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Psychology and Communication as Complementary Skills for Manager

This engineering manager took a psychology course to better understand how to communicate with people. Through the course, they learned how to adjust their communication style based on the personality of the person they were speaking to, as well as how to ask for things and build relationships. These lessons were put to use in their work, helping them to better manage their peers and build relationships with their interim manager.

Identifying and Developing Complementary Skills for a Leadership Position

This article discusses how engineering managers and team leads can identify their strengths and weaknesses in order to develop a clear personal development plan. It suggests using a 2x2 skill matrix to identify which skills are strengths and which are in high demand in the current organization. It also suggests delegating current tasks to someone eager to learn and taking on more responsibilities in order to grow into new roles. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of developing multiple skills over a three to five year timeline in order to build a strong career path.

Improving Product Discovery

In order to improve product discovery, our teams implemented a faster peer review, test and release system, feature toggles, user research program, and online data analytics. They also released smaller chunks of code more frequently, which allowed them to check them more quickly. However, dealing with 40 different feature toggles in production created miscommunications that had to be solved on the fly.

Improving Product Delivery

A team was experiencing delays in value delivery due to an organizational structure based on function. To address this, they switched to cross-functional and cross-module teams with a clear purpose from a product point of view. They dedicated a product manager and two or three developers to each team, and hired more testers, designers, and user researchers. It took a few months to get the team functioning, but by eliminating outside distractions, they were able to become more focused on the value and its delivery.

Embracing and Growing Into the Role of an Amazing Leader

A programmer in a startup was asked to take on the role of engineering manager due to the lack of structure in the organization. Despite having no experience managing people, they accepted the role and eventually embraced it. They learned how to be a leader through attending courses and conferences, and eventually developed an approach of intent-based leadership, pushing leadership down through the team. They learned that the biggest measure of success is getting the team to the point where they don't need them anymore, and that this can be an opportunity to assess their own career ladder and strive for something else.

Being In Two Minds On Becoming a Manager

This article tells the story of an engineer who was unsure of whether to pursue a career in management. After being flagged by leaders as a potential manager, they were exposed to different versions of what a management position could look like and decided to take the plunge. To prepare, they found a mentor, attended classes, and interviewed other managers to gain insight into the job. Ultimately, they learned that it is important to be clear about what you want, document a plan, and look for mentors to help you reach your goals.

Handling Parental Leave

This article discusses the steps taken by an individual when they learned they were expecting a child while working at a company. The individual went to Human Resources to learn the company's policies, had conversations with their manager and direct reports, created a 90-day plan and a return-to-work plan, and arranged backfill coverage for their role. The article also discusses the lessons learned from the experience, such as the importance of having empathy for employees who are expecting and the need to clearly communicate expectations when returning to work.

Discovering and Mapping Your Career Path

This article discusses the importance of breaking down and evaluating one's career path based on five particular fields, The Five P's: Purpose, Productivity, People, Presence, and Plan. It suggests reflecting on what is important to you, what excites you, and what your passions are, as well as determining what type of lifestyle you want and who you want to have around you. It also emphasizes the importance of thinking about your presence holistically and mapping out a plan that blends together your career and personal life. Finally, it suggests creating a design statement and design principles for yourself, as well as assessing your situation annually and quarterly to ensure that your plan is on track.

Hyper-Learning: The Key to Career Differentiation

This technique of hyper-learning allows individuals to rapidly research and apply what they have learned to their job. This technique involves researching resources, scanning content, and going deep into books to pull out frameworks for application. It also involves creating a teachable point of view and teaching it to others. This technique has been the key to the success of the individual, allowing them to make more effective decisions and be seen as a leader in the room. It can be applied quickly and will result in dramatic and positive changes.

Super Performer

This article outlines a framework for creating the highest performing individuals and teams in a fortune 6 company. It includes shifting the mindset, moving from a fixed to a growth mindset, taking extreme ownership, practicing radical candor, creating a differentiated strategy, edge strategy, ten types of innovation, long-range planning, accelerated execution, first mile, and 12-week year. After a year of intense practice, the team has seen dramatic results and has begun applying the framework to other teams within the company.

Building Features Doesn’t Always Solve the Customer Problem

This article outlines the steps taken by a product manager to build a technical feature for an existing customer. The product manager first took the time to understand the core problem and then prioritized the current commitment. They then aligned the feature with the product vision and strategy, validated the value of the feature with existing and potential customers, and conducted customer validation demos. Finally, they provided a timeline schedule for both internal and external stakeholders. The article also highlights the importance of understanding the customer problem before jumping into a solution, as well as the importance of managing both internal and external expectations.

Underperformance vs. Unidentified ADHD in the Workplace

A new manager inherited an underperforming employee, and upon further investigation, discovered that the employee had ADHD. After discussing the issue with his manager, the manager switched the employee to short-term projects, which resulted in an increase in performance. This experience taught the manager to investigate underperformance issues when the facts don't add up.

HR: The Helpful Tool That Managers Often Neglect

In this article, the author reflects on a mistake they made as a manager at Box, where they failed to consult HR when dealing with an underperforming team. They learned that it is important to involve HR when making difficult decisions, as it can make the process more systematic and less risky for the company. The author also learned the importance of finding a balance between looking out for the company's interests and making employees feel valued.

New Teams Require More Informal Time

When creating a new team, it is important to take steps to foster a cultural shift. As a manager, this can be done through team lunches, off-site activities, and icebreaker questions. It is important to increase informal time together to ensure people get back to functioning how they were in their previous teams. Knowing each other as human beings, rather than just coworkers, helps to foster a stronger team dynamic.

Identifying If a Future Employee Can Thrive in an Environment of Uncertainties

This article outlines the strategies used by the author to identify the right candidates for a role that does not exist in other companies. The author looks for indicators of future success, evaluates written articulation skills, and poses relevant theoretical problems in the interview. The author also emphasizes the importance of identifying how future employees receive, internalize, and apply feedback, as this is a highly needed skill for the team.

