Knowledge shared by our community

Writing Code Across Multiple Platforms

The author was tasked with creating a new product for both IOS and Android while managing the front and back end of a small mobile team. To save time and money, the author introduced React Native, a platform that allows code to be written once and then compiled for both platforms. This allowed the team to ship on both platforms within a month. The author recommends React Native for startups, as it saves time and money and prevents teams from becoming misaligned.

The Importance of Time Management When Hiring

Effective time management is essential for successful hiring processes. Three key ingredients for successful time management are being organized and prioritizing tasks, having consistent messaging about the company and role, and being respectful of the candidate's time. Optimizing the interviewing time and maintaining the flow of the process are also important. Being time considerate will create a positive experience for the candidate and broadcast the company culture.

What Is the Right Time to Introduce a Coding Test

Pre-employment testing is a necessary part of the employment process, but it is important to understand when to introduce a coding test. Factors such as the size of the company and the number of candidates should be taken into account. It is best to wait until after an initial conversation and phone screen before sending a coding test, as it is a large time commitment. Companies should anticipate how many candidates they will attract and what will help to filter them before sending out coding tests.

First Principles of a Successful Product-Led Growth Strategy

This article discusses the importance of first principles thinking when creating a successful product-led growth strategy. It outlines four key principles to consider: Lead time to first value in minutes, Adequate recurrence of value, Virality and High switching costs. It also discusses the importance of delivering value fast, recurrence of value, virality, and high switching costs. Finally, it provides a roadmap for how to put these principles into action.

Applying Agile to Data Science Teams

A data science team was struggling to release software and models consistently and infrequently. To solve this, they created a data science scrum team with weekly sprints, which eventually moved to two-week sprints. This allowed them to build a deployment pipeline, document the release process, and move configuration out of code. Additionally, they moved from a research approach to a hybrid approach, allowing the product owner to review research spikes more frequently. This showed that Scrum processes can work for data science and AI optimization teams, and provides ancillary benefits.

Specializing in Non-Specializing: How Changing Roles Helps Both You and Your Company

This software developer has been with the same company for 14 years and has seen it grow from a small startup to a 1B+ company. He has changed roles many times, staying in each role for 6 months to a year before moving on. He has learned new skills and taken on new challenges, such as writing 59 case studies with a copywriter, learning SEO and conversion rate optimization, and talking to hundreds of users to find patterns. He has learned that no one should stay in the same role for too long, and that it is important to be aware of the company's priorities and offer help in whatever role is needed.

How to Sustain the Company Culture While Setting Up a New International Team in a New Location

When setting up a new engineering team in a new location, it is important to hire the right people who have the skills and culture fit to build the team. Leaders should provide the team with objectives of quality instead of quantity and invest in the team to reach the objectives. It is also important to align with the local market and competitors to attract talent and provide the team with the necessary resources to succeed. Finally, it is important to empower the team and hold regular one-on-one meetings to report progress and unblock issues.

Hiring Senior Leadership When Scaling Massively

As CTO of a company that grew from 140 to 800 engineers in two years, the author had to anticipate the size of the team and assess the existing leadership potential. It took nine months to hire six VPs and restructure the organization, and two years later the plan worked out. The author learned that it is important to anticipate growth and hire people in advance, rather than waiting until they are needed.

Continually Improving Your Hiring Process

A small team of 10 people, including one or two machine learning engineers, was tasked with hiring 20 more within a year. The company was not well known and had difficulty competing with larger companies. To overcome this, they promoted their company, co-organized a meetup, and collected data on resumes and the hiring process. They also adjusted their salaries to be competitive and offered a value proposition of greater autonomy and a chance to make a huge impact. In the end, they managed to hire 20 engineers within the year by providing a great candidate experience and reducing the time from initial contact to offer from four to two or three weeks.

Innovation in Face of Uncertainty

At a previous job, the goal was to develop music recommendations. To create a culture of innovation, a trial and error approach was taken, with experiments automated as much as possible. Hack days and hack weeks were introduced to encourage bottom-up innovation and to carve out time for people to work on their ideas. It was found that successful innovations often came from passionate people, and that what works and what doesn't is often counter-intuitive. To beat uncertainty, it was important to keep track of data and have solid statistics.

Some Useful Tips For Hiring the Right People

Hiring engineers can be a daunting process, but understanding the type, size, and developmental stage of the company can help create a successful hiring process. Smaller companies should look for people with smaller company experience and generalists, while larger companies can rely on their brand name. Respectful communication and clear role descriptions are important, as well as informal meetings with peers and managers.

Branding Yourself Through the Hiring Process

This article outlines the steps taken by a hiring manager to ensure quality candidates are recruited and retained. These steps include sourcing candidates through tech communities, meetups, and industry events, as well as screening and interviewing them. The article also emphasizes the importance of building a brand for the company and the hiring manager, and of being informed and prepared at each step of the process. Lastly, it suggests that recruiting services should be used in conjunction with other steps to ensure potential candidates are exposed to the company's brand before speaking with a recruiter.

General Principles for 1:1s

This article discusses the importance of one-on-one meetings with leadership and provides general principles for conducting them. It suggests scheduling weekly 30-minute meetings, having a shared Google doc with a running list of topics, and avoiding moving the meetings. It also suggests having an open-ended agenda and occasionally conducting the meetings outside the office. The article emphasizes the importance of valuing the time of the individual and addressing any issues before they become too big.

Uniting Personal and Professional Development on Your Team

This article discusses the importance of learning and development in the workplace, and how to ensure that employees are progressing and learning in their roles. It outlines the steps taken by the author to ensure that employees are learning and growing, such as incorporating professional and personal development into the roadmap, and having conversations during performance reviews. It also provides advice for both managers and employees on how to ensure that they are progressing in their roles.

Process Improvement

When transitioning to a new company or leading a new team, it is important to consider alternatives and question whether the current process is the right one. There are a number of ways to improve processes, such as taking a pulse check on meetings and evolving processes as the company evolves. It is important to be transparent and communicate that process changes may not be perfect, but they will hopefully bring improvements. Improving processes is essential for a company to successfully scale and save time and money.

