Knowledge shared by our community

Creating Focused Paths for Growth

In response to feedback from team members, the organization created three paths for career growth: a technical lead path, an architect path, and a manager path. This was supported by the TILES framework and a strategy document, as well as an engineering health framework. The implementation of these paths was adjusted to provide a softer transition for those crossing over to a manager role, and to separate tech leads from HR duties.

Step Out of the Way to Allow Engineers Thrive

This article discusses the importance of creating an environment where passionate engineers can thrive. It shares a story of a junior engineer who had a bold idea to rewrite a critical component, and how the author decided to let him do it despite their doubts. The article emphasizes the importance of taking risks and letting go of biases and fears when someone is passionate about doing something bold.

The Importance of Hiring at Speed

This article discusses the challenge of hiring good talent in Silicon Valley, and how the author was able to successfully hire 20+ engineers in a short amount of time. The author designed a recruiting process that optimized for a superior candidate experience, and focused on quickly identifying and engaging with candidates with the desired traits. The article emphasizes the importance of creating a warm and respectful interview experience, as it can be an effective way to compete against well-known and well-funded companies.

How to Establish Yourself as a New Engineering Leader

Joining a new engineering team can be intimidating, but it is possible to establish yourself as a leader by being genuine and authentic, helping the team out, getting to know the people, reading up on the product and stack, and understanding the customers. Investing time in these areas will help to earn the team's trust.

Lessons Learned from a CSO’s First 100 Days

The chief security officer (CSO) of Relativity recently completed their first 100 days and has come up with some recommendations to help new CSOs navigate their first few months. These include taking time to assess the current state, aligning security with the business, creating ambassadors, picking concrete collaborators, and investing in people. The most important thing a new CSO can do is to create a compelling vision and communicate it effectively.

Career Enrichment Sessions: the Coaching of Soft Skills

A manager and engineer had difficulty working together due to the engineer's quick temper and unwillingness to accept changes to his code. To address the issue, they began holding weekly "Career Enrichment" sessions to read a book on emotional intelligence and log their faults and critiques for each other. After a year of collaboration, the engineer has grown significantly and the sessions continue. This experience has taught the manager and engineer the importance of taking time to reflect and learn from each other.

Structuring Using Tools, Measurements, and a Spreadsheet of Expectations

This company quickly grew from 150 to 600 employees and needed to implement a better structure and guidelines to measure team members. A team effort was made to standardize the structure, including implementing tools to measure technical debt, code quality, and efficiency. A spreadsheet was created to list out expectations for each engineering level, and Phase II will focus on non-measurable aspects such as collaboration, communication, attitude, and reliability. Lessons learned include the need for structure, careful rollout of new frameworks, and use of numbers to tell a story.

Handling the Stress of Working Two Leadership Positions

The author was placed in a dual role of management and tech lead, which became too difficult to balance. After discussing the issue with their manager, the roles were split into two individual positions and the author chose to focus on management. The author learned the importance of good communication and not dragging oneself along in a situation that is not working.

Disagreement? Put Yourself in the Other Person’s Shoes

When faced with a conflict with a manager, it is important to take a step back and try to understand the situation from their perspective. In this case, the manager was trying to help and mentor the employee, and the employee was able to find a middle ground by trusting the manager's judgement and understanding the value of being uncomfortable.

Building a Team Vision

This article discusses how a manager was able to turn around an unmotivated team of engineers by giving them a vision and direction to work towards. Through research, group discussions, and aligning the team's vision with the company's, the manager was able to motivate the team and turn a legacy system into a healthy one. The article also highlights the importance of having a vision that is motivating and comes from both top-down and bottom-up, as well as the need to align organizational and people growth.

Minimizing the Challenges Non-Native English Speakers Face in the Engineering Sector

This article discusses the challenges faced by engineers with English as a second language, and the unfair advantage that native English speakers have in the workplace. The author outlines a plan to help second language learners improve their English, including providing resources, setting stretch goals, and encouraging them to present to the engineering team. The article emphasizes the importance of offering developmental strategies to give second language learners the same opportunities as native English speakers.

Breaking the Ice: Navigating Cultural Differences and Building Relationships

An engineer with an H-1B visa experienced culture shock when he immigrated to the United States. His leader empathized with him and developed a plan to help him build relationships with his team and improve his English. As a result, the engineer became a top performer, is close to a promotion, and is much happier. The leader learned that it is important to help with outside problems in order to have a happier and more productive team.

Re-building credibility

A team was having difficulty completing stories within sprints due to testing taking too long. Data was collected to show the impact of this issue, and a new approach was implemented to distribute the task of testing throughout the sprint. This improved the team's ability to complete stories within the sprint and rebuild credibility with the business teams.

The Low Cost of High Caliber Developers

The range of individual developer productivity is vast, and the cost of development expertise is much less significant than the productivity of the developers. To optimize productivity, it is important to have fewer lines of communication with extremely high caliber software developers, and to ensure that everyone is either in the same place or virtually with solid workday overlap. This leads to cost economies, improved software quality, increased competitive advantage, and fewer teams with improved communication and teamwork.

The Top 10 Principles and Practices for Managing Agile Failure

Dogma and religious zealotry have caused many failed agile implementations over the past 15 years. To avoid this, software development agility should be paired with lean approaches and principles such as understanding the unique situation, having discipline and experts, tackling the highest risk stuff first, failing fast, shipping often, and measuring value. Most importantly, effective leadership that adapts is necessary for these principles and practices to be successful.