Advertising to Increase Revenue

When starting a new business, increasing revenue can be a challenge. Advertising is one option, but it requires a large user base and long engagement statistics. To make advertising successful, one must measure the number of weekly active users, focus on direct response and conversion rate, focus on traction more than monetization, and prove to investors that there is a future amount of opportunity. Additionally, brand advertising and direct response advertising work best with a large user base and good impressions, and one must find a balance between traction and monetization.

Building Data as a Service

The Bigdata & Analytics team at PubMatic faced challenges when developing data processing pipelines for different products. To address these challenges, they developed a self-service data platform (DaaS) with an API service, an ACL model, and a generic framework for data processing. This improved the efficiency of the development and QA cycle, allowed developers from other teams to write jobs, and improved code quality. They also learned that it was important to identify bottlenecks in the process and build the right tools for the platform.

Platform as a Service

A team of limited people was struggling to keep up with the high-priority requests they were receiving. To solve this problem, they created a platform-as-a-service which exposed functionalities to APIs and interfaces, and built tools which allowed teams to operate independently. This relieved the burden of trying to resolve everyone's requests and improved their own roadmap delivery time, quote coverage, QR admission, and velocity to deliver.

Transitioning Your Team to Agile in a Waterfall Organization

This article discusses the transition from a waterfall approach to an Agile approach in an organization. The author took on the challenge of becoming a certified Scrum Master and Product Owner in order to gain the knowledge required to run Agile. After pitching the idea to leadership, Agile was adopted by the engineering team, while the rest of the organization continued to run waterfall. The author learned that Agile is an investment and that it helps build applications that are sustainable, future proof, and easier to run. They also note that Agile is not limited to engineers and can be used by anyone.

Understanding a Product’s Life Cycle

This article is about the transition of a software engineer to a technical product manager. The author had to learn the entire life cycle of a product on their own, as there is no one-size-fits-all source. They gained knowledge from working with different teams, researching books, and potentially getting mentored. The key lessons learned are to take the time to reflect on the direction of one's career and to be willing to invest the time and effort to make the transition.

Psychology and Communication as Complementary Skills for Manager

This engineering manager took a psychology course to better understand how to communicate with people. Through the course, they learned how to adjust their communication style based on the personality of the person they were speaking to, as well as how to ask for things and build relationships. These lessons were put to use in their work, helping them to better manage their peers and build relationships with their interim manager.

Identifying and Developing Complementary Skills for a Leadership Position

This article discusses how engineering managers and team leads can identify their strengths and weaknesses in order to develop a clear personal development plan. It suggests using a 2x2 skill matrix to identify which skills are strengths and which are in high demand in the current organization. It also suggests delegating current tasks to someone eager to learn and taking on more responsibilities in order to grow into new roles. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of developing multiple skills over a three to five year timeline in order to build a strong career path.

Improving Product Discovery

In order to improve product discovery, our teams implemented a faster peer review, test and release system, feature toggles, user research program, and online data analytics. They also released smaller chunks of code more frequently, which allowed them to check them more quickly. However, dealing with 40 different feature toggles in production created miscommunications that had to be solved on the fly.

Improving Product Delivery

A team was experiencing delays in value delivery due to an organizational structure based on function. To address this, they switched to cross-functional and cross-module teams with a clear purpose from a product point of view. They dedicated a product manager and two or three developers to each team, and hired more testers, designers, and user researchers. It took a few months to get the team functioning, but by eliminating outside distractions, they were able to become more focused on the value and its delivery.

Embracing and Growing Into the Role of an Amazing Leader

A programmer in a startup was asked to take on the role of engineering manager due to the lack of structure in the organization. Despite having no experience managing people, they accepted the role and eventually embraced it. They learned how to be a leader through attending courses and conferences, and eventually developed an approach of intent-based leadership, pushing leadership down through the team. They learned that the biggest measure of success is getting the team to the point where they don't need them anymore, and that this can be an opportunity to assess their own career ladder and strive for something else.

Being In Two Minds On Becoming a Manager

This article tells the story of an engineer who was unsure of whether to pursue a career in management. After being flagged by leaders as a potential manager, they were exposed to different versions of what a management position could look like and decided to take the plunge. To prepare, they found a mentor, attended classes, and interviewed other managers to gain insight into the job. Ultimately, they learned that it is important to be clear about what you want, document a plan, and look for mentors to help you reach your goals.

Handling Parental Leave

This article discusses the steps taken by an individual when they learned they were expecting a child while working at a company. The individual went to Human Resources to learn the company's policies, had conversations with their manager and direct reports, created a 90-day plan and a return-to-work plan, and arranged backfill coverage for their role. The article also discusses the lessons learned from the experience, such as the importance of having empathy for employees who are expecting and the need to clearly communicate expectations when returning to work.

Discovering and Mapping Your Career Path

This article discusses the importance of breaking down and evaluating one's career path based on five particular fields, The Five P's: Purpose, Productivity, People, Presence, and Plan. It suggests reflecting on what is important to you, what excites you, and what your passions are, as well as determining what type of lifestyle you want and who you want to have around you. It also emphasizes the importance of thinking about your presence holistically and mapping out a plan that blends together your career and personal life. Finally, it suggests creating a design statement and design principles for yourself, as well as assessing your situation annually and quarterly to ensure that your plan is on track.

Hyper-Learning: The Key to Career Differentiation

This technique of hyper-learning allows individuals to rapidly research and apply what they have learned to their job. This technique involves researching resources, scanning content, and going deep into books to pull out frameworks for application. It also involves creating a teachable point of view and teaching it to others. This technique has been the key to the success of the individual, allowing them to make more effective decisions and be seen as a leader in the room. It can be applied quickly and will result in dramatic and positive changes.

Super Performer

This article outlines a framework for creating the highest performing individuals and teams in a fortune 6 company. It includes shifting the mindset, moving from a fixed to a growth mindset, taking extreme ownership, practicing radical candor, creating a differentiated strategy, edge strategy, ten types of innovation, long-range planning, accelerated execution, first mile, and 12-week year. After a year of intense practice, the team has seen dramatic results and has begun applying the framework to other teams within the company.