Balancing A Reorganization Between Business Goals and Product Divisions

The onboarding process at Hired revealed a lack of organizational structure and ownership of projects. To address this, the R&D organization was restructured into vertical slices with teams based on core elements such as the candidate and customer sides of the marketplace. Key engineers and product managers were identified through one-on-ones and feedback from other divisions. The restructuring was then sold to the engineering team through an all-hands, and a Google Sheet was created to provide transparency across the company. The restructuring resulted in team durability and continuity, dedicated Slack channels, and the ability to set OKRs for the teams.

When A Product Roadmap & Career Ladder Helps A Company Scale

The product team needed to be expanded to accommodate the increasing product surface area. To solve this problem, the team looked at existing teams within engineering and other departments, and reached out to industry professionals to understand different profiles. They developed a matrix of eight to ten skill sets to identify the right people for the team, and created a formal interview guide to ensure fairness and consistency in the hiring process. This allowed them to build a team that was capable of executing their aggressive product roadmap goals.

Impactful Mid-Level Thematic Objectives

This article discusses how to connect a company's vision and strategy with the work of a team. It suggests creating a mid-level tiered view of 12 months for the roadmap, brainstorming ideas, pressure testing them, and creating a thematic template. It also suggests focusing on the goals to build a shared understanding, testing the three thematic messages, and using 1:1s and brainstorming sessions to structure individuals' thinking. Ultimately, the goal is to align the work with the three subsets to ensure progress against the mid-tier goals.

Bringing a Business Analyst Onto a Product Team

This article explains how a business analyst was brought onto a product team to ensure a wide perspective and proper utilization of data. The analyst was embedded into the team and given a problem statement to solve. Data was connected back to customers to validate decisions and predictively determine features that correlated with retention. Lessons learned include the importance of analytics in the product development process, the value of having someone with broader statistical thinking, and the need to make analytics a habit by incorporating it into strategy reviews and team check-ins.

A New Perspective on Continuous Delivery

This article discusses how to align the entire organization, from building to releasing, supporting and implementing the product in a way that eliminates the “game of telephone” between front and back processes. It outlines the actions taken to build a team that encompasses all of the core functions of the product, and the lessons learned from this process, such as establishing a specific OKR for the team and creating relationships with otherwise seemingly disconnected departments. This model has become seamless and second nature, and has been a successful innovation.

Writing Code Across Multiple Platforms

The author was tasked with creating a new product for both IOS and Android while managing the front and back end of a small mobile team. To save time and money, the author introduced React Native, a platform that allows code to be written once and then compiled for both platforms. This allowed the team to ship on both platforms within a month. The author recommends React Native for startups, as it saves time and money and prevents teams from becoming misaligned.

The Importance of Time Management When Hiring

Effective time management is essential for successful hiring processes. Three key ingredients for successful time management are being organized and prioritizing tasks, having consistent messaging about the company and role, and being respectful of the candidate's time. Optimizing the interviewing time and maintaining the flow of the process are also important. Being time considerate will create a positive experience for the candidate and broadcast the company culture.

What Is the Right Time to Introduce a Coding Test

Pre-employment testing is a necessary part of the employment process, but it is important to understand when to introduce a coding test. Factors such as the size of the company and the number of candidates should be taken into account. It is best to wait until after an initial conversation and phone screen before sending a coding test, as it is a large time commitment. Companies should anticipate how many candidates they will attract and what will help to filter them before sending out coding tests.

First Principles of a Successful Product-Led Growth Strategy

This article discusses the importance of first principles thinking when creating a successful product-led growth strategy. It outlines four key principles to consider: Lead time to first value in minutes, Adequate recurrence of value, Virality and High switching costs. It also discusses the importance of delivering value fast, recurrence of value, virality, and high switching costs. Finally, it provides a roadmap for how to put these principles into action.

Applying Agile to Data Science Teams

A data science team was struggling to release software and models consistently and infrequently. To solve this, they created a data science scrum team with weekly sprints, which eventually moved to two-week sprints. This allowed them to build a deployment pipeline, document the release process, and move configuration out of code. Additionally, they moved from a research approach to a hybrid approach, allowing the product owner to review research spikes more frequently. This showed that Scrum processes can work for data science and AI optimization teams, and provides ancillary benefits.

Specializing in Non-Specializing: How Changing Roles Helps Both You and Your Company

This software developer has been with the same company for 14 years and has seen it grow from a small startup to a 1B+ company. He has changed roles many times, staying in each role for 6 months to a year before moving on. He has learned new skills and taken on new challenges, such as writing 59 case studies with a copywriter, learning SEO and conversion rate optimization, and talking to hundreds of users to find patterns. He has learned that no one should stay in the same role for too long, and that it is important to be aware of the company's priorities and offer help in whatever role is needed.

How to Sustain the Company Culture While Setting Up a New International Team in a New Location

When setting up a new engineering team in a new location, it is important to hire the right people who have the skills and culture fit to build the team. Leaders should provide the team with objectives of quality instead of quantity and invest in the team to reach the objectives. It is also important to align with the local market and competitors to attract talent and provide the team with the necessary resources to succeed. Finally, it is important to empower the team and hold regular one-on-one meetings to report progress and unblock issues.

Hiring Senior Leadership When Scaling Massively

As CTO of a company that grew from 140 to 800 engineers in two years, the author had to anticipate the size of the team and assess the existing leadership potential. It took nine months to hire six VPs and restructure the organization, and two years later the plan worked out. The author learned that it is important to anticipate growth and hire people in advance, rather than waiting until they are needed.

Continually Improving Your Hiring Process

A small team of 10 people, including one or two machine learning engineers, was tasked with hiring 20 more within a year. The company was not well known and had difficulty competing with larger companies. To overcome this, they promoted their company, co-organized a meetup, and collected data on resumes and the hiring process. They also adjusted their salaries to be competitive and offered a value proposition of greater autonomy and a chance to make a huge impact. In the end, they managed to hire 20 engineers within the year by providing a great candidate experience and reducing the time from initial contact to offer from four to two or three weeks.

Innovation in Face of Uncertainty

At a previous job, the goal was to develop music recommendations. To create a culture of innovation, a trial and error approach was taken, with experiments automated as much as possible. Hack days and hack weeks were introduced to encourage bottom-up innovation and to carve out time for people to work on their ideas. It was found that successful innovations often came from passionate people, and that what works and what doesn't is often counter-intuitive. To beat uncertainty, it was important to keep track of data and have solid statistics.

