Find resources to solve your technical leadership challenges
Martin Fowler writes a foreword for the book "Frictionless", highlighting its approach to improving software productivity by identifying and removing friction.
By pulling on the sage advice of Charlie Munger, we can use pessimism to its full advantage, giving us safer planning, estimation and rollout.
How a tiny fern with the world's largest genome illustrates the dangers of incidental complexity in software, why easy solutions accumulate hidden costs, and how teams can stay focused on simplicity to maintain long-term velocity.
A CTO reflects on returning to writing code after years of management, discussing trade-offs, challenges and benefits of manager coding.
Revisiting Manager READMEs reflects on the original critique and offers updated guidance for creating effective manager documentation.
The post explains how AI and tooling are making software development cheaper and faster, creating a tendency for startups to delay building until costs drop further, and the implications for leadership decisions.
This article explains how engineering leaders can increase development speed by systematically preventing unplanned work and focusing on predictable delivery.
The inner album of greatest hits, and 3 frameworks to practice with
The article examines how generative AI is turning software development into a fast-food style industry, highlighting the trade-offs between speed, quality, and the rising value of expert judgment for technical leaders.
Demystifying board meetings from a CTO's perspective, offering practical insights on what to expect and how to prepare.
Interruptions, recovery time, and task size: three numbers that determine if you'll get real work done. Interactive visualizations show the math behind bad days.
Almost no one is productive for 8 hours a day straight! Learn why and how to think about your daily productivity differently.
On rediscovering the joy of being a beginner again
A short guide suggesting that instead of tracking time, technical leaders should track interruptions to improve focus and identify hidden costs of context switching.
A discussion on how new software initiatives inevitably contain bugs and how to manage them to increase velocity and quality.
Difficult people at work can drive you crazy. A clinical psychologist explains the best ways to handle them...
A story about one engineer, one manager, and the quiet ways we manufacture the performance gaps we complain about.
Your teams aren't bad at decisions. They're drowning in them. Here's how to make better decisions, faster.
A simple shift that turns you from problem-solver to leader.
Explores how curiosity beats certainty and how small experiments can make teams stronger.
How winning can shrink your options
A short piece about a manager at a first startup who runs solid, structured one-on-ones but sometimes dominates the conversation, illustrating the fine line between guidance and over-talking.
The article examines the low-trust climate in tech companies and offers authentic leadership techniques to rebuild trust and improve team performance.
A short reflection on why software development speed can drop and what options teams have to address it.
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.
Resource imported from newsletter.techworld-with-milan.com via webhook.
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.
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.