Tag: management

  • What kind of principal engineer are you?

    What kind of principal engineer are you?

    What kind of principal / staff engineer are you? This is a really good guide around what each type of role entails. One of the reasons why a single levelling guideline for an IC is really tough. https://staffeng.com/guides/staff-archetypes The four common archetypes of Staff-plus roles I encountered are: ❶ The Tech Lead guides the approach…

  • Anticipatory Failure Determination

    Anticipatory Failure Determination

    [AFD] has the objective of identifying and mitigating failures. Rather than asking developers to look for a cause of a failure mode, it reverses the problem by asking developers to view the failure of interest as the intended consequence and try to devise ways to assure that the failure always happens reliably Interesting way to…

  • Questions for Engineering Manager interviews

    These are some questions I’ve had written down as we looked for a manager a while ago. Not an exhaustive list or the top 10. Just some questions worth thinking about. Hope this helps. Motivation Maker Mindset Feedback Conflict Resolution Mentorship Technology Morale Prioritisation

  • Companies Grow

    Companies Grow

    As successful products increase in revenue, companies grow. Growth allows a company to improve their products, support more customers and create additional value-add services. Growing up isn’t easy. As a handful of engineers become hundreds, or even thousands, the added weight introduces many issues. These can often lead to the opposite outcomes of what growth…

  • Wise words from a tall man: playing the long game

    Vithun with some words of wisdom: vithun.com/posts/playing-the-long-game …the longer the game one is in, the more they have got to be able to let something go. And not just let it go, but take it off their mind and start from blank for the next thing coming their way. Reacting to everything is something one…

  • Thoughts on “Scaling Technology”

    Thoughts on “Scaling Technology”

    I had the privilege to take part a panel discussion on “scaling technology” for go1’s offsite. It got me thinking… Software products are (usually) written to meet product outcomes. Initially, these outcomes tend not to include deliverables like “used by millions” or “developed by 1000s”. As a product grows and matures, these concerns start to…