Some Useful Tips For Hiring the Right People

Hiring engineers can be a daunting process, but understanding the type, size, and developmental stage of the company can help create a successful hiring process. Smaller companies should look for people with smaller company experience and generalists, while larger companies can rely on their brand name. Respectful communication and clear role descriptions are important, as well as informal meetings with peers and managers.

Branding Yourself Through the Hiring Process

This article outlines the steps taken by a hiring manager to ensure quality candidates are recruited and retained. These steps include sourcing candidates through tech communities, meetups, and industry events, as well as screening and interviewing them. The article also emphasizes the importance of building a brand for the company and the hiring manager, and of being informed and prepared at each step of the process. Lastly, it suggests that recruiting services should be used in conjunction with other steps to ensure potential candidates are exposed to the company's brand before speaking with a recruiter.

General Principles for 1:1s

This article discusses the importance of one-on-one meetings with leadership and provides general principles for conducting them. It suggests scheduling weekly 30-minute meetings, having a shared Google doc with a running list of topics, and avoiding moving the meetings. It also suggests having an open-ended agenda and occasionally conducting the meetings outside the office. The article emphasizes the importance of valuing the time of the individual and addressing any issues before they become too big.

Uniting Personal and Professional Development on Your Team

This article discusses the importance of learning and development in the workplace, and how to ensure that employees are progressing and learning in their roles. It outlines the steps taken by the author to ensure that employees are learning and growing, such as incorporating professional and personal development into the roadmap, and having conversations during performance reviews. It also provides advice for both managers and employees on how to ensure that they are progressing in their roles.

Process Improvement

When transitioning to a new company or leading a new team, it is important to consider alternatives and question whether the current process is the right one. There are a number of ways to improve processes, such as taking a pulse check on meetings and evolving processes as the company evolves. It is important to be transparent and communicate that process changes may not be perfect, but they will hopefully bring improvements. Improving processes is essential for a company to successfully scale and save time and money.

Balancing A Reorganization Between Business Goals and Product Divisions

The onboarding process at Hired revealed a lack of organizational structure and ownership of projects. To address this, the R&D organization was restructured into vertical slices with teams based on core elements such as the candidate and customer sides of the marketplace. Key engineers and product managers were identified through one-on-ones and feedback from other divisions. The restructuring was then sold to the engineering team through an all-hands, and a Google Sheet was created to provide transparency across the company. The restructuring resulted in team durability and continuity, dedicated Slack channels, and the ability to set OKRs for the teams.

When A Product Roadmap & Career Ladder Helps A Company Scale

The product team needed to be expanded to accommodate the increasing product surface area. To solve this problem, the team looked at existing teams within engineering and other departments, and reached out to industry professionals to understand different profiles. They developed a matrix of eight to ten skill sets to identify the right people for the team, and created a formal interview guide to ensure fairness and consistency in the hiring process. This allowed them to build a team that was capable of executing their aggressive product roadmap goals.

Impactful Mid-Level Thematic Objectives

This article discusses how to connect a company's vision and strategy with the work of a team. It suggests creating a mid-level tiered view of 12 months for the roadmap, brainstorming ideas, pressure testing them, and creating a thematic template. It also suggests focusing on the goals to build a shared understanding, testing the three thematic messages, and using 1:1s and brainstorming sessions to structure individuals' thinking. Ultimately, the goal is to align the work with the three subsets to ensure progress against the mid-tier goals.

Bringing a Business Analyst Onto a Product Team

This article explains how a business analyst was brought onto a product team to ensure a wide perspective and proper utilization of data. The analyst was embedded into the team and given a problem statement to solve. Data was connected back to customers to validate decisions and predictively determine features that correlated with retention. Lessons learned include the importance of analytics in the product development process, the value of having someone with broader statistical thinking, and the need to make analytics a habit by incorporating it into strategy reviews and team check-ins.

A New Perspective on Continuous Delivery

This article discusses how to align the entire organization, from building to releasing, supporting and implementing the product in a way that eliminates the “game of telephone” between front and back processes. It outlines the actions taken to build a team that encompasses all of the core functions of the product, and the lessons learned from this process, such as establishing a specific OKR for the team and creating relationships with otherwise seemingly disconnected departments. This model has become seamless and second nature, and has been a successful innovation.

Writing Code Across Multiple Platforms

The author was tasked with creating a new product for both IOS and Android while managing the front and back end of a small mobile team. To save time and money, the author introduced React Native, a platform that allows code to be written once and then compiled for both platforms. This allowed the team to ship on both platforms within a month. The author recommends React Native for startups, as it saves time and money and prevents teams from becoming misaligned.

The Importance of Time Management When Hiring

Effective time management is essential for successful hiring processes. Three key ingredients for successful time management are being organized and prioritizing tasks, having consistent messaging about the company and role, and being respectful of the candidate's time. Optimizing the interviewing time and maintaining the flow of the process are also important. Being time considerate will create a positive experience for the candidate and broadcast the company culture.

What Is the Right Time to Introduce a Coding Test

Pre-employment testing is a necessary part of the employment process, but it is important to understand when to introduce a coding test. Factors such as the size of the company and the number of candidates should be taken into account. It is best to wait until after an initial conversation and phone screen before sending a coding test, as it is a large time commitment. Companies should anticipate how many candidates they will attract and what will help to filter them before sending out coding tests.

First Principles of a Successful Product-Led Growth Strategy

This article discusses the importance of first principles thinking when creating a successful product-led growth strategy. It outlines four key principles to consider: Lead time to first value in minutes, Adequate recurrence of value, Virality and High switching costs. It also discusses the importance of delivering value fast, recurrence of value, virality, and high switching costs. Finally, it provides a roadmap for how to put these principles into action.

Applying Agile to Data Science Teams

A data science team was struggling to release software and models consistently and infrequently. To solve this, they created a data science scrum team with weekly sprints, which eventually moved to two-week sprints. This allowed them to build a deployment pipeline, document the release process, and move configuration out of code. Additionally, they moved from a research approach to a hybrid approach, allowing the product owner to review research spikes more frequently. This showed that Scrum processes can work for data science and AI optimization teams, and provides ancillary benefits.

