Leadership
Staff Engineering and AI
Second-time staff engineering lessons on taking up space, building incremental progress, and navigating organizational narratives — and why AI makes all of it harder by trading coherence for speed.
read articleYou Have a Voice. Please Use It.
What A Drop of Corruption Has to Say About Software Engineering
read articleSystems All the Way Down
Two books on how systems and projects fail and how they can teach us to be better software engineers.
read articleHow Do You Assess a Staff(+) Engineering Candidate?
Thoughts on the challenges and opportunities of evaluating the staff engineering role.
read articleHow Much Project Management should a Software Engineer Do?
Parsing out what good (versus toxic) project management and technical leadership looks like as an individual contributor can be hard, lets' talk about some good and bad examples.
read articleLeadership is an Orca Cake
What an orca cake can teach us about how we talk about leadership
read articleSome General Software Principles I've Accumulated (Circa 2023)
Accumulated thoughts about being an engineer
read articleSkepticism is Learning Too
Some thoughts on the most maligned emotion in business
read articleReflections on a Year as a Staff Engineer
Looking back a year later and seeing how accurate my predictions about becoming a staff engineer were.
read articleThe Path to Good Communication is "Bad" Communication
Speaking poorly is not the same thing as communicating poorly, and we often get that mixed up.
read articleUnintended Benefits Don’t Make Meetings Useful
One of the main reasons it's hard to judge meetings well because we can't help but find them so useful, even when they're not.
read articleThe Power of Social Force in Leadership: Using Tone, Language, and Body Language to Influence Change
What should you do when you have something that really needs to get done?
read articleHighway To The Discomfort Zone: Promoting constructive conflict as an IC
Discomfort is an important but often under-discussed area of how individual contributors can help lead their teams.
read articleSeven, Mostly Disconnected, Thoughts on Leadership I had while watching the Double Fine Documentary
read article5 Boring Questions about ChatGPT and working
Mundane questions about how chatgpt will change the workplace experience
read articleWhat The Last Jedi Can Teach Us About Mentorship
Why a line from The Last Jedi has one of my favorite lines from mentorship and leadership.
read articleLeaving on a High Note: Build Bridges While You Leave Your Team
Reflecting on successful and unsuccessful team exits, and what I learned from them.
read articleGo Give Someone Feedback
You should try to give a coworker written, positive feedback, once a week.
read articleBeing Visible to the People You Lead
The challenges and benefits of proactively showcasing your work to the people you lead, in addition to the people who manage you.
read articleBecoming a Staff Engineer
My strongest opinions about becoming a staff engineer
read articleMy Most Toxic Leadership Beliefs
I have high expectations for people in positions of power and people with status. Let's talk about what they are and why.
read articleDon't Build a Pit, Outfit Your Explorers
Some thoughts on how to build pits of success so your developers actually fall in them.
read articleHow to Maybe Lead a Good Meeting
Quick thoughts on how to make your meetings suck less, maybe
read articleQuestions to Ask During the Hiring Process
A list of questions you can ask your interviewers to see if the company might be good fit for you, as an engineer.
read articleWhat "Being Wrong" Can Teach Us About Software Development"
What the science behind how to change your mind has to say about building communities and personal growth.
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