Building Features Doesn’t Always Solve the Customer Problem

This article outlines the steps taken by a product manager to build a technical feature for an existing customer. The product manager first took the time to understand the core problem and then prioritized the current commitment. They then aligned the feature with the product vision and strategy, validated the value of the feature with existing and potential customers, and conducted customer validation demos. Finally, they provided a timeline schedule for both internal and external stakeholders. The article also highlights the importance of understanding the customer problem before jumping into a solution, as well as the importance of managing both internal and external expectations.

Underperformance vs. Unidentified ADHD in the Workplace

A new manager inherited an underperforming employee, and upon further investigation, discovered that the employee had ADHD. After discussing the issue with his manager, the manager switched the employee to short-term projects, which resulted in an increase in performance. This experience taught the manager to investigate underperformance issues when the facts don't add up.

HR: The Helpful Tool That Managers Often Neglect

In this article, the author reflects on a mistake they made as a manager at Box, where they failed to consult HR when dealing with an underperforming team. They learned that it is important to involve HR when making difficult decisions, as it can make the process more systematic and less risky for the company. The author also learned the importance of finding a balance between looking out for the company's interests and making employees feel valued.

New Teams Require More Informal Time

When creating a new team, it is important to take steps to foster a cultural shift. As a manager, this can be done through team lunches, off-site activities, and icebreaker questions. It is important to increase informal time together to ensure people get back to functioning how they were in their previous teams. Knowing each other as human beings, rather than just coworkers, helps to foster a stronger team dynamic.

Identifying If a Future Employee Can Thrive in an Environment of Uncertainties

This article outlines the strategies used by the author to identify the right candidates for a role that does not exist in other companies. The author looks for indicators of future success, evaluates written articulation skills, and poses relevant theoretical problems in the interview. The author also emphasizes the importance of identifying how future employees receive, internalize, and apply feedback, as this is a highly needed skill for the team.

Advertising to Increase Revenue

When starting a new business, increasing revenue can be a challenge. Advertising is one option, but it requires a large user base and long engagement statistics. To make advertising successful, one must measure the number of weekly active users, focus on direct response and conversion rate, focus on traction more than monetization, and prove to investors that there is a future amount of opportunity. Additionally, brand advertising and direct response advertising work best with a large user base and good impressions, and one must find a balance between traction and monetization.

Building Data as a Service

The Bigdata & Analytics team at PubMatic faced challenges when developing data processing pipelines for different products. To address these challenges, they developed a self-service data platform (DaaS) with an API service, an ACL model, and a generic framework for data processing. This improved the efficiency of the development and QA cycle, allowed developers from other teams to write jobs, and improved code quality. They also learned that it was important to identify bottlenecks in the process and build the right tools for the platform.

Platform as a Service

A team of limited people was struggling to keep up with the high-priority requests they were receiving. To solve this problem, they created a platform-as-a-service which exposed functionalities to APIs and interfaces, and built tools which allowed teams to operate independently. This relieved the burden of trying to resolve everyone's requests and improved their own roadmap delivery time, quote coverage, QR admission, and velocity to deliver.

Transitioning Your Team to Agile in a Waterfall Organization

This article discusses the transition from a waterfall approach to an Agile approach in an organization. The author took on the challenge of becoming a certified Scrum Master and Product Owner in order to gain the knowledge required to run Agile. After pitching the idea to leadership, Agile was adopted by the engineering team, while the rest of the organization continued to run waterfall. The author learned that Agile is an investment and that it helps build applications that are sustainable, future proof, and easier to run. They also note that Agile is not limited to engineers and can be used by anyone.

Understanding a Product’s Life Cycle

This article is about the transition of a software engineer to a technical product manager. The author had to learn the entire life cycle of a product on their own, as there is no one-size-fits-all source. They gained knowledge from working with different teams, researching books, and potentially getting mentored. The key lessons learned are to take the time to reflect on the direction of one's career and to be willing to invest the time and effort to make the transition.

Psychology and Communication as Complementary Skills for Manager

This engineering manager took a psychology course to better understand how to communicate with people. Through the course, they learned how to adjust their communication style based on the personality of the person they were speaking to, as well as how to ask for things and build relationships. These lessons were put to use in their work, helping them to better manage their peers and build relationships with their interim manager.

Identifying and Developing Complementary Skills for a Leadership Position

This article discusses how engineering managers and team leads can identify their strengths and weaknesses in order to develop a clear personal development plan. It suggests using a 2x2 skill matrix to identify which skills are strengths and which are in high demand in the current organization. It also suggests delegating current tasks to someone eager to learn and taking on more responsibilities in order to grow into new roles. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of developing multiple skills over a three to five year timeline in order to build a strong career path.

Improving Product Discovery

In order to improve product discovery, our teams implemented a faster peer review, test and release system, feature toggles, user research program, and online data analytics. They also released smaller chunks of code more frequently, which allowed them to check them more quickly. However, dealing with 40 different feature toggles in production created miscommunications that had to be solved on the fly.

Improving Product Delivery

A team was experiencing delays in value delivery due to an organizational structure based on function. To address this, they switched to cross-functional and cross-module teams with a clear purpose from a product point of view. They dedicated a product manager and two or three developers to each team, and hired more testers, designers, and user researchers. It took a few months to get the team functioning, but by eliminating outside distractions, they were able to become more focused on the value and its delivery.

Embracing and Growing Into the Role of an Amazing Leader

A programmer in a startup was asked to take on the role of engineering manager due to the lack of structure in the organization. Despite having no experience managing people, they accepted the role and eventually embraced it. They learned how to be a leader through attending courses and conferences, and eventually developed an approach of intent-based leadership, pushing leadership down through the team. They learned that the biggest measure of success is getting the team to the point where they don't need them anymore, and that this can be an opportunity to assess their own career ladder and strive for something else.

