatigued.

Staying Productive: A Resource-Rich Cheat Sheet You Will Ever Need

Productivity is a highly valued metric in the modern workplace, and there are many tools and processes available to help individuals become and stay productive. Eight areas of life have been identified where productivity can be improved, such as setting goals, making to-do lists, timeboxing, unboxing time, optimizing tasks, staying focused, feeling inspired, and reviewing progress. It is important to experiment with different tools and processes to find what works best for you, and to remember to take breaks and not become over-obsessed with productivity.

Building an Exponential High-Performing Team

When starting a business, it is important to build a diverse team with different skill sets, backgrounds, knowledge, vision, and preferences. This will enable the team to try new technologies, modify processes quickly, and choose from a variety of perspectives. It is also important to think about duplicating roles as the team grows, and to mix up senior and junior employees, corporate and startup people, and extroverts and introverts. The lesson learned is to look for diversity that can generate more added value instead of hiring like-minded people.

Handing the Team Over To a New Manager

When transitioning a team to a new manager, it is important to be transparent and available to the team, while also avoiding micromanaging and ambiguity. The process should be broken down into three phases: pre-handover, handover, and post-handover. During the pre-handover phase, it is important to transfer operational and personnel knowledge and address any insecurities the team may have. During the handover phase, the transition should be as short as possible and the new manager should be publicly announced. During the post-handover phase, the former manager should check in with the team from a distance and address any issues the new manager may be having.

Skip-Level One-On-Ones: Skip Them of Keep Them?

A leader was struggling with too many reports and decided to hire new managers. To avoid undermining their authority, the leader canceled one-on-ones with their direct reports and instead introduced the Open Doors, a voluntary event that allowed them to stay close to their engineers without taking up too much time. Through this, the leader was able to identify potential problems in their early stages and stay connected with their team.

Growing Engineering Organization: One Step At a Time

This article discusses the challenges faced by a manager when their engineering team rapidly scaled from seven to thirty people. The manager initially tried to manage everything by themselves, but soon realized they needed to delegate responsibilities and hire managers. They developed an organizational structure that included roles and responsibilities and received feedback from their employees. They also followed the MECE principle and avoided managing dependencies. The article also provides lessons learned, such as the importance of thinking about the organizational structure in advance, structuring teams by their expertise, and hiring managers who can manage people, not capabilities.

Balancing Multiple Assignments: Determine What Is "Important" in Each of Them

As a senior engineer, the author was tasked with leading a large initiative while managing their regular day-to-day responsibilities. To ensure the success of the project, the author identified the skills and competencies of the team members, identified the critical things to get right, and worked closely with the Product Manager. The author also selectively attended meetings and worked on writing the design doc and reviewing the implementation. Through this process, the author learned to prioritize their time and be available for the team, while also ensuring that the most complex parts of the project were solved correctly.

The Power of Documentation Seen Through the Lens of a Manager

This article discusses the importance of comprehensive, reliable, and accessible documentation for managers to ensure consistency and alignment across the company. The author provides insight into the actions taken to create and maintain documentation, such as creating templates, reading documentation daily, and using tools that encourage team collaboration. The article also highlights the importance of providing a framework for documentation to help engineers grow in their careers and transfer knowledge to their colleagues.

Managing an Engineer’s Career Development in a Fast-Paced Environment

Managers play a critical role in the career development of engineers, especially in startups where job roles and departments are not well-defined. To ensure engineers are productive and happy, managers should customize one-on-ones to the engineer's preferences, set SMART objectives, and allow engineers to pursue their own projects. Managers should also listen to engineers to understand their preferences and clarify leadership and management roles to avoid confusion.

Ramping-Up a New Person

This article outlines a checklist of ramp-up activities to ensure successful onboarding of a new person. These activities include having a framework in place, setting clear expectations, having regular check-ins, documenting everything, tracking progress, delegating onboarding tasks, and keeping communication channels accessible. At the end of the six months introductory period, a small celebration is held and information about a successful onboarding is sent out to the whole company. The article also highlights the importance of having a functional and meaningful structure and setting clear expectations to ensure successful onboarding.