Advice for New Managers Transitioning from an Individual Contributor Role

This article provides advice for managers who are just starting out, based on the author's experience transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager. The author recommends making mistakes, understanding why success is now a function of the team's work products, finding a mentor, hiring people better than you, learning different leadership styles, and reading a lot on leadership and management. Additionally, the author suggests asking "what" more than "why" and recommends reading David Marquet's "Turn the Ship Around".

Getting Input and Team Buy-In Before Reorganizing and Restructuring

In order to successfully reorganize and restructure teams, it is important to have conversations with those being impacted prior to and after the transition. This will help them understand the benefits of the changes and get them onboard. It is also important to get the team involved in the discussion and get them to commit to the change. Communication and understanding with the team is key to getting the majority to buy-in.

Tips on How to Effectively Manage Upward

This article discusses strategies for managing upwards, such as understanding the people you are dealing with and working with them differently, informing superiors of issues before they hear about them from someone else, and providing facts and data points to back up decisions. It also emphasizes the importance of bringing solutions rather than problems and understanding that each manager is different and requires a different approach.

Managing a Small But Scaling Product Team

The author was tasked with building up a product team from two members to five, and managing the three products they were responsible for. Through the interview process, they found a motivated and energetic candidate with only a couple of years of experience, and took the risk of relocating them from Australia to San Francisco. The author learned to trust their team and empower them to take on challenges and solve problems autonomously, while also setting a good example and teaching them to ask questions and think critically.

Using strategy to focus the investigations of your User Experience team

UX teams should collaborate with Product and Strategy teams to establish a working strategy that will guide their explorations. UX should focus on specific areas of the strategy where the voice of the user is lacking, or on general areas where establishing a strategy requires more user input. This way, UX can be a direct contributor to the company strategy and work on things that are key to the organization in the near future.

Creating Focused Paths for Growth

In response to feedback from team members, the organization created three paths for career growth: a technical lead path, an architect path, and a manager path. This was supported by the TILES framework and a strategy document, as well as an engineering health framework. The implementation of these paths was adjusted to provide a softer transition for those crossing over to a manager role, and to separate tech leads from HR duties.

Step Out of the Way to Allow Engineers Thrive

This article discusses the importance of creating an environment where passionate engineers can thrive. It shares a story of a junior engineer who had a bold idea to rewrite a critical component, and how the author decided to let him do it despite their doubts. The article emphasizes the importance of taking risks and letting go of biases and fears when someone is passionate about doing something bold.

The Importance of Hiring at Speed

This article discusses the challenge of hiring good talent in Silicon Valley, and how the author was able to successfully hire 20+ engineers in a short amount of time. The author designed a recruiting process that optimized for a superior candidate experience, and focused on quickly identifying and engaging with candidates with the desired traits. The article emphasizes the importance of creating a warm and respectful interview experience, as it can be an effective way to compete against well-known and well-funded companies.

How to Establish Yourself as a New Engineering Leader

Joining a new engineering team can be intimidating, but it is possible to establish yourself as a leader by being genuine and authentic, helping the team out, getting to know the people, reading up on the product and stack, and understanding the customers. Investing time in these areas will help to earn the team's trust.

Lessons Learned from a CSO’s First 100 Days

The chief security officer (CSO) of Relativity recently completed their first 100 days and has come up with some recommendations to help new CSOs navigate their first few months. These include taking time to assess the current state, aligning security with the business, creating ambassadors, picking concrete collaborators, and investing in people. The most important thing a new CSO can do is to create a compelling vision and communicate it effectively.

Career Enrichment Sessions: the Coaching of Soft Skills

A manager and engineer had difficulty working together due to the engineer's quick temper and unwillingness to accept changes to his code. To address the issue, they began holding weekly "Career Enrichment" sessions to read a book on emotional intelligence and log their faults and critiques for each other. After a year of collaboration, the engineer has grown significantly and the sessions continue. This experience has taught the manager and engineer the importance of taking time to reflect and learn from each other.

Structuring Using Tools, Measurements, and a Spreadsheet of Expectations

This company quickly grew from 150 to 600 employees and needed to implement a better structure and guidelines to measure team members. A team effort was made to standardize the structure, including implementing tools to measure technical debt, code quality, and efficiency. A spreadsheet was created to list out expectations for each engineering level, and Phase II will focus on non-measurable aspects such as collaboration, communication, attitude, and reliability. Lessons learned include the need for structure, careful rollout of new frameworks, and use of numbers to tell a story.

Handling the Stress of Working Two Leadership Positions

The author was placed in a dual role of management and tech lead, which became too difficult to balance. After discussing the issue with their manager, the roles were split into two individual positions and the author chose to focus on management. The author learned the importance of good communication and not dragging oneself along in a situation that is not working.

Disagreement? Put Yourself in the Other Person’s Shoes

When faced with a conflict with a manager, it is important to take a step back and try to understand the situation from their perspective. In this case, the manager was trying to help and mentor the employee, and the employee was able to find a middle ground by trusting the manager's judgement and understanding the value of being uncomfortable.

Building a Team Vision

This article discusses how a manager was able to turn around an unmotivated team of engineers by giving them a vision and direction to work towards. Through research, group discussions, and aligning the team's vision with the company's, the manager was able to motivate the team and turn a legacy system into a healthy one. The article also highlights the importance of having a vision that is motivating and comes from both top-down and bottom-up, as well as the need to align organizational and people growth.

