Software Lead Weekly
Issue #152, 23rd October 2015
This Week's Favorite
Founders: It’s Not 1990. Stop Treating Your Employees Like It Is.
5 minutes read.
"Back in the day, founders would go into debt to buy a hard drive. Some even mortgaged their homes to keep things afloat. Who’s the last founder you met who did that? I haven’t met one in a while... who is taking the risk? Employees." -- this post will make you pause and think on the kind companies you'd like to build and the kind of companies you'd want to work at. Culture-wise, there is no doubt companies are moving slower than the way they shift and adjust technology. But this is only a matter of time until different compensation will be on the table. Risk shifted, and the market will adjust. Make sure you'll be there first if you want to keep your best employees for the long run, or as Tikhon wrote: "we might even decide to treat those early employees well. I don’t mean “free food in the kitchen” well, I mean compensation commensurate to risk taken. Perhaps, then, hiring might be easier."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
5 minutes read.
"Back in the day, founders would go into debt to buy a hard drive. Some even mortgaged their homes to keep things afloat. Who’s the last founder you met who did that? I haven’t met one in a while... who is taking the risk? Employees." -- this post will make you pause and think on the kind companies you'd like to build and the kind of companies you'd want to work at. Culture-wise, there is no doubt companies are moving slower than the way they shift and adjust technology. But this is only a matter of time until different compensation will be on the table. Risk shifted, and the market will adjust. Make sure you'll be there first if you want to keep your best employees for the long run, or as Tikhon wrote: "we might even decide to treat those early employees well. I don’t mean “free food in the kitchen” well, I mean compensation commensurate to risk taken. Perhaps, then, hiring might be easier."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Culture
Gimme Google, Stack Overflow, and This Keyboard, and I'll Program You Anything
1 minutes read.
My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face. I say get such keyboard for the interview room, so the candidates could have a good laugh before you start.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
1 minutes read.
My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face. I say get such keyboard for the interview room, so the candidates could have a good laugh before you start.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Meetings
4 minutes read.
Paul Adams (of Intercom) shares the internal email he sent to his team on how they can improve the effectiveness of their meetings. Share it with your teammates, and think of how you can make sure people are indeed accountable for following the practices you decided to apply.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
4 minutes read.
Paul Adams (of Intercom) shares the internal email he sent to his team on how they can improve the effectiveness of their meetings. Share it with your teammates, and think of how you can make sure people are indeed accountable for following the practices you decided to apply.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Communication: The First Casualty of a Team's Growth
6 minutes read.
Extremely important tips by Edmond Lau on how to reduce the cost of communication as the company grows. If you face the challenge of growing quickly, you have to put the time in fixing (or creating) your onboarding process and tools, to allow explicit expectations to drive the the effectiveness of team as the company grows.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
6 minutes read.
Extremely important tips by Edmond Lau on how to reduce the cost of communication as the company grows. If you face the challenge of growing quickly, you have to put the time in fixing (or creating) your onboarding process and tools, to allow explicit expectations to drive the the effectiveness of team as the company grows.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
28 Things I’d Do Differently Next Time Around
5 minutes read.
Wonderful lessons learned on building successful companies by Mitchell Harper, based on his experience as a serial entrepreneur of 4 different companies (most recently BigCommerce). Some of my favorites were: "Know which stage your company is in (product market fit, getting ready to scale or scaling) and only read books/blogs related to that stage", "Listen to the entire organization (especially those in daily contact with clients) in a way that scales as you grow" and "Be a genuinely caring person and try to change the world from a place of humility, humbleness and honesty".
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
5 minutes read.
Wonderful lessons learned on building successful companies by Mitchell Harper, based on his experience as a serial entrepreneur of 4 different companies (most recently BigCommerce). Some of my favorites were: "Know which stage your company is in (product market fit, getting ready to scale or scaling) and only read books/blogs related to that stage", "Listen to the entire organization (especially those in daily contact with clients) in a way that scales as you grow" and "Be a genuinely caring person and try to change the world from a place of humility, humbleness and honesty".
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Peopleware
The Engineer to Manager Transition, by Former Twitter Director of Engineering
31 minutes read.
Had great time listening to this talk on my commute to work this week, learning a lot from David experience on helping others to understand if they want to transition from an engineering position to the managerial path, and if so - how to do so successfully. Listen carefully to the way he breaks the first 90 days as a new manager, plenty of gems in it, e.g. the "EM Event Loop examples."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
31 minutes read.
Had great time listening to this talk on my commute to work this week, learning a lot from David experience on helping others to understand if they want to transition from an engineering position to the managerial path, and if so - how to do so successfully. Listen carefully to the way he breaks the first 90 days as a new manager, plenty of gems in it, e.g. the "EM Event Loop examples."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
How Do I Figure Out Who My Next Important Hire Should Be?
4 minutes read.
Figuring out what you're not doing today that is critical for the business, and who can help you with that is the first step in defining the missing role you should hire next. Being swamped with so many tasks as most of us are facing, it's not always trivial to know. Make sure you're asking for feedback on whether or not you're focusing on the right things.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
4 minutes read.
Figuring out what you're not doing today that is critical for the business, and who can help you with that is the first step in defining the missing role you should hire next. Being swamped with so many tasks as most of us are facing, it's not always trivial to know. Make sure you're asking for feedback on whether or not you're focusing on the right things.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Great Leaders Don’t Juggle Priorities
3 minutes read.
Chad Fowler is someone I've been following for some time. He's an incredible speaker and his thoughts on Immutable Infrastructure made a huge impact on the way I design systems. Chad's call to figure out a single priority to focus on is really important, even more so when there is a need to complete many things. Having a single priority for a large organization means chasing a big goal that everything can "feel" as if they're serving that priority. This could feel fake. So maybe a better approach would be to figure out a way to have a single, clear priority for every group of people in the company, acting to achieve just that for a very clear timeframe. And even more important - write down what you don't want work on in the next few months, and communicate it clearly to the team.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
3 minutes read.
Chad Fowler is someone I've been following for some time. He's an incredible speaker and his thoughts on Immutable Infrastructure made a huge impact on the way I design systems. Chad's call to figure out a single priority to focus on is really important, even more so when there is a need to complete many things. Having a single priority for a large organization means chasing a big goal that everything can "feel" as if they're serving that priority. This could feel fake. So maybe a better approach would be to figure out a way to have a single, clear priority for every group of people in the company, acting to achieve just that for a very clear timeframe. And even more important - write down what you don't want work on in the next few months, and communicate it clearly to the team.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Inspiring Tweets
@pmarca: The reason good management of both businesses and governments really matters: The consequence of bad management is ruined human lives.
- Oren
P.S. Can you share this email? I'd love for more people to experiment and improve their company's culture.
P.S. Can you share this email? I'd love for more people to experiment and improve their company's culture.