Knowledge shared by our community

Firing someone who has become indispensable

A manager faced the challenge of having to let go of an employee who had become indispensable due to siloing of critical information and ownership of infrastructure. After releasing the engineer, it was discovered that the problem was due to lack of cross-training, sharing information, and documentation. To combat this, organizations must create a culture where everyone strives to make themselves replaceable by sharing critical pieces of information and cross-training.

Reorganization: what not to do.

When designing an organization structure, it is important to understand the goals and objectives of the project. A clustering exercise was attempted with 30 people, but it was too complex and no decisions were made. Three people proposed organization charts, but none of them were perfect. It was eventually decided to use one of them, but this resulted in more reorganizations three months later. The lesson learned is to clearly define goals and have two or three people work on the reorganization, as having too many people involved will prevent the structure from being informed by a point of view.

Stumbling into chaos

The new director of engineering at a startup had to jump in on day one when the team had just done a re-org and re-oriented the product roadmap. He met with the CTO and engineering leads to understand why the new structure had been put in place, then worked with the product managers to focus on pieces they had high certainty of needing. He also added weekly planning meetings for each product team and daily standups to create structure and accountability. Through retros and feedback, he tailored these initial short-term fixes to their needs. He learned that plans often go awry and we have to adapt, look for short-term engineering work when long-term plans change, and creating a predictable process cadence can help create stability.

The complexity of self-organization

The author, a former developer who became a manager, learned to prioritize tasks and choose their battles in order to get things done. This was a difficult process, but it has proven to be the best way to manage their workload and handle unexpected events.

Sharing the bigger picture when delegating

A project to rewrite a sharing and permission system was split between two teams, but the end result was not what was initially intended. This was due to a lack of communication about the long-term goal of the project, leading to choices that were not aligned with the overall goal. The lesson learned is that good delegation requires stakeholders to have a clear understanding of the bigger picture before beginning a project.

Whiteboard interviews, how to and how not to do it

A few years ago, a company in France decided to implement whiteboard interviews, but the engineers had no experience with them and the candidates were horrified. To address the issue, the company paused whiteboard interviews, did training, and devised rules for them. They also sent detailed emails with sample questions to the candidates to prepare them. The company learned that the whiteboard should be used to solve a problem together, not to prove the candidate can't do something. After implementing these changes, the company was able to successfully hire good engineers and received positive feedback from rejected candidates.

Go beyond salary to build up a complete job offer that candidates won’t decline

This article provides advice on how to handle salary negotiations. It suggests paying a fair wage based on experience, title, company stage, country, and city. It also suggests taking the time to understand what motivates the candidate and what they are looking for in a job, and then building an offer that includes a fair salary, equity, career opportunities, and learning opportunities. The article emphasizes that people should not be hired for cash, as they will likely leave soon after.

The power of saying no

A product manager wanted to take a lead developer away from their current project to work on a new one. The manager of the engineering team intervened and said no, as the current project was more important. This caused a short-term rift with the product team, but it also established a framework for future work. It is important for managers to protect their team and prioritize tasks, even if it means saying no to requests from the product team.

Weathering the storm of changing leadership within my department.

When the CTO of a company suddenly left, leaving many managers without direction, three managers and two directors took it upon themselves to meet with the new CTO and Head of Product and BI to push through and deliver on the roadmap they had been working on. Despite not knowing if it would matter in the end, it turned out to be successful and helped the new CTO get off to a good start. This experience taught them that in unfamiliar situations, it is important to go with what you know and who you are.

Make the Other Mistake

When receiving feedback, it can be difficult to self-correct to the level expected. To overcome this, it is suggested to "shoot for the extreme" and aim to exceed expectations. This approach is especially effective for team presence, assertiveness, and productivity. By pushing the limits, people can gain confidence in themselves and achieve more than their original goal.

Growing engineers into managers

A manager at Google wanted to transition to another role and asked a staff engineer to take on part of his work and team. The engineer was hesitant, but the manager pushed him to take on more responsibility. Eventually, the manager had to leave and the engineer was managing the team, but not doing a great job. After the manager left, the engineer started to flourish in the role, finding engineers he clicked with and trying his own things. The lesson learned was to be explicit with people transitioning to a new role that there are different ways to be a manager, and to leave room for them to grow.

Finding the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports

When taking over a new team, it is important for a manager to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their direct reports. This can be done through regular 1:1s, talking to the direct report's stakeholders, giving them small projects to work on, and using tools such as Strengths Finder. Quality feedback is key to discovering the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports, and it is important to remember that weaknesses can be overcome with growth and encouragement.

How to make engineers aware that they contribute to the company’s objectives?

During a planning meeting, the engineering team had difficulty connecting their individual goals to company-wide metrics. To address this, the team discussed how individual projects impacted team metrics and how team metrics impacted larger company-wide goals. Through conversations and one-on-ones, the team was able to better understand how their work contributed to the company's mission. The lesson learned was that it is important to spend time connecting individual goals to company-wide metrics.

The departure of someone seen as essential for your team

In this case study, the Research and Development director had to face the challenge of one of his team members leaving for a year to work on a personal project in China. He chose to be transparent with the team and worked on ways to share the team member's activities among the rest of the team. This resulted in the manager having to adapt his management style and the team having to adapt their communication, but it ultimately resulted in more accurate processes and a stronger team. The key takeaway is to be transparent with your team, even when faced with tricky issues.

Working as a team to improve prioritization

At Medium, the engineering team was struggling to prioritize their workload due to a lot of requests from both internally and externally. To solve this, the product manager and engineer created a multi-stage process to prioritize the workload. This included brainstorming, splitting into pairs, and then teams to allocate points to the projects. This process allowed the team to prioritize their projects, while also creating cohesiveness and understanding of product management.

