Find resources to solve your technical leadership challenges
Maximise your product's chances of success by balancing tech debt and architectural improvements: tips from a product manager.
The article explores the concept of a leader's shadow, showing how a leader's mood and behavior can influence the team's energy and performance.
The article argues that mastering a new leadership role takes at least three years, and the time required grows with role complexity.
We all believe in transparency and public conversations until it's time to press Send.
A practical, repeatable framework for running weekly engineering 1:1s using the People, Product, Process structure-with exact scripts, Notion setup, and tips for making them actually useful.
A concise guide sharing advice for new principal engineers, distilled from role models and mentors at Amazon.
An exploration of the common reasons top talent leaves organizations and actionable strategies for technical leaders to improve retention.
A lightweight system for measuring engineering productivity that puts the overhead on managers, not engineers - using changelogs, standups, and visibility over surveillance
A practical guide that outlines steps and strategies for engineers aspiring to become effective engineering managers.
An essay exploring the programmer identity crisis, its relation to AI, creativity, and the craft of software development.
The nagging feeling that something does not fit
Don't try to eliminate developers; don't sell that as the promise of AI; design platforms and practices that amplify their understanding
A concise four-step framework for building a product strategy, covering gathering inputs, creating strategic narratives, finding leverage, and making choices.
The article explains why setting expiry dates for metrics helps technical leaders keep them relevant and actionable, and provides a simple framework for evaluating metric usefulness.
The author reflects on early career expectations that promotions would happen automatically and shares insights on how to actively manage career growth to achieve promotion.
This blog post shares practical lessons on scaling engineering teams, drawing insights from the practices of Google, Facebook, and Netflix.
How to avoid optimizing the wrong things.
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An article that explores the importance of clarity in technical leadership and how clear communication can improve engineering outcomes.
Learn the science behind developer flow states and implement practical strategies to increase your engineering team's focus, productivity, and satisfaction.
An article that helps engineering leaders assess when to move off serverless platforms and outlines a practical roadmap for a smooth transition.
A reflective essay on how progress is defined in software development and engineering leadership, challenging common metrics and encouraging deeper thinking.
Being "the best" got us into leadership. Learning how to build effective systems and retain great people propels you into the executive levels.
Don't only ask, "How can I be helpful?" Try to develop a point of view and assert what to do.
Because the way we say no can make the difference between killing enthusiasm and creating real improvements
The article examines the role of ego in leadership and asks whether leaders should always try to suppress it, offering practical insights for technical managers.
One-on-ones are one of the most underappreciated tools in leadership. Too often they drift into glorified status updates, or worse, get cancelled when things get busy. When done well, they are the quickest way to build trust, clarity, and momentum in a team.
A concise guide introducing chaos engineering concepts and how to apply them on Google Cloud.
An article discussing the challenges of identifying and nurturing software development talent in complex environments.
A concise guide summarizing insights from surveying top Tiny Teams at the World's Fair.
An exploration of the hidden causes of difficult-to-detect bugs and practical strategies to prevent them in software development.
This article continues the series on Patrick Lencioni's 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, offering practical guidance on how leaders can overcome each dysfunction to build high-performing teams.
I was a frustrated individual contributor until two books changed everything. Here is my journey from IC to engineering manager.
A spider's web on my car mirror became a mirror of my own life, a story about resilience, toxic cycles, and the courage to finally move on.
An exploration of the four leadership mindsets-easygoing, right, wrong, and difficult-and how they influence decision making and team dynamics.
A brief overview of an overlooked research method that can help engineering leaders measure and improve developer productivity more accurately.
The article argues that hiring exclusively senior engineers harms startups by limiting growth, increasing costs, and reducing team diversity, and offers alternative hiring strategies.
The article revisits Jon Bentley's 1985 "Programming Pearls" collection of aphorisms, evaluating whether its insights remain useful after four decades of software evolution.
An article exploring why effective communication is a core responsibility for technical leaders and how to improve it.
The article provides practical guidance for software engineers on advancing their careers through skill development, leadership, and strategic career moves.
A reflection on two decades in tech, the tribalism of corporate life, and the difficulty of recognizing when you're part of the problem.
A concise guide on navigating and influencing workplace politics for technical leaders and engineering managers.
A brief article discussing how technical leaders can focus on positive signals and affirmative feedback to drive better decision making.
A brief guide on how technical leaders can shift from tactical execution to strategic thinking, offering practical steps to broaden impact.
Decide if management is right for you and learn concrete steps for successfully transitioning into management.
Too many meetings stem from unclear purpose and poor decision-making, and addressing these root causes can naturally reduce meeting load.
The author reflects on transitioning from manager back to an individual contributor role, sharing how soft skills became essential for success.
An insider look at how a Principal Software Engineer spends a typical week, juggling design, code reviews, mentorship, and strategic initiatives.
The stdlib collection is a community-curated library of practical, immediately useful, battle-tested resources for technical leadership. Each resource is designed to be immediately applicable to your role. New resources are added based on community feedback and emerging best practices.