Minimizing the Challenges Non-Native English Speakers Face in the Engineering Sector

This article discusses the challenges faced by engineers with English as a second language, and the unfair advantage that native English speakers have in the workplace. The author outlines a plan to help second language learners improve their English, including providing resources, setting stretch goals, and encouraging them to present to the engineering team. The article emphasizes the importance of offering developmental strategies to give second language learners the same opportunities as native English speakers.

Breaking the Ice: Navigating Cultural Differences and Building Relationships

An engineer with an H-1B visa experienced culture shock when he immigrated to the United States. His leader empathized with him and developed a plan to help him build relationships with his team and improve his English. As a result, the engineer became a top performer, is close to a promotion, and is much happier. The leader learned that it is important to help with outside problems in order to have a happier and more productive team.

Re-building credibility

A team was having difficulty completing stories within sprints due to testing taking too long. Data was collected to show the impact of this issue, and a new approach was implemented to distribute the task of testing throughout the sprint. This improved the team's ability to complete stories within the sprint and rebuild credibility with the business teams.

The Low Cost of High Caliber Developers

The range of individual developer productivity is vast, and the cost of development expertise is much less significant than the productivity of the developers. To optimize productivity, it is important to have fewer lines of communication with extremely high caliber software developers, and to ensure that everyone is either in the same place or virtually with solid workday overlap. This leads to cost economies, improved software quality, increased competitive advantage, and fewer teams with improved communication and teamwork.

The Top 10 Principles and Practices for Managing Agile Failure

Dogma and religious zealotry have caused many failed agile implementations over the past 15 years. To avoid this, software development agility should be paired with lean approaches and principles such as understanding the unique situation, having discipline and experts, tackling the highest risk stuff first, failing fast, shipping often, and measuring value. Most importantly, effective leadership that adapts is necessary for these principles and practices to be successful.

Advice for New Managers Transitioning from an Individual Contributor Role

This article provides advice for managers who are just starting out, based on the author's experience transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager. The author recommends making mistakes, understanding why success is now a function of the team's work products, finding a mentor, hiring people better than you, learning different leadership styles, and reading a lot on leadership and management. Additionally, the author suggests asking "what" more than "why" and recommends reading David Marquet's "Turn the Ship Around".

Getting Input and Team Buy-In Before Reorganizing and Restructuring

In order to successfully reorganize and restructure teams, it is important to have conversations with those being impacted prior to and after the transition. This will help them understand the benefits of the changes and get them onboard. It is also important to get the team involved in the discussion and get them to commit to the change. Communication and understanding with the team is key to getting the majority to buy-in.

Tips on How to Effectively Manage Upward

This article discusses strategies for managing upwards, such as understanding the people you are dealing with and working with them differently, informing superiors of issues before they hear about them from someone else, and providing facts and data points to back up decisions. It also emphasizes the importance of bringing solutions rather than problems and understanding that each manager is different and requires a different approach.

Managing a Small But Scaling Product Team

The author was tasked with building up a product team from two members to five, and managing the three products they were responsible for. Through the interview process, they found a motivated and energetic candidate with only a couple of years of experience, and took the risk of relocating them from Australia to San Francisco. The author learned to trust their team and empower them to take on challenges and solve problems autonomously, while also setting a good example and teaching them to ask questions and think critically.

Using strategy to focus the investigations of your User Experience team

UX teams should collaborate with Product and Strategy teams to establish a working strategy that will guide their explorations. UX should focus on specific areas of the strategy where the voice of the user is lacking, or on general areas where establishing a strategy requires more user input. This way, UX can be a direct contributor to the company strategy and work on things that are key to the organization in the near future.

Creating Focused Paths for Growth

In response to feedback from team members, the organization created three paths for career growth: a technical lead path, an architect path, and a manager path. This was supported by the TILES framework and a strategy document, as well as an engineering health framework. The implementation of these paths was adjusted to provide a softer transition for those crossing over to a manager role, and to separate tech leads from HR duties.

Step Out of the Way to Allow Engineers Thrive

This article discusses the importance of creating an environment where passionate engineers can thrive. It shares a story of a junior engineer who had a bold idea to rewrite a critical component, and how the author decided to let him do it despite their doubts. The article emphasizes the importance of taking risks and letting go of biases and fears when someone is passionate about doing something bold.

The Importance of Hiring at Speed

This article discusses the challenge of hiring good talent in Silicon Valley, and how the author was able to successfully hire 20+ engineers in a short amount of time. The author designed a recruiting process that optimized for a superior candidate experience, and focused on quickly identifying and engaging with candidates with the desired traits. The article emphasizes the importance of creating a warm and respectful interview experience, as it can be an effective way to compete against well-known and well-funded companies.

How to Establish Yourself as a New Engineering Leader

Joining a new engineering team can be intimidating, but it is possible to establish yourself as a leader by being genuine and authentic, helping the team out, getting to know the people, reading up on the product and stack, and understanding the customers. Investing time in these areas will help to earn the team's trust.

Lessons Learned from a CSO’s First 100 Days

The chief security officer (CSO) of Relativity recently completed their first 100 days and has come up with some recommendations to help new CSOs navigate their first few months. These include taking time to assess the current state, aligning security with the business, creating ambassadors, picking concrete collaborators, and investing in people. The most important thing a new CSO can do is to create a compelling vision and communicate it effectively.