Being In Two Minds On Becoming a Manager

This article tells the story of an engineer who was unsure of whether to pursue a career in management. After being flagged by leaders as a potential manager, they were exposed to different versions of what a management position could look like and decided to take the plunge. To prepare, they found a mentor, attended classes, and interviewed other managers to gain insight into the job. Ultimately, they learned that it is important to be clear about what you want, document a plan, and look for mentors to help you reach your goals.

Handling Parental Leave

This article discusses the steps taken by an individual when they learned they were expecting a child while working at a company. The individual went to Human Resources to learn the company's policies, had conversations with their manager and direct reports, created a 90-day plan and a return-to-work plan, and arranged backfill coverage for their role. The article also discusses the lessons learned from the experience, such as the importance of having empathy for employees who are expecting and the need to clearly communicate expectations when returning to work.

Discovering and Mapping Your Career Path

This article discusses the importance of breaking down and evaluating one's career path based on five particular fields, The Five P's: Purpose, Productivity, People, Presence, and Plan. It suggests reflecting on what is important to you, what excites you, and what your passions are, as well as determining what type of lifestyle you want and who you want to have around you. It also emphasizes the importance of thinking about your presence holistically and mapping out a plan that blends together your career and personal life. Finally, it suggests creating a design statement and design principles for yourself, as well as assessing your situation annually and quarterly to ensure that your plan is on track.

Hyper-Learning: The Key to Career Differentiation

This technique of hyper-learning allows individuals to rapidly research and apply what they have learned to their job. This technique involves researching resources, scanning content, and going deep into books to pull out frameworks for application. It also involves creating a teachable point of view and teaching it to others. This technique has been the key to the success of the individual, allowing them to make more effective decisions and be seen as a leader in the room. It can be applied quickly and will result in dramatic and positive changes.

Super Performer

This article outlines a framework for creating the highest performing individuals and teams in a fortune 6 company. It includes shifting the mindset, moving from a fixed to a growth mindset, taking extreme ownership, practicing radical candor, creating a differentiated strategy, edge strategy, ten types of innovation, long-range planning, accelerated execution, first mile, and 12-week year. After a year of intense practice, the team has seen dramatic results and has begun applying the framework to other teams within the company.

Building Features Doesn’t Always Solve the Customer Problem

This article outlines the steps taken by a product manager to build a technical feature for an existing customer. The product manager first took the time to understand the core problem and then prioritized the current commitment. They then aligned the feature with the product vision and strategy, validated the value of the feature with existing and potential customers, and conducted customer validation demos. Finally, they provided a timeline schedule for both internal and external stakeholders. The article also highlights the importance of understanding the customer problem before jumping into a solution, as well as the importance of managing both internal and external expectations.

Underperformance vs. Unidentified ADHD in the Workplace

A new manager inherited an underperforming employee, and upon further investigation, discovered that the employee had ADHD. After discussing the issue with his manager, the manager switched the employee to short-term projects, which resulted in an increase in performance. This experience taught the manager to investigate underperformance issues when the facts don't add up.

HR: The Helpful Tool That Managers Often Neglect

In this article, the author reflects on a mistake they made as a manager at Box, where they failed to consult HR when dealing with an underperforming team. They learned that it is important to involve HR when making difficult decisions, as it can make the process more systematic and less risky for the company. The author also learned the importance of finding a balance between looking out for the company's interests and making employees feel valued.

New Teams Require More Informal Time

When creating a new team, it is important to take steps to foster a cultural shift. As a manager, this can be done through team lunches, off-site activities, and icebreaker questions. It is important to increase informal time together to ensure people get back to functioning how they were in their previous teams. Knowing each other as human beings, rather than just coworkers, helps to foster a stronger team dynamic.

Identifying If a Future Employee Can Thrive in an Environment of Uncertainties

This article outlines the strategies used by the author to identify the right candidates for a role that does not exist in other companies. The author looks for indicators of future success, evaluates written articulation skills, and poses relevant theoretical problems in the interview. The author also emphasizes the importance of identifying how future employees receive, internalize, and apply feedback, as this is a highly needed skill for the team.

Advertising to Increase Revenue

When starting a new business, increasing revenue can be a challenge. Advertising is one option, but it requires a large user base and long engagement statistics. To make advertising successful, one must measure the number of weekly active users, focus on direct response and conversion rate, focus on traction more than monetization, and prove to investors that there is a future amount of opportunity. Additionally, brand advertising and direct response advertising work best with a large user base and good impressions, and one must find a balance between traction and monetization.

Building Data as a Service

The Bigdata & Analytics team at PubMatic faced challenges when developing data processing pipelines for different products. To address these challenges, they developed a self-service data platform (DaaS) with an API service, an ACL model, and a generic framework for data processing. This improved the efficiency of the development and QA cycle, allowed developers from other teams to write jobs, and improved code quality. They also learned that it was important to identify bottlenecks in the process and build the right tools for the platform.

Platform as a Service

A team of limited people was struggling to keep up with the high-priority requests they were receiving. To solve this problem, they created a platform-as-a-service which exposed functionalities to APIs and interfaces, and built tools which allowed teams to operate independently. This relieved the burden of trying to resolve everyone's requests and improved their own roadmap delivery time, quote coverage, QR admission, and velocity to deliver.

Transitioning Your Team to Agile in a Waterfall Organization

This article discusses the transition from a waterfall approach to an Agile approach in an organization. The author took on the challenge of becoming a certified Scrum Master and Product Owner in order to gain the knowledge required to run Agile. After pitching the idea to leadership, Agile was adopted by the engineering team, while the rest of the organization continued to run waterfall. The author learned that Agile is an investment and that it helps build applications that are sustainable, future proof, and easier to run. They also note that Agile is not limited to engineers and can be used by anyone.

Understanding a Product’s Life Cycle

This article is about the transition of a software engineer to a technical product manager. The author had to learn the entire life cycle of a product on their own, as there is no one-size-fits-all source. They gained knowledge from working with different teams, researching books, and potentially getting mentored. The key lessons learned are to take the time to reflect on the direction of one's career and to be willing to invest the time and effort to make the transition.