Training a developer to fill a management role

When a company grows quickly, it may be necessary to add another layer of management. In this case, the team of seven people had no one with leadership skills, so the manager hired a senior developer and spent eight months training him for the role. This allowed the developer to gain legitimacy and the team to be happy with the promotion. The manager learned that it is difficult to delegate and that a new layer of management can have a big impact.

The manager’s paradox of filtering information versus transparency

As a manager, it is important to be able to filter and amplify information coming from both the team and higher up. This includes deciding what information to pass on and when, as well as amplifying team messages to higher up. It is important to consider the context of the message, the company culture, and the individual people when deciding how to handle the information.

Moving from being an IC to being a manager

After transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager, the author initially struggled to accept the responsibility of management and continued to do the same work they had done before. After reading the book "High Output Management" by Andrew Grove, the author gained a new perspective on the purpose of management and learned that the role of managers is to create the best environment possible for their team to work in, and to have an overall vision of the work being done. The author also learned that while managers may not be developing code, they are developing processes and environment.

The Bug-Solving, Underperforming Engineer

When an employee is not performing in a position, it is important to consider their strengths and weaknesses to figure out if they can be useful to the team. In this case, the engineer was downgraded to a software engineer and assigned the role of "sustaining engineer" which allowed him to focus on his strengths. This resulted in a win-win situation for the engineer and the team, as the engineer has now been working at the company for almost 10 years.

How to handle decision-makers when you want something from them

The lead dev of an overwhelmed team needed to hire an extra engineer, but their manager was too busy to make a decision. The lead dev took charge and measured their team's velocity, improved processes, and ran the math to prove the need for an extra person. After asking the manager what they needed and suggesting candidates, the lead dev was able to get a new engineer in a few weeks. The lesson learned was to be proactive and provide the required data when external people are decision-makers.

Firing someone who has become indispensable

A manager faced the challenge of having to let go of an employee who had become indispensable due to siloing of critical information and ownership of infrastructure. After releasing the engineer, it was discovered that the problem was due to lack of cross-training, sharing information, and documentation. To combat this, organizations must create a culture where everyone strives to make themselves replaceable by sharing critical pieces of information and cross-training.

Reorganization: what not to do.

When designing an organization structure, it is important to understand the goals and objectives of the project. A clustering exercise was attempted with 30 people, but it was too complex and no decisions were made. Three people proposed organization charts, but none of them were perfect. It was eventually decided to use one of them, but this resulted in more reorganizations three months later. The lesson learned is to clearly define goals and have two or three people work on the reorganization, as having too many people involved will prevent the structure from being informed by a point of view.

Stumbling into chaos

The new director of engineering at a startup had to jump in on day one when the team had just done a re-org and re-oriented the product roadmap. He met with the CTO and engineering leads to understand why the new structure had been put in place, then worked with the product managers to focus on pieces they had high certainty of needing. He also added weekly planning meetings for each product team and daily standups to create structure and accountability. Through retros and feedback, he tailored these initial short-term fixes to their needs. He learned that plans often go awry and we have to adapt, look for short-term engineering work when long-term plans change, and creating a predictable process cadence can help create stability.

The complexity of self-organization

The author, a former developer who became a manager, learned to prioritize tasks and choose their battles in order to get things done. This was a difficult process, but it has proven to be the best way to manage their workload and handle unexpected events.

Sharing the bigger picture when delegating

A project to rewrite a sharing and permission system was split between two teams, but the end result was not what was initially intended. This was due to a lack of communication about the long-term goal of the project, leading to choices that were not aligned with the overall goal. The lesson learned is that good delegation requires stakeholders to have a clear understanding of the bigger picture before beginning a project.

Whiteboard interviews, how to and how not to do it

A few years ago, a company in France decided to implement whiteboard interviews, but the engineers had no experience with them and the candidates were horrified. To address the issue, the company paused whiteboard interviews, did training, and devised rules for them. They also sent detailed emails with sample questions to the candidates to prepare them. The company learned that the whiteboard should be used to solve a problem together, not to prove the candidate can't do something. After implementing these changes, the company was able to successfully hire good engineers and received positive feedback from rejected candidates.

Go beyond salary to build up a complete job offer that candidates won’t decline

This article provides advice on how to handle salary negotiations. It suggests paying a fair wage based on experience, title, company stage, country, and city. It also suggests taking the time to understand what motivates the candidate and what they are looking for in a job, and then building an offer that includes a fair salary, equity, career opportunities, and learning opportunities. The article emphasizes that people should not be hired for cash, as they will likely leave soon after.

The power of saying no

A product manager wanted to take a lead developer away from their current project to work on a new one. The manager of the engineering team intervened and said no, as the current project was more important. This caused a short-term rift with the product team, but it also established a framework for future work. It is important for managers to protect their team and prioritize tasks, even if it means saying no to requests from the product team.

Weathering the storm of changing leadership within my department.

When the CTO of a company suddenly left, leaving many managers without direction, three managers and two directors took it upon themselves to meet with the new CTO and Head of Product and BI to push through and deliver on the roadmap they had been working on. Despite not knowing if it would matter in the end, it turned out to be successful and helped the new CTO get off to a good start. This experience taught them that in unfamiliar situations, it is important to go with what you know and who you are.

Make the Other Mistake

When receiving feedback, it can be difficult to self-correct to the level expected. To overcome this, it is suggested to "shoot for the extreme" and aim to exceed expectations. This approach is especially effective for team presence, assertiveness, and productivity. By pushing the limits, people can gain confidence in themselves and achieve more than their original goal.