Career Enrichment Sessions: the Coaching of Soft Skills

A manager and engineer had difficulty working together due to the engineer's quick temper and unwillingness to accept changes to his code. To address the issue, they began holding weekly "Career Enrichment" sessions to read a book on emotional intelligence and log their faults and critiques for each other. After a year of collaboration, the engineer has grown significantly and the sessions continue. This experience has taught the manager and engineer the importance of taking time to reflect and learn from each other.

Structuring Using Tools, Measurements, and a Spreadsheet of Expectations

This company quickly grew from 150 to 600 employees and needed to implement a better structure and guidelines to measure team members. A team effort was made to standardize the structure, including implementing tools to measure technical debt, code quality, and efficiency. A spreadsheet was created to list out expectations for each engineering level, and Phase II will focus on non-measurable aspects such as collaboration, communication, attitude, and reliability. Lessons learned include the need for structure, careful rollout of new frameworks, and use of numbers to tell a story.

Handling the Stress of Working Two Leadership Positions

The author was placed in a dual role of management and tech lead, which became too difficult to balance. After discussing the issue with their manager, the roles were split into two individual positions and the author chose to focus on management. The author learned the importance of good communication and not dragging oneself along in a situation that is not working.

Disagreement? Put Yourself in the Other Person’s Shoes

When faced with a conflict with a manager, it is important to take a step back and try to understand the situation from their perspective. In this case, the manager was trying to help and mentor the employee, and the employee was able to find a middle ground by trusting the manager's judgement and understanding the value of being uncomfortable.

Building a Team Vision

This article discusses how a manager was able to turn around an unmotivated team of engineers by giving them a vision and direction to work towards. Through research, group discussions, and aligning the team's vision with the company's, the manager was able to motivate the team and turn a legacy system into a healthy one. The article also highlights the importance of having a vision that is motivating and comes from both top-down and bottom-up, as well as the need to align organizational and people growth.

Minimizing the Challenges Non-Native English Speakers Face in the Engineering Sector

This article discusses the challenges faced by engineers with English as a second language, and the unfair advantage that native English speakers have in the workplace. The author outlines a plan to help second language learners improve their English, including providing resources, setting stretch goals, and encouraging them to present to the engineering team. The article emphasizes the importance of offering developmental strategies to give second language learners the same opportunities as native English speakers.

Breaking the Ice: Navigating Cultural Differences and Building Relationships

An engineer with an H-1B visa experienced culture shock when he immigrated to the United States. His leader empathized with him and developed a plan to help him build relationships with his team and improve his English. As a result, the engineer became a top performer, is close to a promotion, and is much happier. The leader learned that it is important to help with outside problems in order to have a happier and more productive team.

Re-building credibility

A team was having difficulty completing stories within sprints due to testing taking too long. Data was collected to show the impact of this issue, and a new approach was implemented to distribute the task of testing throughout the sprint. This improved the team's ability to complete stories within the sprint and rebuild credibility with the business teams.

The Low Cost of High Caliber Developers

The range of individual developer productivity is vast, and the cost of development expertise is much less significant than the productivity of the developers. To optimize productivity, it is important to have fewer lines of communication with extremely high caliber software developers, and to ensure that everyone is either in the same place or virtually with solid workday overlap. This leads to cost economies, improved software quality, increased competitive advantage, and fewer teams with improved communication and teamwork.

The Top 10 Principles and Practices for Managing Agile Failure

Dogma and religious zealotry have caused many failed agile implementations over the past 15 years. To avoid this, software development agility should be paired with lean approaches and principles such as understanding the unique situation, having discipline and experts, tackling the highest risk stuff first, failing fast, shipping often, and measuring value. Most importantly, effective leadership that adapts is necessary for these principles and practices to be successful.

Advice for New Managers Transitioning from an Individual Contributor Role

This article provides advice for managers who are just starting out, based on the author's experience transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager. The author recommends making mistakes, understanding why success is now a function of the team's work products, finding a mentor, hiring people better than you, learning different leadership styles, and reading a lot on leadership and management. Additionally, the author suggests asking "what" more than "why" and recommends reading David Marquet's "Turn the Ship Around".

Getting Input and Team Buy-In Before Reorganizing and Restructuring

In order to successfully reorganize and restructure teams, it is important to have conversations with those being impacted prior to and after the transition. This will help them understand the benefits of the changes and get them onboard. It is also important to get the team involved in the discussion and get them to commit to the change. Communication and understanding with the team is key to getting the majority to buy-in.

Tips on How to Effectively Manage Upward

This article discusses strategies for managing upwards, such as understanding the people you are dealing with and working with them differently, informing superiors of issues before they hear about them from someone else, and providing facts and data points to back up decisions. It also emphasizes the importance of bringing solutions rather than problems and understanding that each manager is different and requires a different approach.

Managing a Small But Scaling Product Team

The author was tasked with building up a product team from two members to five, and managing the three products they were responsible for. Through the interview process, they found a motivated and energetic candidate with only a couple of years of experience, and took the risk of relocating them from Australia to San Francisco. The author learned to trust their team and empower them to take on challenges and solve problems autonomously, while also setting a good example and teaching them to ask questions and think critically.

Using strategy to focus the investigations of your User Experience team

UX teams should collaborate with Product and Strategy teams to establish a working strategy that will guide their explorations. UX should focus on specific areas of the strategy where the voice of the user is lacking, or on general areas where establishing a strategy requires more user input. This way, UX can be a direct contributor to the company strategy and work on things that are key to the organization in the near future.