Specializing in Non-Specializing: How Changing Roles Helps Both You and Your Company

This software developer has been with the same company for 14 years and has seen it grow from a small startup to a 1B+ company. He has changed roles many times, staying in each role for 6 months to a year before moving on. He has learned new skills and taken on new challenges, such as writing 59 case studies with a copywriter, learning SEO and conversion rate optimization, and talking to hundreds of users to find patterns. He has learned that no one should stay in the same role for too long, and that it is important to be aware of the company's priorities and offer help in whatever role is needed.

How to Sustain the Company Culture While Setting Up a New International Team in a New Location

When setting up a new engineering team in a new location, it is important to hire the right people who have the skills and culture fit to build the team. Leaders should provide the team with objectives of quality instead of quantity and invest in the team to reach the objectives. It is also important to align with the local market and competitors to attract talent and provide the team with the necessary resources to succeed. Finally, it is important to empower the team and hold regular one-on-one meetings to report progress and unblock issues.

Hiring Senior Leadership When Scaling Massively

As CTO of a company that grew from 140 to 800 engineers in two years, the author had to anticipate the size of the team and assess the existing leadership potential. It took nine months to hire six VPs and restructure the organization, and two years later the plan worked out. The author learned that it is important to anticipate growth and hire people in advance, rather than waiting until they are needed.

Continually Improving Your Hiring Process

A small team of 10 people, including one or two machine learning engineers, was tasked with hiring 20 more within a year. The company was not well known and had difficulty competing with larger companies. To overcome this, they promoted their company, co-organized a meetup, and collected data on resumes and the hiring process. They also adjusted their salaries to be competitive and offered a value proposition of greater autonomy and a chance to make a huge impact. In the end, they managed to hire 20 engineers within the year by providing a great candidate experience and reducing the time from initial contact to offer from four to two or three weeks.

Innovation in Face of Uncertainty

At a previous job, the goal was to develop music recommendations. To create a culture of innovation, a trial and error approach was taken, with experiments automated as much as possible. Hack days and hack weeks were introduced to encourage bottom-up innovation and to carve out time for people to work on their ideas. It was found that successful innovations often came from passionate people, and that what works and what doesn't is often counter-intuitive. To beat uncertainty, it was important to keep track of data and have solid statistics.

Some Useful Tips For Hiring the Right People

Hiring engineers can be a daunting process, but understanding the type, size, and developmental stage of the company can help create a successful hiring process. Smaller companies should look for people with smaller company experience and generalists, while larger companies can rely on their brand name. Respectful communication and clear role descriptions are important, as well as informal meetings with peers and managers.

Branding Yourself Through the Hiring Process

This article outlines the steps taken by a hiring manager to ensure quality candidates are recruited and retained. These steps include sourcing candidates through tech communities, meetups, and industry events, as well as screening and interviewing them. The article also emphasizes the importance of building a brand for the company and the hiring manager, and of being informed and prepared at each step of the process. Lastly, it suggests that recruiting services should be used in conjunction with other steps to ensure potential candidates are exposed to the company's brand before speaking with a recruiter.

General Principles for 1:1s

This article discusses the importance of one-on-one meetings with leadership and provides general principles for conducting them. It suggests scheduling weekly 30-minute meetings, having a shared Google doc with a running list of topics, and avoiding moving the meetings. It also suggests having an open-ended agenda and occasionally conducting the meetings outside the office. The article emphasizes the importance of valuing the time of the individual and addressing any issues before they become too big.

Uniting Personal and Professional Development on Your Team

This article discusses the importance of learning and development in the workplace, and how to ensure that employees are progressing and learning in their roles. It outlines the steps taken by the author to ensure that employees are learning and growing, such as incorporating professional and personal development into the roadmap, and having conversations during performance reviews. It also provides advice for both managers and employees on how to ensure that they are progressing in their roles.

Process Improvement

When transitioning to a new company or leading a new team, it is important to consider alternatives and question whether the current process is the right one. There are a number of ways to improve processes, such as taking a pulse check on meetings and evolving processes as the company evolves. It is important to be transparent and communicate that process changes may not be perfect, but they will hopefully bring improvements. Improving processes is essential for a company to successfully scale and save time and money.

Balancing A Reorganization Between Business Goals and Product Divisions

The onboarding process at Hired revealed a lack of organizational structure and ownership of projects. To address this, the R&D organization was restructured into vertical slices with teams based on core elements such as the candidate and customer sides of the marketplace. Key engineers and product managers were identified through one-on-ones and feedback from other divisions. The restructuring was then sold to the engineering team through an all-hands, and a Google Sheet was created to provide transparency across the company. The restructuring resulted in team durability and continuity, dedicated Slack channels, and the ability to set OKRs for the teams.

When A Product Roadmap & Career Ladder Helps A Company Scale

The product team needed to be expanded to accommodate the increasing product surface area. To solve this problem, the team looked at existing teams within engineering and other departments, and reached out to industry professionals to understand different profiles. They developed a matrix of eight to ten skill sets to identify the right people for the team, and created a formal interview guide to ensure fairness and consistency in the hiring process. This allowed them to build a team that was capable of executing their aggressive product roadmap goals.

Impactful Mid-Level Thematic Objectives

This article discusses how to connect a company's vision and strategy with the work of a team. It suggests creating a mid-level tiered view of 12 months for the roadmap, brainstorming ideas, pressure testing them, and creating a thematic template. It also suggests focusing on the goals to build a shared understanding, testing the three thematic messages, and using 1:1s and brainstorming sessions to structure individuals' thinking. Ultimately, the goal is to align the work with the three subsets to ensure progress against the mid-tier goals.

Bringing a Business Analyst Onto a Product Team

This article explains how a business analyst was brought onto a product team to ensure a wide perspective and proper utilization of data. The analyst was embedded into the team and given a problem statement to solve. Data was connected back to customers to validate decisions and predictively determine features that correlated with retention. Lessons learned include the importance of analytics in the product development process, the value of having someone with broader statistical thinking, and the need to make analytics a habit by incorporating it into strategy reviews and team check-ins.

A New Perspective on Continuous Delivery

This article discusses how to align the entire organization, from building to releasing, supporting and implementing the product in a way that eliminates the “game of telephone” between front and back processes. It outlines the actions taken to build a team that encompasses all of the core functions of the product, and the lessons learned from this process, such as establishing a specific OKR for the team and creating relationships with otherwise seemingly disconnected departments. This model has become seamless and second nature, and has been a successful innovation.