Growing engineers into managers

A manager at Google wanted to transition to another role and asked a staff engineer to take on part of his work and team. The engineer was hesitant, but the manager pushed him to take on more responsibility. Eventually, the manager had to leave and the engineer was managing the team, but not doing a great job. After the manager left, the engineer started to flourish in the role, finding engineers he clicked with and trying his own things. The lesson learned was to be explicit with people transitioning to a new role that there are different ways to be a manager, and to leave room for them to grow.

Finding the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports

When taking over a new team, it is important for a manager to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their direct reports. This can be done through regular 1:1s, talking to the direct report's stakeholders, giving them small projects to work on, and using tools such as Strengths Finder. Quality feedback is key to discovering the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports, and it is important to remember that weaknesses can be overcome with growth and encouragement.

How to make engineers aware that they contribute to the company’s objectives?

During a planning meeting, the engineering team had difficulty connecting their individual goals to company-wide metrics. To address this, the team discussed how individual projects impacted team metrics and how team metrics impacted larger company-wide goals. Through conversations and one-on-ones, the team was able to better understand how their work contributed to the company's mission. The lesson learned was that it is important to spend time connecting individual goals to company-wide metrics.

The departure of someone seen as essential for your team

In this case study, the Research and Development director had to face the challenge of one of his team members leaving for a year to work on a personal project in China. He chose to be transparent with the team and worked on ways to share the team member's activities among the rest of the team. This resulted in the manager having to adapt his management style and the team having to adapt their communication, but it ultimately resulted in more accurate processes and a stronger team. The key takeaway is to be transparent with your team, even when faced with tricky issues.

Working as a team to improve prioritization

At Medium, the engineering team was struggling to prioritize their workload due to a lot of requests from both internally and externally. To solve this, the product manager and engineer created a multi-stage process to prioritize the workload. This included brainstorming, splitting into pairs, and then teams to allocate points to the projects. This process allowed the team to prioritize their projects, while also creating cohesiveness and understanding of product management.

Training a developer to fill a management role

When a company grows quickly, it may be necessary to add another layer of management. In this case, the team of seven people had no one with leadership skills, so the manager hired a senior developer and spent eight months training him for the role. This allowed the developer to gain legitimacy and the team to be happy with the promotion. The manager learned that it is difficult to delegate and that a new layer of management can have a big impact.

The manager’s paradox of filtering information versus transparency

As a manager, it is important to be able to filter and amplify information coming from both the team and higher up. This includes deciding what information to pass on and when, as well as amplifying team messages to higher up. It is important to consider the context of the message, the company culture, and the individual people when deciding how to handle the information.

Moving from being an IC to being a manager

After transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager, the author initially struggled to accept the responsibility of management and continued to do the same work they had done before. After reading the book "High Output Management" by Andrew Grove, the author gained a new perspective on the purpose of management and learned that the role of managers is to create the best environment possible for their team to work in, and to have an overall vision of the work being done. The author also learned that while managers may not be developing code, they are developing processes and environment.

The Bug-Solving, Underperforming Engineer

When an employee is not performing in a position, it is important to consider their strengths and weaknesses to figure out if they can be useful to the team. In this case, the engineer was downgraded to a software engineer and assigned the role of "sustaining engineer" which allowed him to focus on his strengths. This resulted in a win-win situation for the engineer and the team, as the engineer has now been working at the company for almost 10 years.

How to handle decision-makers when you want something from them

The lead dev of an overwhelmed team needed to hire an extra engineer, but their manager was too busy to make a decision. The lead dev took charge and measured their team's velocity, improved processes, and ran the math to prove the need for an extra person. After asking the manager what they needed and suggesting candidates, the lead dev was able to get a new engineer in a few weeks. The lesson learned was to be proactive and provide the required data when external people are decision-makers.

Firing someone who has become indispensable

A manager faced the challenge of having to let go of an employee who had become indispensable due to siloing of critical information and ownership of infrastructure. After releasing the engineer, it was discovered that the problem was due to lack of cross-training, sharing information, and documentation. To combat this, organizations must create a culture where everyone strives to make themselves replaceable by sharing critical pieces of information and cross-training.

Reorganization: what not to do.

When designing an organization structure, it is important to understand the goals and objectives of the project. A clustering exercise was attempted with 30 people, but it was too complex and no decisions were made. Three people proposed organization charts, but none of them were perfect. It was eventually decided to use one of them, but this resulted in more reorganizations three months later. The lesson learned is to clearly define goals and have two or three people work on the reorganization, as having too many people involved will prevent the structure from being informed by a point of view.

Stumbling into chaos

The new director of engineering at a startup had to jump in on day one when the team had just done a re-org and re-oriented the product roadmap. He met with the CTO and engineering leads to understand why the new structure had been put in place, then worked with the product managers to focus on pieces they had high certainty of needing. He also added weekly planning meetings for each product team and daily standups to create structure and accountability. Through retros and feedback, he tailored these initial short-term fixes to their needs. He learned that plans often go awry and we have to adapt, look for short-term engineering work when long-term plans change, and creating a predictable process cadence can help create stability.

The complexity of self-organization

The author, a former developer who became a manager, learned to prioritize tasks and choose their battles in order to get things done. This was a difficult process, but it has proven to be the best way to manage their workload and handle unexpected events.

Sharing the bigger picture when delegating

A project to rewrite a sharing and permission system was split between two teams, but the end result was not what was initially intended. This was due to a lack of communication about the long-term goal of the project, leading to choices that were not aligned with the overall goal. The lesson learned is that good delegation requires stakeholders to have a clear understanding of the bigger picture before beginning a project.