Psychology and Communication as Complementary Skills for Manager

This engineering manager took a psychology course to better understand how to communicate with people. Through the course, they learned how to adjust their communication style based on the personality of the person they were speaking to, as well as how to ask for things and build relationships. These lessons were put to use in their work, helping them to better manage their peers and build relationships with their interim manager.

Identifying and Developing Complementary Skills for a Leadership Position

This article discusses how engineering managers and team leads can identify their strengths and weaknesses in order to develop a clear personal development plan. It suggests using a 2x2 skill matrix to identify which skills are strengths and which are in high demand in the current organization. It also suggests delegating current tasks to someone eager to learn and taking on more responsibilities in order to grow into new roles. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of developing multiple skills over a three to five year timeline in order to build a strong career path.

Improving Product Discovery

In order to improve product discovery, our teams implemented a faster peer review, test and release system, feature toggles, user research program, and online data analytics. They also released smaller chunks of code more frequently, which allowed them to check them more quickly. However, dealing with 40 different feature toggles in production created miscommunications that had to be solved on the fly.

Improving Product Delivery

A team was experiencing delays in value delivery due to an organizational structure based on function. To address this, they switched to cross-functional and cross-module teams with a clear purpose from a product point of view. They dedicated a product manager and two or three developers to each team, and hired more testers, designers, and user researchers. It took a few months to get the team functioning, but by eliminating outside distractions, they were able to become more focused on the value and its delivery.

Embracing and Growing Into the Role of an Amazing Leader

A programmer in a startup was asked to take on the role of engineering manager due to the lack of structure in the organization. Despite having no experience managing people, they accepted the role and eventually embraced it. They learned how to be a leader through attending courses and conferences, and eventually developed an approach of intent-based leadership, pushing leadership down through the team. They learned that the biggest measure of success is getting the team to the point where they don't need them anymore, and that this can be an opportunity to assess their own career ladder and strive for something else.

Being In Two Minds On Becoming a Manager

This article tells the story of an engineer who was unsure of whether to pursue a career in management. After being flagged by leaders as a potential manager, they were exposed to different versions of what a management position could look like and decided to take the plunge. To prepare, they found a mentor, attended classes, and interviewed other managers to gain insight into the job. Ultimately, they learned that it is important to be clear about what you want, document a plan, and look for mentors to help you reach your goals.

Handling Parental Leave

This article discusses the steps taken by an individual when they learned they were expecting a child while working at a company. The individual went to Human Resources to learn the company's policies, had conversations with their manager and direct reports, created a 90-day plan and a return-to-work plan, and arranged backfill coverage for their role. The article also discusses the lessons learned from the experience, such as the importance of having empathy for employees who are expecting and the need to clearly communicate expectations when returning to work.

Discovering and Mapping Your Career Path

This article discusses the importance of breaking down and evaluating one's career path based on five particular fields, The Five P's: Purpose, Productivity, People, Presence, and Plan. It suggests reflecting on what is important to you, what excites you, and what your passions are, as well as determining what type of lifestyle you want and who you want to have around you. It also emphasizes the importance of thinking about your presence holistically and mapping out a plan that blends together your career and personal life. Finally, it suggests creating a design statement and design principles for yourself, as well as assessing your situation annually and quarterly to ensure that your plan is on track.

Hyper-Learning: The Key to Career Differentiation

This technique of hyper-learning allows individuals to rapidly research and apply what they have learned to their job. This technique involves researching resources, scanning content, and going deep into books to pull out frameworks for application. It also involves creating a teachable point of view and teaching it to others. This technique has been the key to the success of the individual, allowing them to make more effective decisions and be seen as a leader in the room. It can be applied quickly and will result in dramatic and positive changes.

Super Performer

This article outlines a framework for creating the highest performing individuals and teams in a fortune 6 company. It includes shifting the mindset, moving from a fixed to a growth mindset, taking extreme ownership, practicing radical candor, creating a differentiated strategy, edge strategy, ten types of innovation, long-range planning, accelerated execution, first mile, and 12-week year. After a year of intense practice, the team has seen dramatic results and has begun applying the framework to other teams within the company.

Building Features Doesn’t Always Solve the Customer Problem

This article outlines the steps taken by a product manager to build a technical feature for an existing customer. The product manager first took the time to understand the core problem and then prioritized the current commitment. They then aligned the feature with the product vision and strategy, validated the value of the feature with existing and potential customers, and conducted customer validation demos. Finally, they provided a timeline schedule for both internal and external stakeholders. The article also highlights the importance of understanding the customer problem before jumping into a solution, as well as the importance of managing both internal and external expectations.

Underperformance vs. Unidentified ADHD in the Workplace

A new manager inherited an underperforming employee, and upon further investigation, discovered that the employee had ADHD. After discussing the issue with his manager, the manager switched the employee to short-term projects, which resulted in an increase in performance. This experience taught the manager to investigate underperformance issues when the facts don't add up.

HR: The Helpful Tool That Managers Often Neglect

In this article, the author reflects on a mistake they made as a manager at Box, where they failed to consult HR when dealing with an underperforming team. They learned that it is important to involve HR when making difficult decisions, as it can make the process more systematic and less risky for the company. The author also learned the importance of finding a balance between looking out for the company's interests and making employees feel valued.

New Teams Require More Informal Time

When creating a new team, it is important to take steps to foster a cultural shift. As a manager, this can be done through team lunches, off-site activities, and icebreaker questions. It is important to increase informal time together to ensure people get back to functioning how they were in their previous teams. Knowing each other as human beings, rather than just coworkers, helps to foster a stronger team dynamic.

Identifying If a Future Employee Can Thrive in an Environment of Uncertainties

This article outlines the strategies used by the author to identify the right candidates for a role that does not exist in other companies. The author looks for indicators of future success, evaluates written articulation skills, and poses relevant theoretical problems in the interview. The author also emphasizes the importance of identifying how future employees receive, internalize, and apply feedback, as this is a highly needed skill for the team.

