Best of Leadership — 2024
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DEV·2y
My first experience as a Tech Lead
The author shares their experiences and insights from their journey of becoming a tech lead. Emphasizing the importance of soft skills, they discuss the nuances involved in evaluating candidates, the distinction between junior and senior developers, and their personal anecdote of leading a project for the first time. Valuable lessons from various types of senior developers are also recounted.
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Trunk.io·2y
What's something you do for every project you start?
Observing how someone initiates a new project can reveal their experience and skills. This practice is insightful enough to be used during interviews. Consider what types of projects interest you and the tools you instinctively use when starting a new project.
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Tech World With Milan·1y
15 Best Leadership Books
This post provides a curated list of the 15 best leadership books to help leaders enhance their skills. The books cover a range of topics including effective communication, emotional intelligence, habit formation, and team management. Each book offers practical insights and strategies for improving leadership abilities and fostering positive work environments.
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What code standards says about your org.
The discussion revolves around the importance of code standardization in engineering organizations. David argues that organizations that do not believe in standardization may lack good personnel or strong leadership. The post explores the debate between giving engineers complete freedom and enforcing consistent practices, along with the resulting trade-offs.
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Ardalis·2y
Clean Architecture Sucks
Clean Architecture is not a silver bullet and its success depends on the technical expertise of the developers. Inexperienced teams may struggle with implementing the architecture correctly. It's important to understand different approaches to software architecture and seek guidance from experienced developers.
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daily.dev Changelog·2y
Slack Integration
Integrate your Squad with Slack to receive notifications on Squad activity directly in your Slack channels, allowing for seamless and streamlined communication. Admins can easily connect a Squad to a Slack workspace and channel, making it straightforward to keep your team updated. For more details, visit the provided documentation link.
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How to review as a Pro
A good code review process can enrich team collaboration and personal development. Avoiding unproductive practices like nitpicking code style and having a considerate attitude are crucial. Focus on reviewing the logic and language usage, and automate mundane tasks using linters. Establish structured processes to manage code reviews efficiently and ensure constructive feedback. Finally, steps to help reviewers include providing clear PR descriptions and avoiding large pull requests.
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Community Picks·2y
Code Refactoring: 10 Lessons I Learned on Improving Code
Refactoring involves modifying the structure of code without changing its behavior to improve readability and maintainability. Key lessons include analyzing the code beforehand, refactoring as a team, composing smaller methods, simplifying conditional expressions, ensuring code understanding, setting clear objectives, making incremental changes, and considering performance. The goal is to maintain an efficient and manageable codebase.
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groCTO·2y
6 atomic habits of highly efficient CTOs
Kovid Batra, founder of groCTO, shares six crucial habits that distinguish highly effective CTOs: holding daily stand-ups, scheduling deep work sessions, conducting regular one-on-ones, continually updating one's knowledge, and moving quickly with immediate feedback loops. These habits foster alignment, productivity, strong team relationships, and continuous improvement.
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How Google build great engineering teams?
The interview with Addy Osmani, head of Chrome Developer Experience at Google, dives into effective team building, leadership lessons from Google, and traits of successful engineering teams. Key points include the importance of psychological safety, the value of emotional intelligence, and fostering a culture of continuous learning and growth. The discussion also touches on productivity frameworks, bad leadership behaviors to avoid, and the significance of clear communication and diversity in teams.
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How To Be Productive
No matter where you are in your journey, inaction is inevitable at some point. To overcome it, consider four approaches: start with any small action and keep moving, connect your actions to your core values, find opportunities in crisis to drive purposeful change, and reward yourself for taking steps, no matter how small, to build motivation and momentum.
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InfoQ·2y
Thinking Like an Architect
The post delves into the multifaceted role of an architect, emphasizing it as a way of thinking rather than a title. It explores the concept of the 'architect elevator,' highlighting the significance of connecting various organizational levels to ensure effective communication and implementation. The role of an architect is portrayed as an IQ amplifier, guiding others to make better decisions by understanding tradeoffs and impacts. The post also underscores the value of models, metaphors, and the ability to see multiple dimensions to solve complex problems and navigate organizational and technical systems effectively.
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Microservices.io·2y
The evolution of the Microservice Architecture pattern language
The post discusses the evolution of the Microservice Architecture pattern language over the past decade, highlighting its origins and development. It introduces essential concepts like anti-patterns, the forces of dark energy and dark matter in architectural decisions, and the importance of context in determining architectural choices. Additionally, it advises on refining terminology and emphasizes that monolithic architectures remain useful in many contexts. Future improvements and ongoing adaptation in the field are also covered.
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Substack·2y5 reasons why your best developers will quit - and how can you postpone it
Many software developers quit due to feeling unappreciated, lonely, bored, stuck, or apathetic. To retain them, it's crucial to make them feel valued, connected, challenged, and passionate about their work. Managers should actively provide salary increases, recognize achievements, encourage team bonding, delegate interesting tasks, and support career growth. Ultimately, some factors are beyond control, and employees will still leave for various reasons, but these tips can help postpone their departure.
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Saiyan Growth Letter·2y
How to join a new company effectively
To quickly contribute at a new company, use the product to understand its problems and suggest improvements, learn the company's origin and user behaviors, review past issues to avoid repeating mistakes, and set up 1:1 meetings with teammates to build relationships and gather vital information. Note-taking is crucial to retain and understand important details.
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How to deal with difficult conversations?
Navigating difficult conversations with empathy and strategic communication is crucial for effective leadership. This post delves into the frameworks of Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and the Thomas Kilmann Conflict Resolution Model. NVC, developed by psychologist Marshall Rosenberg, focuses on self-empathy, empathy towards others, and honest self-expression through observation, feelings, needs, and requests. The Thomas Kilmann Model provides five conflict-handling modes that range from competing to accommodating, guiding leaders to manage conflicts productively. Implementing these techniques can transform conflicts into opportunities for growth and stronger relationships.
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The Developing Dev·2y
Write Down the Plan
Writing down a plan can significantly impact a software engineer's career growth. It helps in improving thinking, building team alignment, and increasing visibility. These benefits often lead to smoother promotions and more opportunities. Engineers should consider adopting this habit to enhance their professional standing.
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The Dual Nature of Seniority in Software Development
The expectations and roles of senior developers vary widely across companies, often evolving due to title inflation and the need for specific skill sets. The current industry trend prioritizes reliable delivery over innovation. To succeed, developers must adapt to the unspoken needs and strategies of their bosses and teams, often requiring professional mindreading and subtle influencing without overstepping. Senior roles demand balancing technical skills with interpersonal dynamics and understanding when to take the lead or step back to align with business goals.
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Programming Digest·2y
On Being A Senior Engineer
Modern resources on what makes a good senior engineer are scarce. There is a significant amount of knowledge in the industry about the characteristics of productive engineers. However, most available literature focuses on management roles and not on the direct responsibilities and skills of senior technical individual contributors.
- 25Substack·2y
10 Must-Reads for Engineering Leaders
This post features a list of 10 must-read books for engineering leaders. It covers various topics such as building a team that doesn't depend on you, removing controls and bureaucracy, extreme ownership, high output management, and the 5 dysfunctions of a team. The post also recommends newsletters written by engineering managers for further learning.