Whiteboard interviews, how to and how not to do it

A few years ago, a company in France decided to implement whiteboard interviews, but the engineers had no experience with them and the candidates were horrified. To address the issue, the company paused whiteboard interviews, did training, and devised rules for them. They also sent detailed emails with sample questions to the candidates to prepare them. The company learned that the whiteboard should be used to solve a problem together, not to prove the candidate can't do something. After implementing these changes, the company was able to successfully hire good engineers and received positive feedback from rejected candidates.

Go beyond salary to build up a complete job offer that candidates won’t decline

This article provides advice on how to handle salary negotiations. It suggests paying a fair wage based on experience, title, company stage, country, and city. It also suggests taking the time to understand what motivates the candidate and what they are looking for in a job, and then building an offer that includes a fair salary, equity, career opportunities, and learning opportunities. The article emphasizes that people should not be hired for cash, as they will likely leave soon after.

The power of saying no

A product manager wanted to take a lead developer away from their current project to work on a new one. The manager of the engineering team intervened and said no, as the current project was more important. This caused a short-term rift with the product team, but it also established a framework for future work. It is important for managers to protect their team and prioritize tasks, even if it means saying no to requests from the product team.

Weathering the storm of changing leadership within my department.

When the CTO of a company suddenly left, leaving many managers without direction, three managers and two directors took it upon themselves to meet with the new CTO and Head of Product and BI to push through and deliver on the roadmap they had been working on. Despite not knowing if it would matter in the end, it turned out to be successful and helped the new CTO get off to a good start. This experience taught them that in unfamiliar situations, it is important to go with what you know and who you are.

Make the Other Mistake

When receiving feedback, it can be difficult to self-correct to the level expected. To overcome this, it is suggested to "shoot for the extreme" and aim to exceed expectations. This approach is especially effective for team presence, assertiveness, and productivity. By pushing the limits, people can gain confidence in themselves and achieve more than their original goal.

Growing engineers into managers

A manager at Google wanted to transition to another role and asked a staff engineer to take on part of his work and team. The engineer was hesitant, but the manager pushed him to take on more responsibility. Eventually, the manager had to leave and the engineer was managing the team, but not doing a great job. After the manager left, the engineer started to flourish in the role, finding engineers he clicked with and trying his own things. The lesson learned was to be explicit with people transitioning to a new role that there are different ways to be a manager, and to leave room for them to grow.

Finding the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports

When taking over a new team, it is important for a manager to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their direct reports. This can be done through regular 1:1s, talking to the direct report's stakeholders, giving them small projects to work on, and using tools such as Strengths Finder. Quality feedback is key to discovering the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports, and it is important to remember that weaknesses can be overcome with growth and encouragement.

How to make engineers aware that they contribute to the company’s objectives?

During a planning meeting, the engineering team had difficulty connecting their individual goals to company-wide metrics. To address this, the team discussed how individual projects impacted team metrics and how team metrics impacted larger company-wide goals. Through conversations and one-on-ones, the team was able to better understand how their work contributed to the company's mission. The lesson learned was that it is important to spend time connecting individual goals to company-wide metrics.

The departure of someone seen as essential for your team

In this case study, the Research and Development director had to face the challenge of one of his team members leaving for a year to work on a personal project in China. He chose to be transparent with the team and worked on ways to share the team member's activities among the rest of the team. This resulted in the manager having to adapt his management style and the team having to adapt their communication, but it ultimately resulted in more accurate processes and a stronger team. The key takeaway is to be transparent with your team, even when faced with tricky issues.

Working as a team to improve prioritization

At Medium, the engineering team was struggling to prioritize their workload due to a lot of requests from both internally and externally. To solve this, the product manager and engineer created a multi-stage process to prioritize the workload. This included brainstorming, splitting into pairs, and then teams to allocate points to the projects. This process allowed the team to prioritize their projects, while also creating cohesiveness and understanding of product management.

Training a developer to fill a management role

When a company grows quickly, it may be necessary to add another layer of management. In this case, the team of seven people had no one with leadership skills, so the manager hired a senior developer and spent eight months training him for the role. This allowed the developer to gain legitimacy and the team to be happy with the promotion. The manager learned that it is difficult to delegate and that a new layer of management can have a big impact.

The manager’s paradox of filtering information versus transparency

As a manager, it is important to be able to filter and amplify information coming from both the team and higher up. This includes deciding what information to pass on and when, as well as amplifying team messages to higher up. It is important to consider the context of the message, the company culture, and the individual people when deciding how to handle the information.

Moving from being an IC to being a manager

After transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager, the author initially struggled to accept the responsibility of management and continued to do the same work they had done before. After reading the book "High Output Management" by Andrew Grove, the author gained a new perspective on the purpose of management and learned that the role of managers is to create the best environment possible for their team to work in, and to have an overall vision of the work being done. The author also learned that while managers may not be developing code, they are developing processes and environment.

The Bug-Solving, Underperforming Engineer

When an employee is not performing in a position, it is important to consider their strengths and weaknesses to figure out if they can be useful to the team. In this case, the engineer was downgraded to a software engineer and assigned the role of "sustaining engineer" which allowed him to focus on his strengths. This resulted in a win-win situation for the engineer and the team, as the engineer has now been working at the company for almost 10 years.

How to handle decision-makers when you want something from them

The lead dev of an overwhelmed team needed to hire an extra engineer, but their manager was too busy to make a decision. The lead dev took charge and measured their team's velocity, improved processes, and ran the math to prove the need for an extra person. After asking the manager what they needed and suggesting candidates, the lead dev was able to get a new engineer in a few weeks. The lesson learned was to be proactive and provide the required data when external people are decision-makers.

