Leading from Where You Are
When we were building Areca, a realtime billing engine for Turk Telekom, we were a small team competing against giants like Amdocs. They had the brand recognition, the scale, an...
New Manager Guide Series
A practical guide to becoming an engineering manager: why people pursue it, what the identity shift feels like, and what first-time managers miss.
The Making of a Leader
Leadership, in my eyes, has always been a blend of natural inclination and learned skills. Reflecting on my own path to becoming a leader, I've realized it's not just about inna...
The Path to Leadership
Leadership is not a position. It is a journey that changes how you see yourself and the people around you. You begin as an individual contributor, focused on your own craft. Ove...
From Engineer to Manager
I often get asked whether someone should transition into management. In the past, this might have been the only viable growth path. However, in most large organizations today, t...
Manager as a Service
What would a manager as a service look like? What kind of systems would a manager resemble? How can you describe a manager’s responsibility through various systems? Here’s my ta...
Should Dev Managers Code?
As someone who's been navigating the world of software development for a while, I often think about what it really means to be a good development manager. It's a bit like being...
Coding in Leadership
When you start coding, you start the adventure. It feels like unlocking a new world of logic and creativity. From programming classes where we tried to solve pyramid programs to...
Traits for EMs
Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with many managers, and mentored a few. I was fortunate enough to learn from some great bosses. When I think about it, I feel li...
Chasing Real Respect
You can fake a lot of things in business. Authority. Expertise. Competence. But you can’t fake certain , like respect. Think about the managers you’ve had in the past. The good...
Management is a Lonely Place
Yes, it is. If you’re in it, you already know. It sucks. You can’t talk to your boss about many things because, let’s be honest, they probably don’t have that much time to hear...
Ideal Number of Direct Reports
Amazon’s likely comes from a closer look at ratios. Were there too many managers with only 23 direct reports? That’s entirely possible. From my time at AWS, I didn’t see this mu...
Work-Life Balance as a Manager
As an IC, you close your laptop at 6 PM, log off, and forget about the work unless you are oncall. As a manager, you check Slack at 10 PM because someone might need you. Your ca...
New Manager Survival Guide
Alright, this is gonna be a long one. And not just a onetime thing. I'll keep updating it as I write more about leadership. I’ll try to link everything I’ve written before. This...