Writing Code Across Multiple Platforms

The author was tasked with creating a new product for both IOS and Android while managing the front and back end of a small mobile team. To save time and money, the author introduced React Native, a platform that allows code to be written once and then compiled for both platforms. This allowed the team to ship on both platforms within a month. The author recommends React Native for startups, as it saves time and money and prevents teams from becoming misaligned.

The Importance of Time Management When Hiring

Effective time management is essential for successful hiring processes. Three key ingredients for successful time management are being organized and prioritizing tasks, having consistent messaging about the company and role, and being respectful of the candidate's time. Optimizing the interviewing time and maintaining the flow of the process are also important. Being time considerate will create a positive experience for the candidate and broadcast the company culture.

What Is the Right Time to Introduce a Coding Test

Pre-employment testing is a necessary part of the employment process, but it is important to understand when to introduce a coding test. Factors such as the size of the company and the number of candidates should be taken into account. It is best to wait until after an initial conversation and phone screen before sending a coding test, as it is a large time commitment. Companies should anticipate how many candidates they will attract and what will help to filter them before sending out coding tests.

First Principles of a Successful Product-Led Growth Strategy

This article discusses the importance of first principles thinking when creating a successful product-led growth strategy. It outlines four key principles to consider: Lead time to first value in minutes, Adequate recurrence of value, Virality and High switching costs. It also discusses the importance of delivering value fast, recurrence of value, virality, and high switching costs. Finally, it provides a roadmap for how to put these principles into action.

Applying Agile to Data Science Teams

A data science team was struggling to release software and models consistently and infrequently. To solve this, they created a data science scrum team with weekly sprints, which eventually moved to two-week sprints. This allowed them to build a deployment pipeline, document the release process, and move configuration out of code. Additionally, they moved from a research approach to a hybrid approach, allowing the product owner to review research spikes more frequently. This showed that Scrum processes can work for data science and AI optimization teams, and provides ancillary benefits.

Specializing in Non-Specializing: How Changing Roles Helps Both You and Your Company

This software developer has been with the same company for 14 years and has seen it grow from a small startup to a 1B+ company. He has changed roles many times, staying in each role for 6 months to a year before moving on. He has learned new skills and taken on new challenges, such as writing 59 case studies with a copywriter, learning SEO and conversion rate optimization, and talking to hundreds of users to find patterns. He has learned that no one should stay in the same role for too long, and that it is important to be aware of the company's priorities and offer help in whatever role is needed.

How to Sustain the Company Culture While Setting Up a New International Team in a New Location

When setting up a new engineering team in a new location, it is important to hire the right people who have the skills and culture fit to build the team. Leaders should provide the team with objectives of quality instead of quantity and invest in the team to reach the objectives. It is also important to align with the local market and competitors to attract talent and provide the team with the necessary resources to succeed. Finally, it is important to empower the team and hold regular one-on-one meetings to report progress and unblock issues.

Hiring Senior Leadership When Scaling Massively

As CTO of a company that grew from 140 to 800 engineers in two years, the author had to anticipate the size of the team and assess the existing leadership potential. It took nine months to hire six VPs and restructure the organization, and two years later the plan worked out. The author learned that it is important to anticipate growth and hire people in advance, rather than waiting until they are needed.

Continually Improving Your Hiring Process

A small team of 10 people, including one or two machine learning engineers, was tasked with hiring 20 more within a year. The company was not well known and had difficulty competing with larger companies. To overcome this, they promoted their company, co-organized a meetup, and collected data on resumes and the hiring process. They also adjusted their salaries to be competitive and offered a value proposition of greater autonomy and a chance to make a huge impact. In the end, they managed to hire 20 engineers within the year by providing a great candidate experience and reducing the time from initial contact to offer from four to two or three weeks.

Innovation in Face of Uncertainty

At a previous job, the goal was to develop music recommendations. To create a culture of innovation, a trial and error approach was taken, with experiments automated as much as possible. Hack days and hack weeks were introduced to encourage bottom-up innovation and to carve out time for people to work on their ideas. It was found that successful innovations often came from passionate people, and that what works and what doesn't is often counter-intuitive. To beat uncertainty, it was important to keep track of data and have solid statistics.

Some Useful Tips For Hiring the Right People

Hiring engineers can be a daunting process, but understanding the type, size, and developmental stage of the company can help create a successful hiring process. Smaller companies should look for people with smaller company experience and generalists, while larger companies can rely on their brand name. Respectful communication and clear role descriptions are important, as well as informal meetings with peers and managers.

Branding Yourself Through the Hiring Process

This article outlines the steps taken by a hiring manager to ensure quality candidates are recruited and retained. These steps include sourcing candidates through tech communities, meetups, and industry events, as well as screening and interviewing them. The article also emphasizes the importance of building a brand for the company and the hiring manager, and of being informed and prepared at each step of the process. Lastly, it suggests that recruiting services should be used in conjunction with other steps to ensure potential candidates are exposed to the company's brand before speaking with a recruiter.

General Principles for 1:1s

This article discusses the importance of one-on-one meetings with leadership and provides general principles for conducting them. It suggests scheduling weekly 30-minute meetings, having a shared Google doc with a running list of topics, and avoiding moving the meetings. It also suggests having an open-ended agenda and occasionally conducting the meetings outside the office. The article emphasizes the importance of valuing the time of the individual and addressing any issues before they become too big.

Uniting Personal and Professional Development on Your Team

This article discusses the importance of learning and development in the workplace, and how to ensure that employees are progressing and learning in their roles. It outlines the steps taken by the author to ensure that employees are learning and growing, such as incorporating professional and personal development into the roadmap, and having conversations during performance reviews. It also provides advice for both managers and employees on how to ensure that they are progressing in their roles.

Process Improvement

When transitioning to a new company or leading a new team, it is important to consider alternatives and question whether the current process is the right one. There are a number of ways to improve processes, such as taking a pulse check on meetings and evolving processes as the company evolves. It is important to be transparent and communicate that process changes may not be perfect, but they will hopefully bring improvements. Improving processes is essential for a company to successfully scale and save time and money.