Creating Focused Paths for Growth

In response to feedback from team members, the organization created three paths for career growth: a technical lead path, an architect path, and a manager path. This was supported by the TILES framework and a strategy document, as well as an engineering health framework. The implementation of these paths was adjusted to provide a softer transition for those crossing over to a manager role, and to separate tech leads from HR duties.

Step Out of the Way to Allow Engineers Thrive

This article discusses the importance of creating an environment where passionate engineers can thrive. It shares a story of a junior engineer who had a bold idea to rewrite a critical component, and how the author decided to let him do it despite their doubts. The article emphasizes the importance of taking risks and letting go of biases and fears when someone is passionate about doing something bold.

The Importance of Hiring at Speed

This article discusses the challenge of hiring good talent in Silicon Valley, and how the author was able to successfully hire 20+ engineers in a short amount of time. The author designed a recruiting process that optimized for a superior candidate experience, and focused on quickly identifying and engaging with candidates with the desired traits. The article emphasizes the importance of creating a warm and respectful interview experience, as it can be an effective way to compete against well-known and well-funded companies.

How to Establish Yourself as a New Engineering Leader

Joining a new engineering team can be intimidating, but it is possible to establish yourself as a leader by being genuine and authentic, helping the team out, getting to know the people, reading up on the product and stack, and understanding the customers. Investing time in these areas will help to earn the team's trust.

Lessons Learned from a CSO’s First 100 Days

The chief security officer (CSO) of Relativity recently completed their first 100 days and has come up with some recommendations to help new CSOs navigate their first few months. These include taking time to assess the current state, aligning security with the business, creating ambassadors, picking concrete collaborators, and investing in people. The most important thing a new CSO can do is to create a compelling vision and communicate it effectively.

Career Enrichment Sessions: the Coaching of Soft Skills

A manager and engineer had difficulty working together due to the engineer's quick temper and unwillingness to accept changes to his code. To address the issue, they began holding weekly "Career Enrichment" sessions to read a book on emotional intelligence and log their faults and critiques for each other. After a year of collaboration, the engineer has grown significantly and the sessions continue. This experience has taught the manager and engineer the importance of taking time to reflect and learn from each other.

Structuring Using Tools, Measurements, and a Spreadsheet of Expectations

This company quickly grew from 150 to 600 employees and needed to implement a better structure and guidelines to measure team members. A team effort was made to standardize the structure, including implementing tools to measure technical debt, code quality, and efficiency. A spreadsheet was created to list out expectations for each engineering level, and Phase II will focus on non-measurable aspects such as collaboration, communication, attitude, and reliability. Lessons learned include the need for structure, careful rollout of new frameworks, and use of numbers to tell a story.

Handling the Stress of Working Two Leadership Positions

The author was placed in a dual role of management and tech lead, which became too difficult to balance. After discussing the issue with their manager, the roles were split into two individual positions and the author chose to focus on management. The author learned the importance of good communication and not dragging oneself along in a situation that is not working.

Disagreement? Put Yourself in the Other Person’s Shoes

When faced with a conflict with a manager, it is important to take a step back and try to understand the situation from their perspective. In this case, the manager was trying to help and mentor the employee, and the employee was able to find a middle ground by trusting the manager's judgement and understanding the value of being uncomfortable.

Building a Team Vision

This article discusses how a manager was able to turn around an unmotivated team of engineers by giving them a vision and direction to work towards. Through research, group discussions, and aligning the team's vision with the company's, the manager was able to motivate the team and turn a legacy system into a healthy one. The article also highlights the importance of having a vision that is motivating and comes from both top-down and bottom-up, as well as the need to align organizational and people growth.

Minimizing the Challenges Non-Native English Speakers Face in the Engineering Sector

This article discusses the challenges faced by engineers with English as a second language, and the unfair advantage that native English speakers have in the workplace. The author outlines a plan to help second language learners improve their English, including providing resources, setting stretch goals, and encouraging them to present to the engineering team. The article emphasizes the importance of offering developmental strategies to give second language learners the same opportunities as native English speakers.

Breaking the Ice: Navigating Cultural Differences and Building Relationships

An engineer with an H-1B visa experienced culture shock when he immigrated to the United States. His leader empathized with him and developed a plan to help him build relationships with his team and improve his English. As a result, the engineer became a top performer, is close to a promotion, and is much happier. The leader learned that it is important to help with outside problems in order to have a happier and more productive team.

Re-building credibility

A team was having difficulty completing stories within sprints due to testing taking too long. Data was collected to show the impact of this issue, and a new approach was implemented to distribute the task of testing throughout the sprint. This improved the team's ability to complete stories within the sprint and rebuild credibility with the business teams.

The Low Cost of High Caliber Developers

The range of individual developer productivity is vast, and the cost of development expertise is much less significant than the productivity of the developers. To optimize productivity, it is important to have fewer lines of communication with extremely high caliber software developers, and to ensure that everyone is either in the same place or virtually with solid workday overlap. This leads to cost economies, improved software quality, increased competitive advantage, and fewer teams with improved communication and teamwork.

The Top 10 Principles and Practices for Managing Agile Failure

Dogma and religious zealotry have caused many failed agile implementations over the past 15 years. To avoid this, software development agility should be paired with lean approaches and principles such as understanding the unique situation, having discipline and experts, tackling the highest risk stuff first, failing fast, shipping often, and measuring value. Most importantly, effective leadership that adapts is necessary for these principles and practices to be successful.