Advertising to Increase Revenue

When starting a new business, increasing revenue can be a challenge. Advertising is one option, but it requires a large user base and long engagement statistics. To make advertising successful, one must measure the number of weekly active users, focus on direct response and conversion rate, focus on traction more than monetization, and prove to investors that there is a future amount of opportunity. Additionally, brand advertising and direct response advertising work best with a large user base and good impressions, and one must find a balance between traction and monetization.

Building Data as a Service

The Bigdata & Analytics team at PubMatic faced challenges when developing data processing pipelines for different products. To address these challenges, they developed a self-service data platform (DaaS) with an API service, an ACL model, and a generic framework for data processing. This improved the efficiency of the development and QA cycle, allowed developers from other teams to write jobs, and improved code quality. They also learned that it was important to identify bottlenecks in the process and build the right tools for the platform.

Platform as a Service

A team of limited people was struggling to keep up with the high-priority requests they were receiving. To solve this problem, they created a platform-as-a-service which exposed functionalities to APIs and interfaces, and built tools which allowed teams to operate independently. This relieved the burden of trying to resolve everyone's requests and improved their own roadmap delivery time, quote coverage, QR admission, and velocity to deliver.

Transitioning Your Team to Agile in a Waterfall Organization

This article discusses the transition from a waterfall approach to an Agile approach in an organization. The author took on the challenge of becoming a certified Scrum Master and Product Owner in order to gain the knowledge required to run Agile. After pitching the idea to leadership, Agile was adopted by the engineering team, while the rest of the organization continued to run waterfall. The author learned that Agile is an investment and that it helps build applications that are sustainable, future proof, and easier to run. They also note that Agile is not limited to engineers and can be used by anyone.

Understanding a Product’s Life Cycle

This article is about the transition of a software engineer to a technical product manager. The author had to learn the entire life cycle of a product on their own, as there is no one-size-fits-all source. They gained knowledge from working with different teams, researching books, and potentially getting mentored. The key lessons learned are to take the time to reflect on the direction of one's career and to be willing to invest the time and effort to make the transition.

Psychology and Communication as Complementary Skills for Manager

This engineering manager took a psychology course to better understand how to communicate with people. Through the course, they learned how to adjust their communication style based on the personality of the person they were speaking to, as well as how to ask for things and build relationships. These lessons were put to use in their work, helping them to better manage their peers and build relationships with their interim manager.

Identifying and Developing Complementary Skills for a Leadership Position

This article discusses how engineering managers and team leads can identify their strengths and weaknesses in order to develop a clear personal development plan. It suggests using a 2x2 skill matrix to identify which skills are strengths and which are in high demand in the current organization. It also suggests delegating current tasks to someone eager to learn and taking on more responsibilities in order to grow into new roles. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of developing multiple skills over a three to five year timeline in order to build a strong career path.

Improving Product Discovery

In order to improve product discovery, our teams implemented a faster peer review, test and release system, feature toggles, user research program, and online data analytics. They also released smaller chunks of code more frequently, which allowed them to check them more quickly. However, dealing with 40 different feature toggles in production created miscommunications that had to be solved on the fly.

Improving Product Delivery

A team was experiencing delays in value delivery due to an organizational structure based on function. To address this, they switched to cross-functional and cross-module teams with a clear purpose from a product point of view. They dedicated a product manager and two or three developers to each team, and hired more testers, designers, and user researchers. It took a few months to get the team functioning, but by eliminating outside distractions, they were able to become more focused on the value and its delivery.

Embracing and Growing Into the Role of an Amazing Leader

A programmer in a startup was asked to take on the role of engineering manager due to the lack of structure in the organization. Despite having no experience managing people, they accepted the role and eventually embraced it. They learned how to be a leader through attending courses and conferences, and eventually developed an approach of intent-based leadership, pushing leadership down through the team. They learned that the biggest measure of success is getting the team to the point where they don't need them anymore, and that this can be an opportunity to assess their own career ladder and strive for something else.

Being In Two Minds On Becoming a Manager

This article tells the story of an engineer who was unsure of whether to pursue a career in management. After being flagged by leaders as a potential manager, they were exposed to different versions of what a management position could look like and decided to take the plunge. To prepare, they found a mentor, attended classes, and interviewed other managers to gain insight into the job. Ultimately, they learned that it is important to be clear about what you want, document a plan, and look for mentors to help you reach your goals.

Handling Parental Leave

This article discusses the steps taken by an individual when they learned they were expecting a child while working at a company. The individual went to Human Resources to learn the company's policies, had conversations with their manager and direct reports, created a 90-day plan and a return-to-work plan, and arranged backfill coverage for their role. The article also discusses the lessons learned from the experience, such as the importance of having empathy for employees who are expecting and the need to clearly communicate expectations when returning to work.

Discovering and Mapping Your Career Path

This article discusses the importance of breaking down and evaluating one's career path based on five particular fields, The Five P's: Purpose, Productivity, People, Presence, and Plan. It suggests reflecting on what is important to you, what excites you, and what your passions are, as well as determining what type of lifestyle you want and who you want to have around you. It also emphasizes the importance of thinking about your presence holistically and mapping out a plan that blends together your career and personal life. Finally, it suggests creating a design statement and design principles for yourself, as well as assessing your situation annually and quarterly to ensure that your plan is on track.

Hyper-Learning: The Key to Career Differentiation

This technique of hyper-learning allows individuals to rapidly research and apply what they have learned to their job. This technique involves researching resources, scanning content, and going deep into books to pull out frameworks for application. It also involves creating a teachable point of view and teaching it to others. This technique has been the key to the success of the individual, allowing them to make more effective decisions and be seen as a leader in the room. It can be applied quickly and will result in dramatic and positive changes.

Super Performer

This article outlines a framework for creating the highest performing individuals and teams in a fortune 6 company. It includes shifting the mindset, moving from a fixed to a growth mindset, taking extreme ownership, practicing radical candor, creating a differentiated strategy, edge strategy, ten types of innovation, long-range planning, accelerated execution, first mile, and 12-week year. After a year of intense practice, the team has seen dramatic results and has begun applying the framework to other teams within the company.