Firing someone who has become indispensable

A manager faced the challenge of having to let go of an employee who had become indispensable due to siloing of critical information and ownership of infrastructure. After releasing the engineer, it was discovered that the problem was due to lack of cross-training, sharing information, and documentation. To combat this, organizations must create a culture where everyone strives to make themselves replaceable by sharing critical pieces of information and cross-training.

Reorganization: what not to do.

When designing an organization structure, it is important to understand the goals and objectives of the project. A clustering exercise was attempted with 30 people, but it was too complex and no decisions were made. Three people proposed organization charts, but none of them were perfect. It was eventually decided to use one of them, but this resulted in more reorganizations three months later. The lesson learned is to clearly define goals and have two or three people work on the reorganization, as having too many people involved will prevent the structure from being informed by a point of view.

Stumbling into chaos

The new director of engineering at a startup had to jump in on day one when the team had just done a re-org and re-oriented the product roadmap. He met with the CTO and engineering leads to understand why the new structure had been put in place, then worked with the product managers to focus on pieces they had high certainty of needing. He also added weekly planning meetings for each product team and daily standups to create structure and accountability. Through retros and feedback, he tailored these initial short-term fixes to their needs. He learned that plans often go awry and we have to adapt, look for short-term engineering work when long-term plans change, and creating a predictable process cadence can help create stability.

The complexity of self-organization

The author, a former developer who became a manager, learned to prioritize tasks and choose their battles in order to get things done. This was a difficult process, but it has proven to be the best way to manage their workload and handle unexpected events.

Sharing the bigger picture when delegating

A project to rewrite a sharing and permission system was split between two teams, but the end result was not what was initially intended. This was due to a lack of communication about the long-term goal of the project, leading to choices that were not aligned with the overall goal. The lesson learned is that good delegation requires stakeholders to have a clear understanding of the bigger picture before beginning a project.

Whiteboard interviews, how to and how not to do it

A few years ago, a company in France decided to implement whiteboard interviews, but the engineers had no experience with them and the candidates were horrified. To address the issue, the company paused whiteboard interviews, did training, and devised rules for them. They also sent detailed emails with sample questions to the candidates to prepare them. The company learned that the whiteboard should be used to solve a problem together, not to prove the candidate can't do something. After implementing these changes, the company was able to successfully hire good engineers and received positive feedback from rejected candidates.

Go beyond salary to build up a complete job offer that candidates won’t decline

This article provides advice on how to handle salary negotiations. It suggests paying a fair wage based on experience, title, company stage, country, and city. It also suggests taking the time to understand what motivates the candidate and what they are looking for in a job, and then building an offer that includes a fair salary, equity, career opportunities, and learning opportunities. The article emphasizes that people should not be hired for cash, as they will likely leave soon after.

The power of saying no

A product manager wanted to take a lead developer away from their current project to work on a new one. The manager of the engineering team intervened and said no, as the current project was more important. This caused a short-term rift with the product team, but it also established a framework for future work. It is important for managers to protect their team and prioritize tasks, even if it means saying no to requests from the product team.

Weathering the storm of changing leadership within my department.

When the CTO of a company suddenly left, leaving many managers without direction, three managers and two directors took it upon themselves to meet with the new CTO and Head of Product and BI to push through and deliver on the roadmap they had been working on. Despite not knowing if it would matter in the end, it turned out to be successful and helped the new CTO get off to a good start. This experience taught them that in unfamiliar situations, it is important to go with what you know and who you are.

Make the Other Mistake

When receiving feedback, it can be difficult to self-correct to the level expected. To overcome this, it is suggested to "shoot for the extreme" and aim to exceed expectations. This approach is especially effective for team presence, assertiveness, and productivity. By pushing the limits, people can gain confidence in themselves and achieve more than their original goal.

Growing engineers into managers

A manager at Google wanted to transition to another role and asked a staff engineer to take on part of his work and team. The engineer was hesitant, but the manager pushed him to take on more responsibility. Eventually, the manager had to leave and the engineer was managing the team, but not doing a great job. After the manager left, the engineer started to flourish in the role, finding engineers he clicked with and trying his own things. The lesson learned was to be explicit with people transitioning to a new role that there are different ways to be a manager, and to leave room for them to grow.

Finding the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports

When taking over a new team, it is important for a manager to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their direct reports. This can be done through regular 1:1s, talking to the direct report's stakeholders, giving them small projects to work on, and using tools such as Strengths Finder. Quality feedback is key to discovering the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports, and it is important to remember that weaknesses can be overcome with growth and encouragement.

How to make engineers aware that they contribute to the company’s objectives?

During a planning meeting, the engineering team had difficulty connecting their individual goals to company-wide metrics. To address this, the team discussed how individual projects impacted team metrics and how team metrics impacted larger company-wide goals. Through conversations and one-on-ones, the team was able to better understand how their work contributed to the company's mission. The lesson learned was that it is important to spend time connecting individual goals to company-wide metrics.

The departure of someone seen as essential for your team

In this case study, the Research and Development director had to face the challenge of one of his team members leaving for a year to work on a personal project in China. He chose to be transparent with the team and worked on ways to share the team member's activities among the rest of the team. This resulted in the manager having to adapt his management style and the team having to adapt their communication, but it ultimately resulted in more accurate processes and a stronger team. The key takeaway is to be transparent with your team, even when faced with tricky issues.

Working as a team to improve prioritization

At Medium, the engineering team was struggling to prioritize their workload due to a lot of requests from both internally and externally. To solve this, the product manager and engineer created a multi-stage process to prioritize the workload. This included brainstorming, splitting into pairs, and then teams to allocate points to the projects. This process allowed the team to prioritize their projects, while also creating cohesiveness and understanding of product management.

