Software Lead Weekly
Issue #651, 16th May 2025
This Week's Favorite
Why Is Customer Support Such a Challenging Space? The Agency, Control, Reliability (ACR) Tradeoff for Agents
8 minutes read.
It's fascinating to read how companies adopt technologies and take bets to serve their customers best. Sagar Joglekar shares how Intercom is putting a performance evaluation framework in place to test their agents while ensuring the results will be reliable, as this matters most to their customers. As you can see in the graphs they shared, it will take some time (years? months? weeks? hard to know in today's world) to get a reliable and consistent performance. With their ability to have benchmarks in place, they can iterate not only on the technology but also on the product, finding a fitting balance.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
8 minutes read.
It's fascinating to read how companies adopt technologies and take bets to serve their customers best. Sagar Joglekar shares how Intercom is putting a performance evaluation framework in place to test their agents while ensuring the results will be reliable, as this matters most to their customers. As you can see in the graphs they shared, it will take some time (years? months? weeks? hard to know in today's world) to get a reliable and consistent performance. With their ability to have benchmarks in place, they can iterate not only on the technology but also on the product, finding a fitting balance.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Culture
When It's 1 AM and You Finally Fixed That One Bug That's Been Haunting You for 2 Years!
1 minutes read.
My humble effort to help you start the weekend with a smile on your face.
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.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Be Productively Pessimistic
3 minutes read.
We often think only on the "happy path," where often the highest leverage in leveling up your thinking is by looking for ways things will break: "Don't just be needlessly negative about things, but don't let yourself be blindsided by problems you could get ahead of with a little pessimism."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
3 minutes read.
We often think only on the "happy path," where often the highest leverage in leveling up your thinking is by looking for ways things will break: "Don't just be needlessly negative about things, but don't let yourself be blindsided by problems you could get ahead of with a little pessimism."
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Career Specialization in AI Software Engineering (Video)
38 minutes read.
Shawn Wang is my primary source of information when it comes to well-balanced AI observations and insights. He sets the right emphasis on productivity (vs. efficiency), pointing at zero to one ephemeral software that is easy to write but hard to scale into meaningful business and the need to deal with a complex code ecosystem. My favorite part is his thoughts towards the end on learning and experimenting to ride the wave. It reminds me very much of how the cloud was introduced, which made me think about how architecture will change with it (e.g., Distributed Systems all companies will gear towards and not only the big ones) and how companies will leverage it (e.g., SaaS as the default motion).
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
38 minutes read.
Shawn Wang is my primary source of information when it comes to well-balanced AI observations and insights. He sets the right emphasis on productivity (vs. efficiency), pointing at zero to one ephemeral software that is easy to write but hard to scale into meaningful business and the need to deal with a complex code ecosystem. My favorite part is his thoughts towards the end on learning and experimenting to ride the wave. It reminds me very much of how the cloud was introduced, which made me think about how architecture will change with it (e.g., Distributed Systems all companies will gear towards and not only the big ones) and how companies will leverage it (e.g., SaaS as the default motion).
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Falsehoods Software Teams Believe About User Feedback
4 minutes read.
Somewhere between funny to painfully accurate list of user feedback statements, you should act with care. This is true for internal users (building a product others in the organization are using) and for paying customers. Creating a delightful experience doesn't mean following a recipe that your users asked for.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
4 minutes read.
Somewhere between funny to painfully accurate list of user feedback statements, you should act with care. This is true for internal users (building a product others in the organization are using) and for paying customers. Creating a delightful experience doesn't mean following a recipe that your users asked for.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Peopleware
Why Have You Been Stuck at the Senior Level for So Long?
6 minutes read.
Thiago Ghisi shares a concise and helpful view of where people should focus to align their actions with the company's needs. Where do you see an area you want to work on in the next 6 months? If you'd share it with your peers or manager, what would they recommend you doing (blindspots that you might miss)?
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
6 minutes read.
Thiago Ghisi shares a concise and helpful view of where people should focus to align their actions with the company's needs. Where do you see an area you want to work on in the next 6 months? If you'd share it with your peers or manager, what would they recommend you doing (blindspots that you might miss)?
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
A Pyramid-Shaped Career
5 minutes read.
"The candidates who have navigated down-titling best seem to have a different orientation: They’re focused on how they want to grow next, not what title they want to hold." -- a beautiful statement that might become even more important as the world shifts quickly with the latest LLM tools. What skills or knowledge do you want to develop next?
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
5 minutes read.
"The candidates who have navigated down-titling best seem to have a different orientation: They’re focused on how they want to grow next, not what title they want to hold." -- a beautiful statement that might become even more important as the world shifts quickly with the latest LLM tools. What skills or knowledge do you want to develop next?
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
How to Get Hired
3 minutes read.
Derek Sivers's strategy of being persistent and creative follow-up will get you far. It's so rare to get candidates who show genuine interest in the company, with enough creative ideas to show how they can provide value and create impact. Learning to generate signals over noise is a skill worth mastering.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
3 minutes read.
Derek Sivers's strategy of being persistent and creative follow-up will get you far. It's so rare to get candidates who show genuine interest in the company, with enough creative ideas to show how they can provide value and create impact. Learning to generate signals over noise is a skill worth mastering.
Read it later via Pocket or Instapaper.
Share it via Twitter or email.
Inspiring Tweets
@DominikTornow: As applications transform into autonomous agents, the behavior space of our apps will explode Systems thinking and systems engineering are essential to tame that complexity Control the chaos
@aaditsh: I've never found in my whole life that you could convince someone who doesn't want to work hard to work hard.
- 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.