Building Features Doesn’t Always Solve the Customer Problem

This article outlines the steps taken by a product manager to build a technical feature for an existing customer. The product manager first took the time to understand the core problem and then prioritized the current commitment. They then aligned the feature with the product vision and strategy, validated the value of the feature with existing and potential customers, and conducted customer validation demos. Finally, they provided a timeline schedule for both internal and external stakeholders. The article also highlights the importance of understanding the customer problem before jumping into a solution, as well as the importance of managing both internal and external expectations.

Underperformance vs. Unidentified ADHD in the Workplace

A new manager inherited an underperforming employee, and upon further investigation, discovered that the employee had ADHD. After discussing the issue with his manager, the manager switched the employee to short-term projects, which resulted in an increase in performance. This experience taught the manager to investigate underperformance issues when the facts don't add up.

HR: The Helpful Tool That Managers Often Neglect

In this article, the author reflects on a mistake they made as a manager at Box, where they failed to consult HR when dealing with an underperforming team. They learned that it is important to involve HR when making difficult decisions, as it can make the process more systematic and less risky for the company. The author also learned the importance of finding a balance between looking out for the company's interests and making employees feel valued.

New Teams Require More Informal Time

When creating a new team, it is important to take steps to foster a cultural shift. As a manager, this can be done through team lunches, off-site activities, and icebreaker questions. It is important to increase informal time together to ensure people get back to functioning how they were in their previous teams. Knowing each other as human beings, rather than just coworkers, helps to foster a stronger team dynamic.

Identifying If a Future Employee Can Thrive in an Environment of Uncertainties

This article outlines the strategies used by the author to identify the right candidates for a role that does not exist in other companies. The author looks for indicators of future success, evaluates written articulation skills, and poses relevant theoretical problems in the interview. The author also emphasizes the importance of identifying how future employees receive, internalize, and apply feedback, as this is a highly needed skill for the team.

Advertising to Increase Revenue

When starting a new business, increasing revenue can be a challenge. Advertising is one option, but it requires a large user base and long engagement statistics. To make advertising successful, one must measure the number of weekly active users, focus on direct response and conversion rate, focus on traction more than monetization, and prove to investors that there is a future amount of opportunity. Additionally, brand advertising and direct response advertising work best with a large user base and good impressions, and one must find a balance between traction and monetization.

Building Data as a Service

The Bigdata & Analytics team at PubMatic faced challenges when developing data processing pipelines for different products. To address these challenges, they developed a self-service data platform (DaaS) with an API service, an ACL model, and a generic framework for data processing. This improved the efficiency of the development and QA cycle, allowed developers from other teams to write jobs, and improved code quality. They also learned that it was important to identify bottlenecks in the process and build the right tools for the platform.

Platform as a Service

A team of limited people was struggling to keep up with the high-priority requests they were receiving. To solve this problem, they created a platform-as-a-service which exposed functionalities to APIs and interfaces, and built tools which allowed teams to operate independently. This relieved the burden of trying to resolve everyone's requests and improved their own roadmap delivery time, quote coverage, QR admission, and velocity to deliver.

Transitioning Your Team to Agile in a Waterfall Organization

This article discusses the transition from a waterfall approach to an Agile approach in an organization. The author took on the challenge of becoming a certified Scrum Master and Product Owner in order to gain the knowledge required to run Agile. After pitching the idea to leadership, Agile was adopted by the engineering team, while the rest of the organization continued to run waterfall. The author learned that Agile is an investment and that it helps build applications that are sustainable, future proof, and easier to run. They also note that Agile is not limited to engineers and can be used by anyone.

Understanding a Product’s Life Cycle

This article is about the transition of a software engineer to a technical product manager. The author had to learn the entire life cycle of a product on their own, as there is no one-size-fits-all source. They gained knowledge from working with different teams, researching books, and potentially getting mentored. The key lessons learned are to take the time to reflect on the direction of one's career and to be willing to invest the time and effort to make the transition.

Psychology and Communication as Complementary Skills for Manager

This engineering manager took a psychology course to better understand how to communicate with people. Through the course, they learned how to adjust their communication style based on the personality of the person they were speaking to, as well as how to ask for things and build relationships. These lessons were put to use in their work, helping them to better manage their peers and build relationships with their interim manager.

Identifying and Developing Complementary Skills for a Leadership Position

This article discusses how engineering managers and team leads can identify their strengths and weaknesses in order to develop a clear personal development plan. It suggests using a 2x2 skill matrix to identify which skills are strengths and which are in high demand in the current organization. It also suggests delegating current tasks to someone eager to learn and taking on more responsibilities in order to grow into new roles. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of developing multiple skills over a three to five year timeline in order to build a strong career path.

Improving Product Discovery

In order to improve product discovery, our teams implemented a faster peer review, test and release system, feature toggles, user research program, and online data analytics. They also released smaller chunks of code more frequently, which allowed them to check them more quickly. However, dealing with 40 different feature toggles in production created miscommunications that had to be solved on the fly.

Improving Product Delivery

A team was experiencing delays in value delivery due to an organizational structure based on function. To address this, they switched to cross-functional and cross-module teams with a clear purpose from a product point of view. They dedicated a product manager and two or three developers to each team, and hired more testers, designers, and user researchers. It took a few months to get the team functioning, but by eliminating outside distractions, they were able to become more focused on the value and its delivery.

Embracing and Growing Into the Role of an Amazing Leader

A programmer in a startup was asked to take on the role of engineering manager due to the lack of structure in the organization. Despite having no experience managing people, they accepted the role and eventually embraced it. They learned how to be a leader through attending courses and conferences, and eventually developed an approach of intent-based leadership, pushing leadership down through the team. They learned that the biggest measure of success is getting the team to the point where they don't need them anymore, and that this can be an opportunity to assess their own career ladder and strive for something else.