Supporting Your Employees In Their Career Transition

This case study outlines the process of transitioning a QA engineer to a development role, including the challenges faced and lessons learned. The company had to assess the resources needed to support the transition and training, and create a timeline with milestones for the transition. The transition was successful and highlighted the company's goal of supporting career progressions of their employees. The manager learned that they should be more concerned with their employees' happiness and career progression.

Building a Prototype With Limited Resources

This article discusses the process of building a prototype with limited resources and how to manage the risks associated with it. It emphasizes the importance of setting clear objectives and success metrics, envisioning the MVP, and checking in regularly to ensure that the project is on track. It also highlights the need to keep a written trail to prevent misunderstandings and to make sure that everyone is aware of the risks associated with the project.

How to Achieve Cross-Departmental Alignment

Misunderstandings and misalignments between departments can be caused by different terminologies, agendas, and contexts. To overcome this, it is important to ask questions, listen carefully, and refer to first principles and annual business goals. Everyone should understand their role in the company and how it contributes to the company's success, and use first principles as pillars to safeguard that. If all else fails, people should take the calculated risk to choose the best approach.

Preventing Engineering Turnover

This article discusses how to retain software engineers, especially in smaller companies, in the face of competition from larger companies. The author's approach was to focus on creating a company culture of psychological safety, lightheartedness, empathy, autonomy, and transparency. This approach was successful in retaining talent, and the author believes that engineers often look beyond financial compensation when deciding on a company.

Staying Technical as a Mobile Engineering Manager

Mobile engineering managers often struggle to keep up with the rapidly evolving technologies in the industry. To stay up to date, they should read technical blogs, attend conferences, and become familiar with recent trends in software engineering. While it is possible to stay technical, managers should focus on developing a shared context between different departments and creating a synergy that will bring value to the business.

Handling Strong Personalities on the Team

A manager encountered a domineering engineer on their team who was overly concerned with tech debt and proposed a number of changes, but due to his domineering personality, everyone else on the team was taking his opinion for granted and avoiding confronting him. The manager had to confront the engineer and ask for a foolproof strategy for tech debt before moving forward, as well as repeatedly talk to other people on the team and encourage them to voice their opinions. The manager learned that they had to confront domineering engineers and make them accountable, do due diligence, and demonstrate the exact value of a project before moving forward.

Setting the Right OKRs With Your Team

A SEO team was tasked with increasing their page indexing in Google to 7 percent. To achieve this, the team was divided into small groups and encouraged to brainstorm ideas. After discussing the ideas and voting on them, five sprint stories were developed and tasks were assigned. At the end of the quarter, the team managed to reach 13 percent, a 17 percent increase. The lesson learned was that involving the team in goal-setting and having a collaborative brainstorming session was beneficial in terms of ownership and engagement.

Improving an Underperforming Team by Instilling in Them a Sense of Ownership

A small team of engineers was not producing satisfactory work due to the senior engineer's overburdening of knowledge from multiple projects. To solve this, the team was split into smaller squads and given ownership of specific services. Through documentation, brown bag sessions, and support from the manager, the team was able to become more organized and successful, eventually being assigned the most ambitious project. The manager learned that ownership and the right balance of support and motivation are key to success.

Deciding If a Management Is the Right Career Path for You

An engineer who wanted to stay on the technical route was asked to try out management. After struggling to juggle between too many things, they took management training and read books and articles about management. This helped them to adjust their management style to each individual on the team, ask the right questions, and become more comfortable with silence during one-on-ones. They learned that what made them an accomplished IC won't make them a good manager and that there are fewer opportunities for principal engineers than for managers.

Influencing People and Getting Your Items Into Their Backlog

A senior IC was interested in having teams work on reliability-related initiatives but lacked engineers to make it a reality. To make his case, he analyzed data, tailored his message to different audiences, and proposed solutions in iterative steps. He learned to align his goals with the organization's planning cadence, tie improvements to business outcomes and customer needs, talk to stakeholders separately, not leave anyone out, and make himself available.

Networking As an Introverted Engineer

An introvert engineer shares how they overcame their fear of networking and built the largest community for WomenInAI. They redefined networking to mean talking to people, learning from people, and helping people, and developed empathy for others. They also share tips on how to maximize their social battery life, such as scheduling time for themselves before and after meetings, and rescheduling if they are socially fatigued.