Advice for New Managers Transitioning from an Individual Contributor Role

This article provides advice for managers who are just starting out, based on the author's experience transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager. The author recommends making mistakes, understanding why success is now a function of the team's work products, finding a mentor, hiring people better than you, learning different leadership styles, and reading a lot on leadership and management. Additionally, the author suggests asking "what" more than "why" and recommends reading David Marquet's "Turn the Ship Around".

Getting Input and Team Buy-In Before Reorganizing and Restructuring

In order to successfully reorganize and restructure teams, it is important to have conversations with those being impacted prior to and after the transition. This will help them understand the benefits of the changes and get them onboard. It is also important to get the team involved in the discussion and get them to commit to the change. Communication and understanding with the team is key to getting the majority to buy-in.

Tips on How to Effectively Manage Upward

This article discusses strategies for managing upwards, such as understanding the people you are dealing with and working with them differently, informing superiors of issues before they hear about them from someone else, and providing facts and data points to back up decisions. It also emphasizes the importance of bringing solutions rather than problems and understanding that each manager is different and requires a different approach.

Managing a Small But Scaling Product Team

The author was tasked with building up a product team from two members to five, and managing the three products they were responsible for. Through the interview process, they found a motivated and energetic candidate with only a couple of years of experience, and took the risk of relocating them from Australia to San Francisco. The author learned to trust their team and empower them to take on challenges and solve problems autonomously, while also setting a good example and teaching them to ask questions and think critically.

Using strategy to focus the investigations of your User Experience team

UX teams should collaborate with Product and Strategy teams to establish a working strategy that will guide their explorations. UX should focus on specific areas of the strategy where the voice of the user is lacking, or on general areas where establishing a strategy requires more user input. This way, UX can be a direct contributor to the company strategy and work on things that are key to the organization in the near future.

Creating Focused Paths for Growth

In response to feedback from team members, the organization created three paths for career growth: a technical lead path, an architect path, and a manager path. This was supported by the TILES framework and a strategy document, as well as an engineering health framework. The implementation of these paths was adjusted to provide a softer transition for those crossing over to a manager role, and to separate tech leads from HR duties.

Step Out of the Way to Allow Engineers Thrive

This article discusses the importance of creating an environment where passionate engineers can thrive. It shares a story of a junior engineer who had a bold idea to rewrite a critical component, and how the author decided to let him do it despite their doubts. The article emphasizes the importance of taking risks and letting go of biases and fears when someone is passionate about doing something bold.

The Importance of Hiring at Speed

This article discusses the challenge of hiring good talent in Silicon Valley, and how the author was able to successfully hire 20+ engineers in a short amount of time. The author designed a recruiting process that optimized for a superior candidate experience, and focused on quickly identifying and engaging with candidates with the desired traits. The article emphasizes the importance of creating a warm and respectful interview experience, as it can be an effective way to compete against well-known and well-funded companies.

How to Establish Yourself as a New Engineering Leader

Joining a new engineering team can be intimidating, but it is possible to establish yourself as a leader by being genuine and authentic, helping the team out, getting to know the people, reading up on the product and stack, and understanding the customers. Investing time in these areas will help to earn the team's trust.

Lessons Learned from a CSO’s First 100 Days

The chief security officer (CSO) of Relativity recently completed their first 100 days and has come up with some recommendations to help new CSOs navigate their first few months. These include taking time to assess the current state, aligning security with the business, creating ambassadors, picking concrete collaborators, and investing in people. The most important thing a new CSO can do is to create a compelling vision and communicate it effectively.

Career Enrichment Sessions: the Coaching of Soft Skills

A manager and engineer had difficulty working together due to the engineer's quick temper and unwillingness to accept changes to his code. To address the issue, they began holding weekly "Career Enrichment" sessions to read a book on emotional intelligence and log their faults and critiques for each other. After a year of collaboration, the engineer has grown significantly and the sessions continue. This experience has taught the manager and engineer the importance of taking time to reflect and learn from each other.

Structuring Using Tools, Measurements, and a Spreadsheet of Expectations

This company quickly grew from 150 to 600 employees and needed to implement a better structure and guidelines to measure team members. A team effort was made to standardize the structure, including implementing tools to measure technical debt, code quality, and efficiency. A spreadsheet was created to list out expectations for each engineering level, and Phase II will focus on non-measurable aspects such as collaboration, communication, attitude, and reliability. Lessons learned include the need for structure, careful rollout of new frameworks, and use of numbers to tell a story.

Handling the Stress of Working Two Leadership Positions

The author was placed in a dual role of management and tech lead, which became too difficult to balance. After discussing the issue with their manager, the roles were split into two individual positions and the author chose to focus on management. The author learned the importance of good communication and not dragging oneself along in a situation that is not working.

Disagreement? Put Yourself in the Other Person’s Shoes

When faced with a conflict with a manager, it is important to take a step back and try to understand the situation from their perspective. In this case, the manager was trying to help and mentor the employee, and the employee was able to find a middle ground by trusting the manager's judgement and understanding the value of being uncomfortable.

Building a Team Vision

This article discusses how a manager was able to turn around an unmotivated team of engineers by giving them a vision and direction to work towards. Through research, group discussions, and aligning the team's vision with the company's, the manager was able to motivate the team and turn a legacy system into a healthy one. The article also highlights the importance of having a vision that is motivating and comes from both top-down and bottom-up, as well as the need to align organizational and people growth.

