I've been through my fair share of engineering interviews over the past few years. I've looked at large companies and smaller start-ups like …
Management
Managing Low Performers
It's hard when you have someone sandbagging your team. The underperformer is dragging everyone down with their performance - but it's also …
What Makes a Good Software Engineering Manager?
We've considered what we value as an engineering manager (or leader). How can you do performance appraisals without a concrete framework for …
“Am I There Yet?” Said an Engineer
How do you know if you're ready to switch careers and become an engineering manager? That question has been asked often since I made the …
The Power of Communication
Recently, I had a small debate with other leaders on the impact of communication and its role across the team. We debated that repeating …
Product Engineering Strategy
An engineering strategy goes beyond your OKRs (if that's what you use for goal setting). It goes into where you want the organization to be …
1:1s – Don’t Follow my Advice
Last year, I wrote a post after about 6 months being a manager of a rather large team (two pizzas would definitely not be enough to feed …
6 Things to do when training Engineers to be Managers
I was recently given the opportunity to train an engineer in my team to take over my role. This engineer volunteered to become a people …
1:1s How I Learn to Support
Quick intro: I recently switched my career path. I was a tech lead, which basically means that I lead a project but I had no reports, and …