Training a developer to fill a management role

When a company grows quickly, it may be necessary to add another layer of management. In this case, the team of seven people had no one with leadership skills, so the manager hired a senior developer and spent eight months training him for the role. This allowed the developer to gain legitimacy and the team to be happy with the promotion. The manager learned that it is difficult to delegate and that a new layer of management can have a big impact.

The manager’s paradox of filtering information versus transparency

As a manager, it is important to be able to filter and amplify information coming from both the team and higher up. This includes deciding what information to pass on and when, as well as amplifying team messages to higher up. It is important to consider the context of the message, the company culture, and the individual people when deciding how to handle the information.

Moving from being an IC to being a manager

After transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager, the author initially struggled to accept the responsibility of management and continued to do the same work they had done before. After reading the book "High Output Management" by Andrew Grove, the author gained a new perspective on the purpose of management and learned that the role of managers is to create the best environment possible for their team to work in, and to have an overall vision of the work being done. The author also learned that while managers may not be developing code, they are developing processes and environment.

The Bug-Solving, Underperforming Engineer

When an employee is not performing in a position, it is important to consider their strengths and weaknesses to figure out if they can be useful to the team. In this case, the engineer was downgraded to a software engineer and assigned the role of "sustaining engineer" which allowed him to focus on his strengths. This resulted in a win-win situation for the engineer and the team, as the engineer has now been working at the company for almost 10 years.

How to handle decision-makers when you want something from them

The lead dev of an overwhelmed team needed to hire an extra engineer, but their manager was too busy to make a decision. The lead dev took charge and measured their team's velocity, improved processes, and ran the math to prove the need for an extra person. After asking the manager what they needed and suggesting candidates, the lead dev was able to get a new engineer in a few weeks. The lesson learned was to be proactive and provide the required data when external people are decision-makers.

Firing someone who has become indispensable

A manager faced the challenge of having to let go of an employee who had become indispensable due to siloing of critical information and ownership of infrastructure. After releasing the engineer, it was discovered that the problem was due to lack of cross-training, sharing information, and documentation. To combat this, organizations must create a culture where everyone strives to make themselves replaceable by sharing critical pieces of information and cross-training.

Reorganization: what not to do.

When designing an organization structure, it is important to understand the goals and objectives of the project. A clustering exercise was attempted with 30 people, but it was too complex and no decisions were made. Three people proposed organization charts, but none of them were perfect. It was eventually decided to use one of them, but this resulted in more reorganizations three months later. The lesson learned is to clearly define goals and have two or three people work on the reorganization, as having too many people involved will prevent the structure from being informed by a point of view.

Stumbling into chaos

The new director of engineering at a startup had to jump in on day one when the team had just done a re-org and re-oriented the product roadmap. He met with the CTO and engineering leads to understand why the new structure had been put in place, then worked with the product managers to focus on pieces they had high certainty of needing. He also added weekly planning meetings for each product team and daily standups to create structure and accountability. Through retros and feedback, he tailored these initial short-term fixes to their needs. He learned that plans often go awry and we have to adapt, look for short-term engineering work when long-term plans change, and creating a predictable process cadence can help create stability.

The complexity of self-organization

The author, a former developer who became a manager, learned to prioritize tasks and choose their battles in order to get things done. This was a difficult process, but it has proven to be the best way to manage their workload and handle unexpected events.

Sharing the bigger picture when delegating

A project to rewrite a sharing and permission system was split between two teams, but the end result was not what was initially intended. This was due to a lack of communication about the long-term goal of the project, leading to choices that were not aligned with the overall goal. The lesson learned is that good delegation requires stakeholders to have a clear understanding of the bigger picture before beginning a project.

Whiteboard interviews, how to and how not to do it

A few years ago, a company in France decided to implement whiteboard interviews, but the engineers had no experience with them and the candidates were horrified. To address the issue, the company paused whiteboard interviews, did training, and devised rules for them. They also sent detailed emails with sample questions to the candidates to prepare them. The company learned that the whiteboard should be used to solve a problem together, not to prove the candidate can't do something. After implementing these changes, the company was able to successfully hire good engineers and received positive feedback from rejected candidates.

Go beyond salary to build up a complete job offer that candidates won’t decline

This article provides advice on how to handle salary negotiations. It suggests paying a fair wage based on experience, title, company stage, country, and city. It also suggests taking the time to understand what motivates the candidate and what they are looking for in a job, and then building an offer that includes a fair salary, equity, career opportunities, and learning opportunities. The article emphasizes that people should not be hired for cash, as they will likely leave soon after.

The power of saying no

A product manager wanted to take a lead developer away from their current project to work on a new one. The manager of the engineering team intervened and said no, as the current project was more important. This caused a short-term rift with the product team, but it also established a framework for future work. It is important for managers to protect their team and prioritize tasks, even if it means saying no to requests from the product team.

Weathering the storm of changing leadership within my department.

When the CTO of a company suddenly left, leaving many managers without direction, three managers and two directors took it upon themselves to meet with the new CTO and Head of Product and BI to push through and deliver on the roadmap they had been working on. Despite not knowing if it would matter in the end, it turned out to be successful and helped the new CTO get off to a good start. This experience taught them that in unfamiliar situations, it is important to go with what you know and who you are.

Make the Other Mistake

When receiving feedback, it can be difficult to self-correct to the level expected. To overcome this, it is suggested to "shoot for the extreme" and aim to exceed expectations. This approach is especially effective for team presence, assertiveness, and productivity. By pushing the limits, people can gain confidence in themselves and achieve more than their original goal.