Balancing A Reorganization Between Business Goals and Product Divisions

The onboarding process at Hired revealed a lack of organizational structure and ownership of projects. To address this, the R&D organization was restructured into vertical slices with teams based on core elements such as the candidate and customer sides of the marketplace. Key engineers and product managers were identified through one-on-ones and feedback from other divisions. The restructuring was then sold to the engineering team through an all-hands, and a Google Sheet was created to provide transparency across the company. The restructuring resulted in team durability and continuity, dedicated Slack channels, and the ability to set OKRs for the teams.

When A Product Roadmap & Career Ladder Helps A Company Scale

The product team needed to be expanded to accommodate the increasing product surface area. To solve this problem, the team looked at existing teams within engineering and other departments, and reached out to industry professionals to understand different profiles. They developed a matrix of eight to ten skill sets to identify the right people for the team, and created a formal interview guide to ensure fairness and consistency in the hiring process. This allowed them to build a team that was capable of executing their aggressive product roadmap goals.

Impactful Mid-Level Thematic Objectives

This article discusses how to connect a company's vision and strategy with the work of a team. It suggests creating a mid-level tiered view of 12 months for the roadmap, brainstorming ideas, pressure testing them, and creating a thematic template. It also suggests focusing on the goals to build a shared understanding, testing the three thematic messages, and using 1:1s and brainstorming sessions to structure individuals' thinking. Ultimately, the goal is to align the work with the three subsets to ensure progress against the mid-tier goals.

Bringing a Business Analyst Onto a Product Team

This article explains how a business analyst was brought onto a product team to ensure a wide perspective and proper utilization of data. The analyst was embedded into the team and given a problem statement to solve. Data was connected back to customers to validate decisions and predictively determine features that correlated with retention. Lessons learned include the importance of analytics in the product development process, the value of having someone with broader statistical thinking, and the need to make analytics a habit by incorporating it into strategy reviews and team check-ins.

A New Perspective on Continuous Delivery

This article discusses how to align the entire organization, from building to releasing, supporting and implementing the product in a way that eliminates the “game of telephone” between front and back processes. It outlines the actions taken to build a team that encompasses all of the core functions of the product, and the lessons learned from this process, such as establishing a specific OKR for the team and creating relationships with otherwise seemingly disconnected departments. This model has become seamless and second nature, and has been a successful innovation.

Writing Code Across Multiple Platforms

The author was tasked with creating a new product for both IOS and Android while managing the front and back end of a small mobile team. To save time and money, the author introduced React Native, a platform that allows code to be written once and then compiled for both platforms. This allowed the team to ship on both platforms within a month. The author recommends React Native for startups, as it saves time and money and prevents teams from becoming misaligned.

The Importance of Time Management When Hiring

Effective time management is essential for successful hiring processes. Three key ingredients for successful time management are being organized and prioritizing tasks, having consistent messaging about the company and role, and being respectful of the candidate's time. Optimizing the interviewing time and maintaining the flow of the process are also important. Being time considerate will create a positive experience for the candidate and broadcast the company culture.

What Is the Right Time to Introduce a Coding Test

Pre-employment testing is a necessary part of the employment process, but it is important to understand when to introduce a coding test. Factors such as the size of the company and the number of candidates should be taken into account. It is best to wait until after an initial conversation and phone screen before sending a coding test, as it is a large time commitment. Companies should anticipate how many candidates they will attract and what will help to filter them before sending out coding tests.

First Principles of a Successful Product-Led Growth Strategy

This article discusses the importance of first principles thinking when creating a successful product-led growth strategy. It outlines four key principles to consider: Lead time to first value in minutes, Adequate recurrence of value, Virality and High switching costs. It also discusses the importance of delivering value fast, recurrence of value, virality, and high switching costs. Finally, it provides a roadmap for how to put these principles into action.

Applying Agile to Data Science Teams

A data science team was struggling to release software and models consistently and infrequently. To solve this, they created a data science scrum team with weekly sprints, which eventually moved to two-week sprints. This allowed them to build a deployment pipeline, document the release process, and move configuration out of code. Additionally, they moved from a research approach to a hybrid approach, allowing the product owner to review research spikes more frequently. This showed that Scrum processes can work for data science and AI optimization teams, and provides ancillary benefits.

Specializing in Non-Specializing: How Changing Roles Helps Both You and Your Company

This software developer has been with the same company for 14 years and has seen it grow from a small startup to a 1B+ company. He has changed roles many times, staying in each role for 6 months to a year before moving on. He has learned new skills and taken on new challenges, such as writing 59 case studies with a copywriter, learning SEO and conversion rate optimization, and talking to hundreds of users to find patterns. He has learned that no one should stay in the same role for too long, and that it is important to be aware of the company's priorities and offer help in whatever role is needed.

How to Sustain the Company Culture While Setting Up a New International Team in a New Location

When setting up a new engineering team in a new location, it is important to hire the right people who have the skills and culture fit to build the team. Leaders should provide the team with objectives of quality instead of quantity and invest in the team to reach the objectives. It is also important to align with the local market and competitors to attract talent and provide the team with the necessary resources to succeed. Finally, it is important to empower the team and hold regular one-on-one meetings to report progress and unblock issues.

Hiring Senior Leadership When Scaling Massively

As CTO of a company that grew from 140 to 800 engineers in two years, the author had to anticipate the size of the team and assess the existing leadership potential. It took nine months to hire six VPs and restructure the organization, and two years later the plan worked out. The author learned that it is important to anticipate growth and hire people in advance, rather than waiting until they are needed.

Continually Improving Your Hiring Process

A small team of 10 people, including one or two machine learning engineers, was tasked with hiring 20 more within a year. The company was not well known and had difficulty competing with larger companies. To overcome this, they promoted their company, co-organized a meetup, and collected data on resumes and the hiring process. They also adjusted their salaries to be competitive and offered a value proposition of greater autonomy and a chance to make a huge impact. In the end, they managed to hire 20 engineers within the year by providing a great candidate experience and reducing the time from initial contact to offer from four to two or three weeks.

Innovation in Face of Uncertainty

At a previous job, the goal was to develop music recommendations. To create a culture of innovation, a trial and error approach was taken, with experiments automated as much as possible. Hack days and hack weeks were introduced to encourage bottom-up innovation and to carve out time for people to work on their ideas. It was found that successful innovations often came from passionate people, and that what works and what doesn't is often counter-intuitive. To beat uncertainty, it was important to keep track of data and have solid statistics.