Minimizing the Challenges Non-Native English Speakers Face in the Engineering Sector

This article discusses the challenges faced by engineers with English as a second language, and the unfair advantage that native English speakers have in the workplace. The author outlines a plan to help second language learners improve their English, including providing resources, setting stretch goals, and encouraging them to present to the engineering team. The article emphasizes the importance of offering developmental strategies to give second language learners the same opportunities as native English speakers.

Breaking the Ice: Navigating Cultural Differences and Building Relationships

An engineer with an H-1B visa experienced culture shock when he immigrated to the United States. His leader empathized with him and developed a plan to help him build relationships with his team and improve his English. As a result, the engineer became a top performer, is close to a promotion, and is much happier. The leader learned that it is important to help with outside problems in order to have a happier and more productive team.

Re-building credibility

A team was having difficulty completing stories within sprints due to testing taking too long. Data was collected to show the impact of this issue, and a new approach was implemented to distribute the task of testing throughout the sprint. This improved the team's ability to complete stories within the sprint and rebuild credibility with the business teams.

The Low Cost of High Caliber Developers

The range of individual developer productivity is vast, and the cost of development expertise is much less significant than the productivity of the developers. To optimize productivity, it is important to have fewer lines of communication with extremely high caliber software developers, and to ensure that everyone is either in the same place or virtually with solid workday overlap. This leads to cost economies, improved software quality, increased competitive advantage, and fewer teams with improved communication and teamwork.

The Top 10 Principles and Practices for Managing Agile Failure

Dogma and religious zealotry have caused many failed agile implementations over the past 15 years. To avoid this, software development agility should be paired with lean approaches and principles such as understanding the unique situation, having discipline and experts, tackling the highest risk stuff first, failing fast, shipping often, and measuring value. Most importantly, effective leadership that adapts is necessary for these principles and practices to be successful.

Advice for New Managers Transitioning from an Individual Contributor Role

This article provides advice for managers who are just starting out, based on the author's experience transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager. The author recommends making mistakes, understanding why success is now a function of the team's work products, finding a mentor, hiring people better than you, learning different leadership styles, and reading a lot on leadership and management. Additionally, the author suggests asking "what" more than "why" and recommends reading David Marquet's "Turn the Ship Around".

Getting Input and Team Buy-In Before Reorganizing and Restructuring

In order to successfully reorganize and restructure teams, it is important to have conversations with those being impacted prior to and after the transition. This will help them understand the benefits of the changes and get them onboard. It is also important to get the team involved in the discussion and get them to commit to the change. Communication and understanding with the team is key to getting the majority to buy-in.

Tips on How to Effectively Manage Upward

This article discusses strategies for managing upwards, such as understanding the people you are dealing with and working with them differently, informing superiors of issues before they hear about them from someone else, and providing facts and data points to back up decisions. It also emphasizes the importance of bringing solutions rather than problems and understanding that each manager is different and requires a different approach.

Managing a Small But Scaling Product Team

The author was tasked with building up a product team from two members to five, and managing the three products they were responsible for. Through the interview process, they found a motivated and energetic candidate with only a couple of years of experience, and took the risk of relocating them from Australia to San Francisco. The author learned to trust their team and empower them to take on challenges and solve problems autonomously, while also setting a good example and teaching them to ask questions and think critically.

Using strategy to focus the investigations of your User Experience team

UX teams should collaborate with Product and Strategy teams to establish a working strategy that will guide their explorations. UX should focus on specific areas of the strategy where the voice of the user is lacking, or on general areas where establishing a strategy requires more user input. This way, UX can be a direct contributor to the company strategy and work on things that are key to the organization in the near future.

Creating Focused Paths for Growth

In response to feedback from team members, the organization created three paths for career growth: a technical lead path, an architect path, and a manager path. This was supported by the TILES framework and a strategy document, as well as an engineering health framework. The implementation of these paths was adjusted to provide a softer transition for those crossing over to a manager role, and to separate tech leads from HR duties.

Step Out of the Way to Allow Engineers Thrive

This article discusses the importance of creating an environment where passionate engineers can thrive. It shares a story of a junior engineer who had a bold idea to rewrite a critical component, and how the author decided to let him do it despite their doubts. The article emphasizes the importance of taking risks and letting go of biases and fears when someone is passionate about doing something bold.

The Importance of Hiring at Speed

This article discusses the challenge of hiring good talent in Silicon Valley, and how the author was able to successfully hire 20+ engineers in a short amount of time. The author designed a recruiting process that optimized for a superior candidate experience, and focused on quickly identifying and engaging with candidates with the desired traits. The article emphasizes the importance of creating a warm and respectful interview experience, as it can be an effective way to compete against well-known and well-funded companies.

How to Establish Yourself as a New Engineering Leader

Joining a new engineering team can be intimidating, but it is possible to establish yourself as a leader by being genuine and authentic, helping the team out, getting to know the people, reading up on the product and stack, and understanding the customers. Investing time in these areas will help to earn the team's trust.

Lessons Learned from a CSO’s First 100 Days

The chief security officer (CSO) of Relativity recently completed their first 100 days and has come up with some recommendations to help new CSOs navigate their first few months. These include taking time to assess the current state, aligning security with the business, creating ambassadors, picking concrete collaborators, and investing in people. The most important thing a new CSO can do is to create a compelling vision and communicate it effectively.

