Your Work Introduces You
Years ago, when I first joined Tripadvisor, we had a tool that moved data to Amazon Redshift. One of the engineers went on holiday, the tool had a few bugs, and people were bloc...
#Trust
Posts on building trust through reliability, transparency, and repeated good judgment.
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...
The Roadmap Is Not the System
A few years ago, my father decided to build a house in the . On the surface, it was easy to like the idea. A quiet place. A porch. A garden. Somewhere to disappear for a while....
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...
Why Politics Appear
Ancient Athens did not solve uncertainty with better communication. They solved it by removing people. Once a year, citizens gathered to vote on exile. Not for crimes. Not for f...
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...
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....
Managing Your Manager
Managers change more often than you realize, especially when a company is growing or downsizing. New roles, new org charts, new reporting lines. Other times, you’re shopping aro...
AI Broke Interviews
Interviewing has always been a big can of worms in the software industry. For years, big tech has gone with the LeetCode style questions mixed with a few behavioural and rounds....
Prisoner's Dilemma
On September 3, 1949, a weather plane was flying over Japan. It detected traces of radioactive isotopes. These elements decay quickly, which means they had been created recently...
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...
Representing the Business
The other day, someone asked me why we even need managers. What do they actually do? I think it’s a fair question, and honestly, people get it wrong a lot. You can throw usual f...
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...
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...
The Invisible Difference
There are plenty of skills you can pick up along the way. Some come from , some through experience. A lot of it is just trial and error. And some from . You figure things out su...
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...
PIP Manager Insights
I remember one of my directs stepping into a new manager role, only to inherit a team with one or two employees who just weren’t cutting it. From day one, it was a challenge. He...
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...
Simple Acts of Recognition Matter
I once worked with a brilliant software engineer who quietly solved a major system issue in the middle of the night. By morning, no one even noticed there had been a crisis. Bus...
The Question I Ask Every New Report
When I take on a new management role, whether it’s through a reorganization, succession, or stepping into a new organization, I make it a priority to ask this question in my fir...
Bridging Ideals and Reality
Have you ever been in an engineering discussion where someone starts pointing out all the ideals and how much the company sucks? Complaining about all the mistakes the company m...
Hiring Red Flags
Hiring is tough. It's one of the most important tasks a manager faces while growing their team. The problem with hiring is that a bad hire can significantly impact you financial...
Building Trust in Engineering Teams
We all know that transparency builds trust. The lack of it? Well, that can lead to major issues. Engineers sometimes join teams and, from the start, struggle with trust. It’s as...
Overriding a People Leader’s Decision
When managing managers or leaders, there will be times when you feel that the right course of action differs from their opinion. It could be related to rating an employee, decid...
Perception vs Perspective
Have you ever found yourself questioning someone's decision, only to realize later that you didn't have the full picture? You know it's really easy to get caught up in our own w...
Operational Skills Needed
Over the years, I've interviewed many candidates. One crucial skill that often gets overlooked is operational reflexes during oncalls. Surprisingly, few companies test for this,...
Handling Competitive Dynamics
A healthy level of competition can fuel innovation, drive individuals to excel, and push teams to achieve remarkable results. However, when competition crosses the line and beco...
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...
Kindness is A Choice
Discussing leadership, we often overlook kindness, focusing more on power and wealth. Yet in reality, the leaders who leave a lasting impact are the ones who choose humanity ove...
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...
The Subtle Art of Listening
At its essence, leadership is not about big speeches or decisive commands. It’s about listening. I know it sounds like a cliché but think about how many times you’ve sat with so...
The Power of Consistency
One of my friends from primary school didn’t go to high school. At first, it was a bit surprising, but his family was making kebap, and he wanted to run the family business. Bec...
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...
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...
Achieve More by Meeting Less
Meetings are part of leadership. We need them to align and understand. Yet, we often do it at the expense of action. The success lies in the milestones achieved. In essence, "Fe...
Turning Defensiveness Into Growth
As a leader, part of the job is helping people grow. That usually means giving feedback. And while we often picture feedback as a simple “I share, you listen,” the truth is it o...
Data as a Product is a Promise
Domaindriven design (DDD) has been around for quite a long time. In short, DDD focuses on domain to match domain requirements. One of the pillars of DDD is bounded context. A bo...
Promoting Learnings in Incidents
Incidents are used for the negative consequences of an action. The incident comes from an action that fails to result in the expected outcome. For instance, deploying a code to...
Risk Comes First
You probably saw many cliché stuff about risking everything. Not risking is the biggest risk and all. While there is a truth to that, risk needs to be an appetite. Remember what...
The Real Work Is Social
I get along with people. I talk, I joke, I do the normal office stuff. But even with that, something about how work actually works has always felt off. You think the job is most...