Growing engineers into managers

A manager at Google wanted to transition to another role and asked a staff engineer to take on part of his work and team. The engineer was hesitant, but the manager pushed him to take on more responsibility. Eventually, the manager had to leave and the engineer was managing the team, but not doing a great job. After the manager left, the engineer started to flourish in the role, finding engineers he clicked with and trying his own things. The lesson learned was to be explicit with people transitioning to a new role that there are different ways to be a manager, and to leave room for them to grow.

Finding the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports

When taking over a new team, it is important for a manager to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their direct reports. This can be done through regular 1:1s, talking to the direct report's stakeholders, giving them small projects to work on, and using tools such as Strengths Finder. Quality feedback is key to discovering the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports, and it is important to remember that weaknesses can be overcome with growth and encouragement.

How to make engineers aware that they contribute to the company’s objectives?

During a planning meeting, the engineering team had difficulty connecting their individual goals to company-wide metrics. To address this, the team discussed how individual projects impacted team metrics and how team metrics impacted larger company-wide goals. Through conversations and one-on-ones, the team was able to better understand how their work contributed to the company's mission. The lesson learned was that it is important to spend time connecting individual goals to company-wide metrics.

The departure of someone seen as essential for your team

In this case study, the Research and Development director had to face the challenge of one of his team members leaving for a year to work on a personal project in China. He chose to be transparent with the team and worked on ways to share the team member's activities among the rest of the team. This resulted in the manager having to adapt his management style and the team having to adapt their communication, but it ultimately resulted in more accurate processes and a stronger team. The key takeaway is to be transparent with your team, even when faced with tricky issues.

Working as a team to improve prioritization

At Medium, the engineering team was struggling to prioritize their workload due to a lot of requests from both internally and externally. To solve this, the product manager and engineer created a multi-stage process to prioritize the workload. This included brainstorming, splitting into pairs, and then teams to allocate points to the projects. This process allowed the team to prioritize their projects, while also creating cohesiveness and understanding of product management.

Training a developer to fill a management role

When a company grows quickly, it may be necessary to add another layer of management. In this case, the team of seven people had no one with leadership skills, so the manager hired a senior developer and spent eight months training him for the role. This allowed the developer to gain legitimacy and the team to be happy with the promotion. The manager learned that it is difficult to delegate and that a new layer of management can have a big impact.

The manager’s paradox of filtering information versus transparency

As a manager, it is important to be able to filter and amplify information coming from both the team and higher up. This includes deciding what information to pass on and when, as well as amplifying team messages to higher up. It is important to consider the context of the message, the company culture, and the individual people when deciding how to handle the information.

Moving from being an IC to being a manager

After transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager, the author initially struggled to accept the responsibility of management and continued to do the same work they had done before. After reading the book "High Output Management" by Andrew Grove, the author gained a new perspective on the purpose of management and learned that the role of managers is to create the best environment possible for their team to work in, and to have an overall vision of the work being done. The author also learned that while managers may not be developing code, they are developing processes and environment.

The Bug-Solving, Underperforming Engineer

When an employee is not performing in a position, it is important to consider their strengths and weaknesses to figure out if they can be useful to the team. In this case, the engineer was downgraded to a software engineer and assigned the role of "sustaining engineer" which allowed him to focus on his strengths. This resulted in a win-win situation for the engineer and the team, as the engineer has now been working at the company for almost 10 years.

How to handle decision-makers when you want something from them

The lead dev of an overwhelmed team needed to hire an extra engineer, but their manager was too busy to make a decision. The lead dev took charge and measured their team's velocity, improved processes, and ran the math to prove the need for an extra person. After asking the manager what they needed and suggesting candidates, the lead dev was able to get a new engineer in a few weeks. The lesson learned was to be proactive and provide the required data when external people are decision-makers.

Firing someone who has become indispensable

A manager faced the challenge of having to let go of an employee who had become indispensable due to siloing of critical information and ownership of infrastructure. After releasing the engineer, it was discovered that the problem was due to lack of cross-training, sharing information, and documentation. To combat this, organizations must create a culture where everyone strives to make themselves replaceable by sharing critical pieces of information and cross-training.

Reorganization: what not to do.

When designing an organization structure, it is important to understand the goals and objectives of the project. A clustering exercise was attempted with 30 people, but it was too complex and no decisions were made. Three people proposed organization charts, but none of them were perfect. It was eventually decided to use one of them, but this resulted in more reorganizations three months later. The lesson learned is to clearly define goals and have two or three people work on the reorganization, as having too many people involved will prevent the structure from being informed by a point of view.

Stumbling into chaos

The new director of engineering at a startup had to jump in on day one when the team had just done a re-org and re-oriented the product roadmap. He met with the CTO and engineering leads to understand why the new structure had been put in place, then worked with the product managers to focus on pieces they had high certainty of needing. He also added weekly planning meetings for each product team and daily standups to create structure and accountability. Through retros and feedback, he tailored these initial short-term fixes to their needs. He learned that plans often go awry and we have to adapt, look for short-term engineering work when long-term plans change, and creating a predictable process cadence can help create stability.

The complexity of self-organization

The author, a former developer who became a manager, learned to prioritize tasks and choose their battles in order to get things done. This was a difficult process, but it has proven to be the best way to manage their workload and handle unexpected events.

Sharing the bigger picture when delegating

A project to rewrite a sharing and permission system was split between two teams, but the end result was not what was initially intended. This was due to a lack of communication about the long-term goal of the project, leading to choices that were not aligned with the overall goal. The lesson learned is that good delegation requires stakeholders to have a clear understanding of the bigger picture before beginning a project.