Career Enrichment Sessions: the Coaching of Soft Skills

A manager and engineer had difficulty working together due to the engineer's quick temper and unwillingness to accept changes to his code. To address the issue, they began holding weekly "Career Enrichment" sessions to read a book on emotional intelligence and log their faults and critiques for each other. After a year of collaboration, the engineer has grown significantly and the sessions continue. This experience has taught the manager and engineer the importance of taking time to reflect and learn from each other.

Structuring Using Tools, Measurements, and a Spreadsheet of Expectations

This company quickly grew from 150 to 600 employees and needed to implement a better structure and guidelines to measure team members. A team effort was made to standardize the structure, including implementing tools to measure technical debt, code quality, and efficiency. A spreadsheet was created to list out expectations for each engineering level, and Phase II will focus on non-measurable aspects such as collaboration, communication, attitude, and reliability. Lessons learned include the need for structure, careful rollout of new frameworks, and use of numbers to tell a story.

Handling the Stress of Working Two Leadership Positions

The author was placed in a dual role of management and tech lead, which became too difficult to balance. After discussing the issue with their manager, the roles were split into two individual positions and the author chose to focus on management. The author learned the importance of good communication and not dragging oneself along in a situation that is not working.

Disagreement? Put Yourself in the Other Person’s Shoes

When faced with a conflict with a manager, it is important to take a step back and try to understand the situation from their perspective. In this case, the manager was trying to help and mentor the employee, and the employee was able to find a middle ground by trusting the manager's judgement and understanding the value of being uncomfortable.

Building a Team Vision

This article discusses how a manager was able to turn around an unmotivated team of engineers by giving them a vision and direction to work towards. Through research, group discussions, and aligning the team's vision with the company's, the manager was able to motivate the team and turn a legacy system into a healthy one. The article also highlights the importance of having a vision that is motivating and comes from both top-down and bottom-up, as well as the need to align organizational and people growth.

Minimizing the Challenges Non-Native English Speakers Face in the Engineering Sector

This article discusses the challenges faced by engineers with English as a second language, and the unfair advantage that native English speakers have in the workplace. The author outlines a plan to help second language learners improve their English, including providing resources, setting stretch goals, and encouraging them to present to the engineering team. The article emphasizes the importance of offering developmental strategies to give second language learners the same opportunities as native English speakers.

Breaking the Ice: Navigating Cultural Differences and Building Relationships

An engineer with an H-1B visa experienced culture shock when he immigrated to the United States. His leader empathized with him and developed a plan to help him build relationships with his team and improve his English. As a result, the engineer became a top performer, is close to a promotion, and is much happier. The leader learned that it is important to help with outside problems in order to have a happier and more productive team.

Re-building credibility

A team was having difficulty completing stories within sprints due to testing taking too long. Data was collected to show the impact of this issue, and a new approach was implemented to distribute the task of testing throughout the sprint. This improved the team's ability to complete stories within the sprint and rebuild credibility with the business teams.

The Low Cost of High Caliber Developers

The range of individual developer productivity is vast, and the cost of development expertise is much less significant than the productivity of the developers. To optimize productivity, it is important to have fewer lines of communication with extremely high caliber software developers, and to ensure that everyone is either in the same place or virtually with solid workday overlap. This leads to cost economies, improved software quality, increased competitive advantage, and fewer teams with improved communication and teamwork.

The Top 10 Principles and Practices for Managing Agile Failure

Dogma and religious zealotry have caused many failed agile implementations over the past 15 years. To avoid this, software development agility should be paired with lean approaches and principles such as understanding the unique situation, having discipline and experts, tackling the highest risk stuff first, failing fast, shipping often, and measuring value. Most importantly, effective leadership that adapts is necessary for these principles and practices to be successful.

Advice for New Managers Transitioning from an Individual Contributor Role

This article provides advice for managers who are just starting out, based on the author's experience transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager. The author recommends making mistakes, understanding why success is now a function of the team's work products, finding a mentor, hiring people better than you, learning different leadership styles, and reading a lot on leadership and management. Additionally, the author suggests asking "what" more than "why" and recommends reading David Marquet's "Turn the Ship Around".

Getting Input and Team Buy-In Before Reorganizing and Restructuring

In order to successfully reorganize and restructure teams, it is important to have conversations with those being impacted prior to and after the transition. This will help them understand the benefits of the changes and get them onboard. It is also important to get the team involved in the discussion and get them to commit to the change. Communication and understanding with the team is key to getting the majority to buy-in.

Tips on How to Effectively Manage Upward

This article discusses strategies for managing upwards, such as understanding the people you are dealing with and working with them differently, informing superiors of issues before they hear about them from someone else, and providing facts and data points to back up decisions. It also emphasizes the importance of bringing solutions rather than problems and understanding that each manager is different and requires a different approach.

Managing a Small But Scaling Product Team

The author was tasked with building up a product team from two members to five, and managing the three products they were responsible for. Through the interview process, they found a motivated and energetic candidate with only a couple of years of experience, and took the risk of relocating them from Australia to San Francisco. The author learned to trust their team and empower them to take on challenges and solve problems autonomously, while also setting a good example and teaching them to ask questions and think critically.

Using strategy to focus the investigations of your User Experience team

UX teams should collaborate with Product and Strategy teams to establish a working strategy that will guide their explorations. UX should focus on specific areas of the strategy where the voice of the user is lacking, or on general areas where establishing a strategy requires more user input. This way, UX can be a direct contributor to the company strategy and work on things that are key to the organization in the near future.