Some Useful Tips For Hiring the Right People

Hiring engineers can be a daunting process, but understanding the type, size, and developmental stage of the company can help create a successful hiring process. Smaller companies should look for people with smaller company experience and generalists, while larger companies can rely on their brand name. Respectful communication and clear role descriptions are important, as well as informal meetings with peers and managers.

Branding Yourself Through the Hiring Process

This article outlines the steps taken by a hiring manager to ensure quality candidates are recruited and retained. These steps include sourcing candidates through tech communities, meetups, and industry events, as well as screening and interviewing them. The article also emphasizes the importance of building a brand for the company and the hiring manager, and of being informed and prepared at each step of the process. Lastly, it suggests that recruiting services should be used in conjunction with other steps to ensure potential candidates are exposed to the company's brand before speaking with a recruiter.

General Principles for 1:1s

This article discusses the importance of one-on-one meetings with leadership and provides general principles for conducting them. It suggests scheduling weekly 30-minute meetings, having a shared Google doc with a running list of topics, and avoiding moving the meetings. It also suggests having an open-ended agenda and occasionally conducting the meetings outside the office. The article emphasizes the importance of valuing the time of the individual and addressing any issues before they become too big.

Uniting Personal and Professional Development on Your Team

This article discusses the importance of learning and development in the workplace, and how to ensure that employees are progressing and learning in their roles. It outlines the steps taken by the author to ensure that employees are learning and growing, such as incorporating professional and personal development into the roadmap, and having conversations during performance reviews. It also provides advice for both managers and employees on how to ensure that they are progressing in their roles.

Process Improvement

When transitioning to a new company or leading a new team, it is important to consider alternatives and question whether the current process is the right one. There are a number of ways to improve processes, such as taking a pulse check on meetings and evolving processes as the company evolves. It is important to be transparent and communicate that process changes may not be perfect, but they will hopefully bring improvements. Improving processes is essential for a company to successfully scale and save time and money.

Balancing A Reorganization Between Business Goals and Product Divisions

The onboarding process at Hired revealed a lack of organizational structure and ownership of projects. To address this, the R&D organization was restructured into vertical slices with teams based on core elements such as the candidate and customer sides of the marketplace. Key engineers and product managers were identified through one-on-ones and feedback from other divisions. The restructuring was then sold to the engineering team through an all-hands, and a Google Sheet was created to provide transparency across the company. The restructuring resulted in team durability and continuity, dedicated Slack channels, and the ability to set OKRs for the teams.

When A Product Roadmap & Career Ladder Helps A Company Scale

The product team needed to be expanded to accommodate the increasing product surface area. To solve this problem, the team looked at existing teams within engineering and other departments, and reached out to industry professionals to understand different profiles. They developed a matrix of eight to ten skill sets to identify the right people for the team, and created a formal interview guide to ensure fairness and consistency in the hiring process. This allowed them to build a team that was capable of executing their aggressive product roadmap goals.

Impactful Mid-Level Thematic Objectives

This article discusses how to connect a company's vision and strategy with the work of a team. It suggests creating a mid-level tiered view of 12 months for the roadmap, brainstorming ideas, pressure testing them, and creating a thematic template. It also suggests focusing on the goals to build a shared understanding, testing the three thematic messages, and using 1:1s and brainstorming sessions to structure individuals' thinking. Ultimately, the goal is to align the work with the three subsets to ensure progress against the mid-tier goals.

Bringing a Business Analyst Onto a Product Team

This article explains how a business analyst was brought onto a product team to ensure a wide perspective and proper utilization of data. The analyst was embedded into the team and given a problem statement to solve. Data was connected back to customers to validate decisions and predictively determine features that correlated with retention. Lessons learned include the importance of analytics in the product development process, the value of having someone with broader statistical thinking, and the need to make analytics a habit by incorporating it into strategy reviews and team check-ins.

A New Perspective on Continuous Delivery

This article discusses how to align the entire organization, from building to releasing, supporting and implementing the product in a way that eliminates the “game of telephone” between front and back processes. It outlines the actions taken to build a team that encompasses all of the core functions of the product, and the lessons learned from this process, such as establishing a specific OKR for the team and creating relationships with otherwise seemingly disconnected departments. This model has become seamless and second nature, and has been a successful innovation.

Writing Code Across Multiple Platforms

The author was tasked with creating a new product for both IOS and Android while managing the front and back end of a small mobile team. To save time and money, the author introduced React Native, a platform that allows code to be written once and then compiled for both platforms. This allowed the team to ship on both platforms within a month. The author recommends React Native for startups, as it saves time and money and prevents teams from becoming misaligned.

The Importance of Time Management When Hiring

Effective time management is essential for successful hiring processes. Three key ingredients for successful time management are being organized and prioritizing tasks, having consistent messaging about the company and role, and being respectful of the candidate's time. Optimizing the interviewing time and maintaining the flow of the process are also important. Being time considerate will create a positive experience for the candidate and broadcast the company culture.

What Is the Right Time to Introduce a Coding Test

Pre-employment testing is a necessary part of the employment process, but it is important to understand when to introduce a coding test. Factors such as the size of the company and the number of candidates should be taken into account. It is best to wait until after an initial conversation and phone screen before sending a coding test, as it is a large time commitment. Companies should anticipate how many candidates they will attract and what will help to filter them before sending out coding tests.

First Principles of a Successful Product-Led Growth Strategy

This article discusses the importance of first principles thinking when creating a successful product-led growth strategy. It outlines four key principles to consider: Lead time to first value in minutes, Adequate recurrence of value, Virality and High switching costs. It also discusses the importance of delivering value fast, recurrence of value, virality, and high switching costs. Finally, it provides a roadmap for how to put these principles into action.

Applying Agile to Data Science Teams

A data science team was struggling to release software and models consistently and infrequently. To solve this, they created a data science scrum team with weekly sprints, which eventually moved to two-week sprints. This allowed them to build a deployment pipeline, document the release process, and move configuration out of code. Additionally, they moved from a research approach to a hybrid approach, allowing the product owner to review research spikes more frequently. This showed that Scrum processes can work for data science and AI optimization teams, and provides ancillary benefits.