Being In Two Minds On Becoming a Manager

This article tells the story of an engineer who was unsure of whether to pursue a career in management. After being flagged by leaders as a potential manager, they were exposed to different versions of what a management position could look like and decided to take the plunge. To prepare, they found a mentor, attended classes, and interviewed other managers to gain insight into the job. Ultimately, they learned that it is important to be clear about what you want, document a plan, and look for mentors to help you reach your goals.

Handling Parental Leave

This article discusses the steps taken by an individual when they learned they were expecting a child while working at a company. The individual went to Human Resources to learn the company's policies, had conversations with their manager and direct reports, created a 90-day plan and a return-to-work plan, and arranged backfill coverage for their role. The article also discusses the lessons learned from the experience, such as the importance of having empathy for employees who are expecting and the need to clearly communicate expectations when returning to work.

Discovering and Mapping Your Career Path

This article discusses the importance of breaking down and evaluating one's career path based on five particular fields, The Five P's: Purpose, Productivity, People, Presence, and Plan. It suggests reflecting on what is important to you, what excites you, and what your passions are, as well as determining what type of lifestyle you want and who you want to have around you. It also emphasizes the importance of thinking about your presence holistically and mapping out a plan that blends together your career and personal life. Finally, it suggests creating a design statement and design principles for yourself, as well as assessing your situation annually and quarterly to ensure that your plan is on track.

Hyper-Learning: The Key to Career Differentiation

This technique of hyper-learning allows individuals to rapidly research and apply what they have learned to their job. This technique involves researching resources, scanning content, and going deep into books to pull out frameworks for application. It also involves creating a teachable point of view and teaching it to others. This technique has been the key to the success of the individual, allowing them to make more effective decisions and be seen as a leader in the room. It can be applied quickly and will result in dramatic and positive changes.

Super Performer

This article outlines a framework for creating the highest performing individuals and teams in a fortune 6 company. It includes shifting the mindset, moving from a fixed to a growth mindset, taking extreme ownership, practicing radical candor, creating a differentiated strategy, edge strategy, ten types of innovation, long-range planning, accelerated execution, first mile, and 12-week year. After a year of intense practice, the team has seen dramatic results and has begun applying the framework to other teams within the company.

Building Features Doesn’t Always Solve the Customer Problem

This article outlines the steps taken by a product manager to build a technical feature for an existing customer. The product manager first took the time to understand the core problem and then prioritized the current commitment. They then aligned the feature with the product vision and strategy, validated the value of the feature with existing and potential customers, and conducted customer validation demos. Finally, they provided a timeline schedule for both internal and external stakeholders. The article also highlights the importance of understanding the customer problem before jumping into a solution, as well as the importance of managing both internal and external expectations.

Underperformance vs. Unidentified ADHD in the Workplace

A new manager inherited an underperforming employee, and upon further investigation, discovered that the employee had ADHD. After discussing the issue with his manager, the manager switched the employee to short-term projects, which resulted in an increase in performance. This experience taught the manager to investigate underperformance issues when the facts don't add up.

HR: The Helpful Tool That Managers Often Neglect

In this article, the author reflects on a mistake they made as a manager at Box, where they failed to consult HR when dealing with an underperforming team. They learned that it is important to involve HR when making difficult decisions, as it can make the process more systematic and less risky for the company. The author also learned the importance of finding a balance between looking out for the company's interests and making employees feel valued.

New Teams Require More Informal Time

When creating a new team, it is important to take steps to foster a cultural shift. As a manager, this can be done through team lunches, off-site activities, and icebreaker questions. It is important to increase informal time together to ensure people get back to functioning how they were in their previous teams. Knowing each other as human beings, rather than just coworkers, helps to foster a stronger team dynamic.

Identifying If a Future Employee Can Thrive in an Environment of Uncertainties

This article outlines the strategies used by the author to identify the right candidates for a role that does not exist in other companies. The author looks for indicators of future success, evaluates written articulation skills, and poses relevant theoretical problems in the interview. The author also emphasizes the importance of identifying how future employees receive, internalize, and apply feedback, as this is a highly needed skill for the team.

Advertising to Increase Revenue

When starting a new business, increasing revenue can be a challenge. Advertising is one option, but it requires a large user base and long engagement statistics. To make advertising successful, one must measure the number of weekly active users, focus on direct response and conversion rate, focus on traction more than monetization, and prove to investors that there is a future amount of opportunity. Additionally, brand advertising and direct response advertising work best with a large user base and good impressions, and one must find a balance between traction and monetization.

Building Data as a Service

The Bigdata & Analytics team at PubMatic faced challenges when developing data processing pipelines for different products. To address these challenges, they developed a self-service data platform (DaaS) with an API service, an ACL model, and a generic framework for data processing. This improved the efficiency of the development and QA cycle, allowed developers from other teams to write jobs, and improved code quality. They also learned that it was important to identify bottlenecks in the process and build the right tools for the platform.

Platform as a Service

A team of limited people was struggling to keep up with the high-priority requests they were receiving. To solve this problem, they created a platform-as-a-service which exposed functionalities to APIs and interfaces, and built tools which allowed teams to operate independently. This relieved the burden of trying to resolve everyone's requests and improved their own roadmap delivery time, quote coverage, QR admission, and velocity to deliver.

Transitioning Your Team to Agile in a Waterfall Organization

This article discusses the transition from a waterfall approach to an Agile approach in an organization. The author took on the challenge of becoming a certified Scrum Master and Product Owner in order to gain the knowledge required to run Agile. After pitching the idea to leadership, Agile was adopted by the engineering team, while the rest of the organization continued to run waterfall. The author learned that Agile is an investment and that it helps build applications that are sustainable, future proof, and easier to run. They also note that Agile is not limited to engineers and can be used by anyone.

Understanding a Product’s Life Cycle

This article is about the transition of a software engineer to a technical product manager. The author had to learn the entire life cycle of a product on their own, as there is no one-size-fits-all source. They gained knowledge from working with different teams, researching books, and potentially getting mentored. The key lessons learned are to take the time to reflect on the direction of one's career and to be willing to invest the time and effort to make the transition.