Staying Productive: A Resource-Rich Cheat Sheet You Will Ever Need

Productivity is a highly valued metric in the modern workplace, and there are many tools and processes available to help individuals become and stay productive. Eight areas of life have been identified where productivity can be improved, such as setting goals, making to-do lists, timeboxing, unboxing time, optimizing tasks, staying focused, feeling inspired, and reviewing progress. It is important to experiment with different tools and processes to find what works best for you, and to remember to take breaks and not become over-obsessed with productivity.

Building an Exponential High-Performing Team

When starting a business, it is important to build a diverse team with different skill sets, backgrounds, knowledge, vision, and preferences. This will enable the team to try new technologies, modify processes quickly, and choose from a variety of perspectives. It is also important to think about duplicating roles as the team grows, and to mix up senior and junior employees, corporate and startup people, and extroverts and introverts. The lesson learned is to look for diversity that can generate more added value instead of hiring like-minded people.

Handing the Team Over To a New Manager

When transitioning a team to a new manager, it is important to be transparent and available to the team, while also avoiding micromanaging and ambiguity. The process should be broken down into three phases: pre-handover, handover, and post-handover. During the pre-handover phase, it is important to transfer operational and personnel knowledge and address any insecurities the team may have. During the handover phase, the transition should be as short as possible and the new manager should be publicly announced. During the post-handover phase, the former manager should check in with the team from a distance and address any issues the new manager may be having.

Skip-Level One-On-Ones: Skip Them of Keep Them?

A leader was struggling with too many reports and decided to hire new managers. To avoid undermining their authority, the leader canceled one-on-ones with their direct reports and instead introduced the Open Doors, a voluntary event that allowed them to stay close to their engineers without taking up too much time. Through this, the leader was able to identify potential problems in their early stages and stay connected with their team.

Growing Engineering Organization: One Step At a Time

This article discusses the challenges faced by a manager when their engineering team rapidly scaled from seven to thirty people. The manager initially tried to manage everything by themselves, but soon realized they needed to delegate responsibilities and hire managers. They developed an organizational structure that included roles and responsibilities and received feedback from their employees. They also followed the MECE principle and avoided managing dependencies. The article also provides lessons learned, such as the importance of thinking about the organizational structure in advance, structuring teams by their expertise, and hiring managers who can manage people, not capabilities.

Balancing Multiple Assignments: Determine What Is "Important" in Each of Them

As a senior engineer, the author was tasked with leading a large initiative while managing their regular day-to-day responsibilities. To ensure the success of the project, the author identified the skills and competencies of the team members, identified the critical things to get right, and worked closely with the Product Manager. The author also selectively attended meetings and worked on writing the design doc and reviewing the implementation. Through this process, the author learned to prioritize their time and be available for the team, while also ensuring that the most complex parts of the project were solved correctly.

The Power of Documentation Seen Through the Lens of a Manager

This article discusses the importance of comprehensive, reliable, and accessible documentation for managers to ensure consistency and alignment across the company. The author provides insight into the actions taken to create and maintain documentation, such as creating templates, reading documentation daily, and using tools that encourage team collaboration. The article also highlights the importance of providing a framework for documentation to help engineers grow in their careers and transfer knowledge to their colleagues.

Managing an Engineer’s Career Development in a Fast-Paced Environment

Managers play a critical role in the career development of engineers, especially in startups where job roles and departments are not well-defined. To ensure engineers are productive and happy, managers should customize one-on-ones to the engineer's preferences, set SMART objectives, and allow engineers to pursue their own projects. Managers should also listen to engineers to understand their preferences and clarify leadership and management roles to avoid confusion.

Ramping-Up a New Person

This article outlines a checklist of ramp-up activities to ensure successful onboarding of a new person. These activities include having a framework in place, setting clear expectations, having regular check-ins, documenting everything, tracking progress, delegating onboarding tasks, and keeping communication channels accessible. At the end of the six months introductory period, a small celebration is held and information about a successful onboarding is sent out to the whole company. The article also highlights the importance of having a functional and meaningful structure and setting clear expectations to ensure successful onboarding.