Specializing in Non-Specializing: How Changing Roles Helps Both You and Your Company

This software developer has been with the same company for 14 years and has seen it grow from a small startup to a 1B+ company. He has changed roles many times, staying in each role for 6 months to a year before moving on. He has learned new skills and taken on new challenges, such as writing 59 case studies with a copywriter, learning SEO and conversion rate optimization, and talking to hundreds of users to find patterns. He has learned that no one should stay in the same role for too long, and that it is important to be aware of the company's priorities and offer help in whatever role is needed.

How to Sustain the Company Culture While Setting Up a New International Team in a New Location

When setting up a new engineering team in a new location, it is important to hire the right people who have the skills and culture fit to build the team. Leaders should provide the team with objectives of quality instead of quantity and invest in the team to reach the objectives. It is also important to align with the local market and competitors to attract talent and provide the team with the necessary resources to succeed. Finally, it is important to empower the team and hold regular one-on-one meetings to report progress and unblock issues.

Hiring Senior Leadership When Scaling Massively

As CTO of a company that grew from 140 to 800 engineers in two years, the author had to anticipate the size of the team and assess the existing leadership potential. It took nine months to hire six VPs and restructure the organization, and two years later the plan worked out. The author learned that it is important to anticipate growth and hire people in advance, rather than waiting until they are needed.

Continually Improving Your Hiring Process

A small team of 10 people, including one or two machine learning engineers, was tasked with hiring 20 more within a year. The company was not well known and had difficulty competing with larger companies. To overcome this, they promoted their company, co-organized a meetup, and collected data on resumes and the hiring process. They also adjusted their salaries to be competitive and offered a value proposition of greater autonomy and a chance to make a huge impact. In the end, they managed to hire 20 engineers within the year by providing a great candidate experience and reducing the time from initial contact to offer from four to two or three weeks.

Innovation in Face of Uncertainty

At a previous job, the goal was to develop music recommendations. To create a culture of innovation, a trial and error approach was taken, with experiments automated as much as possible. Hack days and hack weeks were introduced to encourage bottom-up innovation and to carve out time for people to work on their ideas. It was found that successful innovations often came from passionate people, and that what works and what doesn't is often counter-intuitive. To beat uncertainty, it was important to keep track of data and have solid statistics.

Some Useful Tips For Hiring the Right People

Hiring engineers can be a daunting process, but understanding the type, size, and developmental stage of the company can help create a successful hiring process. Smaller companies should look for people with smaller company experience and generalists, while larger companies can rely on their brand name. Respectful communication and clear role descriptions are important, as well as informal meetings with peers and managers.

Branding Yourself Through the Hiring Process

This article outlines the steps taken by a hiring manager to ensure quality candidates are recruited and retained. These steps include sourcing candidates through tech communities, meetups, and industry events, as well as screening and interviewing them. The article also emphasizes the importance of building a brand for the company and the hiring manager, and of being informed and prepared at each step of the process. Lastly, it suggests that recruiting services should be used in conjunction with other steps to ensure potential candidates are exposed to the company's brand before speaking with a recruiter.

General Principles for 1:1s

This article discusses the importance of one-on-one meetings with leadership and provides general principles for conducting them. It suggests scheduling weekly 30-minute meetings, having a shared Google doc with a running list of topics, and avoiding moving the meetings. It also suggests having an open-ended agenda and occasionally conducting the meetings outside the office. The article emphasizes the importance of valuing the time of the individual and addressing any issues before they become too big.

Uniting Personal and Professional Development on Your Team

This article discusses the importance of learning and development in the workplace, and how to ensure that employees are progressing and learning in their roles. It outlines the steps taken by the author to ensure that employees are learning and growing, such as incorporating professional and personal development into the roadmap, and having conversations during performance reviews. It also provides advice for both managers and employees on how to ensure that they are progressing in their roles.

Process Improvement

When transitioning to a new company or leading a new team, it is important to consider alternatives and question whether the current process is the right one. There are a number of ways to improve processes, such as taking a pulse check on meetings and evolving processes as the company evolves. It is important to be transparent and communicate that process changes may not be perfect, but they will hopefully bring improvements. Improving processes is essential for a company to successfully scale and save time and money.

Balancing A Reorganization Between Business Goals and Product Divisions

The onboarding process at Hired revealed a lack of organizational structure and ownership of projects. To address this, the R&D organization was restructured into vertical slices with teams based on core elements such as the candidate and customer sides of the marketplace. Key engineers and product managers were identified through one-on-ones and feedback from other divisions. The restructuring was then sold to the engineering team through an all-hands, and a Google Sheet was created to provide transparency across the company. The restructuring resulted in team durability and continuity, dedicated Slack channels, and the ability to set OKRs for the teams.

When A Product Roadmap & Career Ladder Helps A Company Scale

The product team needed to be expanded to accommodate the increasing product surface area. To solve this problem, the team looked at existing teams within engineering and other departments, and reached out to industry professionals to understand different profiles. They developed a matrix of eight to ten skill sets to identify the right people for the team, and created a formal interview guide to ensure fairness and consistency in the hiring process. This allowed them to build a team that was capable of executing their aggressive product roadmap goals.

Impactful Mid-Level Thematic Objectives

This article discusses how to connect a company's vision and strategy with the work of a team. It suggests creating a mid-level tiered view of 12 months for the roadmap, brainstorming ideas, pressure testing them, and creating a thematic template. It also suggests focusing on the goals to build a shared understanding, testing the three thematic messages, and using 1:1s and brainstorming sessions to structure individuals' thinking. Ultimately, the goal is to align the work with the three subsets to ensure progress against the mid-tier goals.

Bringing a Business Analyst Onto a Product Team

This article explains how a business analyst was brought onto a product team to ensure a wide perspective and proper utilization of data. The analyst was embedded into the team and given a problem statement to solve. Data was connected back to customers to validate decisions and predictively determine features that correlated with retention. Lessons learned include the importance of analytics in the product development process, the value of having someone with broader statistical thinking, and the need to make analytics a habit by incorporating it into strategy reviews and team check-ins.

A New Perspective on Continuous Delivery

This article discusses how to align the entire organization, from building to releasing, supporting and implementing the product in a way that eliminates the “game of telephone” between front and back processes. It outlines the actions taken to build a team that encompasses all of the core functions of the product, and the lessons learned from this process, such as establishing a specific OKR for the team and creating relationships with otherwise seemingly disconnected departments. This model has become seamless and second nature, and has been a successful innovation.