Engineering Roles and Responsibilities
Engineering organizations have roles and responsibilities either explicitly or implicitly. When it’s explicit, one or more people exercise the engineering role, and the responsi...
Running Engineering Teams
Team design, delivery systems, onboarding, culture, and the mechanics of making engineering organizations work.
Leading Self Managing Teams
When I first started leading teams, I thought being a good manager meant being everywhere. I felt like checking every ticket, joining every status update and so on. I got exhaus...
Engineering Health Essentials
Engineering health is a term that deserves far more attention than it receives. Sustainable software development is not only about the features we ship or the speed at which we...
Engineering Strategy and Planning
Strategy is a word that's often used but rarely understood. Ask ten people what it means, and you'll get ten different answers. I often see people confuse it with , a quarterly...
Subteam Tenets
Over the years, working across multiple organizations, I developed the concept of subteam tenets. I’ve tweaked it along the way to fit each company's unique quirks, but I still...
How to Work with Me
In 1935, Boeing had a new bomber prototype, the Model 299, which later became the B17. It was impressive, and it was also easy to mess up because it had more switches and steps...
The Weekly Win
If you happen to work for a large organization, you’ve probably heard of quarterly checkins or some similar corporate buzzword to describe what you’ve done and what you could ha...
Building Remote Teams
You've probably heard stories of big tech companies in US and hiring double that number in India, blaming AI for the shift. Everyone's first thought is likely cheap labor. While...
Onboarding Your Engineering Manager
Bringing on a new leader to your organization is always tricky. It starts with . Then comes the real part. Onboarding! I always think bringing in a new leader without context is...
Trial By Fire
Teams spend months hiring a strong candidate. Sourcing, interviews, debriefs, approvals, compensation, notice period. Everyone treats the hire like a serious investment. Then th...
Scaling Culture Without Dilution
As organizations grow across geographies, one thing becomes disproportionately important. Culture. We, engineers, often dismiss culture as soft and cushy. This is until you see...
What Good Looks Like
A few companies back, my manager and I inherited a group of teams after layoffs. Confidence was already low. People didn't believe in the systems we maintained. Stakeholders los...
What Good Execution Looks Like
The other day I was talking with one of my directs. We ended up discussing something we’ve both learned over the years. When execution works, the environment is quiet. Not slow....
Multi-Horizon Delivery Framework
If you’ve been in leadership for a while, you know the drill: a line manager reports team progress along with the PM, anyone above reviews it in cadence and sees how things are...