Whiteboard interviews, how to and how not to do it

A few years ago, a company in France decided to implement whiteboard interviews, but the engineers had no experience with them and the candidates were horrified. To address the issue, the company paused whiteboard interviews, did training, and devised rules for them. They also sent detailed emails with sample questions to the candidates to prepare them. The company learned that the whiteboard should be used to solve a problem together, not to prove the candidate can't do something. After implementing these changes, the company was able to successfully hire good engineers and received positive feedback from rejected candidates.

Go beyond salary to build up a complete job offer that candidates won’t decline

This article provides advice on how to handle salary negotiations. It suggests paying a fair wage based on experience, title, company stage, country, and city. It also suggests taking the time to understand what motivates the candidate and what they are looking for in a job, and then building an offer that includes a fair salary, equity, career opportunities, and learning opportunities. The article emphasizes that people should not be hired for cash, as they will likely leave soon after.

The power of saying no

A product manager wanted to take a lead developer away from their current project to work on a new one. The manager of the engineering team intervened and said no, as the current project was more important. This caused a short-term rift with the product team, but it also established a framework for future work. It is important for managers to protect their team and prioritize tasks, even if it means saying no to requests from the product team.

Weathering the storm of changing leadership within my department.

When the CTO of a company suddenly left, leaving many managers without direction, three managers and two directors took it upon themselves to meet with the new CTO and Head of Product and BI to push through and deliver on the roadmap they had been working on. Despite not knowing if it would matter in the end, it turned out to be successful and helped the new CTO get off to a good start. This experience taught them that in unfamiliar situations, it is important to go with what you know and who you are.

Make the Other Mistake

When receiving feedback, it can be difficult to self-correct to the level expected. To overcome this, it is suggested to "shoot for the extreme" and aim to exceed expectations. This approach is especially effective for team presence, assertiveness, and productivity. By pushing the limits, people can gain confidence in themselves and achieve more than their original goal.

Growing engineers into managers

A manager at Google wanted to transition to another role and asked a staff engineer to take on part of his work and team. The engineer was hesitant, but the manager pushed him to take on more responsibility. Eventually, the manager had to leave and the engineer was managing the team, but not doing a great job. After the manager left, the engineer started to flourish in the role, finding engineers he clicked with and trying his own things. The lesson learned was to be explicit with people transitioning to a new role that there are different ways to be a manager, and to leave room for them to grow.

Finding the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports

When taking over a new team, it is important for a manager to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their direct reports. This can be done through regular 1:1s, talking to the direct report's stakeholders, giving them small projects to work on, and using tools such as Strengths Finder. Quality feedback is key to discovering the strengths and weaknesses of direct reports, and it is important to remember that weaknesses can be overcome with growth and encouragement.

How to make engineers aware that they contribute to the company’s objectives?

During a planning meeting, the engineering team had difficulty connecting their individual goals to company-wide metrics. To address this, the team discussed how individual projects impacted team metrics and how team metrics impacted larger company-wide goals. Through conversations and one-on-ones, the team was able to better understand how their work contributed to the company's mission. The lesson learned was that it is important to spend time connecting individual goals to company-wide metrics.

The departure of someone seen as essential for your team

In this case study, the Research and Development director had to face the challenge of one of his team members leaving for a year to work on a personal project in China. He chose to be transparent with the team and worked on ways to share the team member's activities among the rest of the team. This resulted in the manager having to adapt his management style and the team having to adapt their communication, but it ultimately resulted in more accurate processes and a stronger team. The key takeaway is to be transparent with your team, even when faced with tricky issues.

Working as a team to improve prioritization

At Medium, the engineering team was struggling to prioritize their workload due to a lot of requests from both internally and externally. To solve this, the product manager and engineer created a multi-stage process to prioritize the workload. This included brainstorming, splitting into pairs, and then teams to allocate points to the projects. This process allowed the team to prioritize their projects, while also creating cohesiveness and understanding of product management.

Training a developer to fill a management role

When a company grows quickly, it may be necessary to add another layer of management. In this case, the team of seven people had no one with leadership skills, so the manager hired a senior developer and spent eight months training him for the role. This allowed the developer to gain legitimacy and the team to be happy with the promotion. The manager learned that it is difficult to delegate and that a new layer of management can have a big impact.

The manager’s paradox of filtering information versus transparency

As a manager, it is important to be able to filter and amplify information coming from both the team and higher up. This includes deciding what information to pass on and when, as well as amplifying team messages to higher up. It is important to consider the context of the message, the company culture, and the individual people when deciding how to handle the information.

Moving from being an IC to being a manager

After transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager, the author initially struggled to accept the responsibility of management and continued to do the same work they had done before. After reading the book "High Output Management" by Andrew Grove, the author gained a new perspective on the purpose of management and learned that the role of managers is to create the best environment possible for their team to work in, and to have an overall vision of the work being done. The author also learned that while managers may not be developing code, they are developing processes and environment.

The Bug-Solving, Underperforming Engineer

When an employee is not performing in a position, it is important to consider their strengths and weaknesses to figure out if they can be useful to the team. In this case, the engineer was downgraded to a software engineer and assigned the role of "sustaining engineer" which allowed him to focus on his strengths. This resulted in a win-win situation for the engineer and the team, as the engineer has now been working at the company for almost 10 years.

How to handle decision-makers when you want something from them

The lead dev of an overwhelmed team needed to hire an extra engineer, but their manager was too busy to make a decision. The lead dev took charge and measured their team's velocity, improved processes, and ran the math to prove the need for an extra person. After asking the manager what they needed and suggesting candidates, the lead dev was able to get a new engineer in a few weeks. The lesson learned was to be proactive and provide the required data when external people are decision-makers.