Begin your journey to becoming a great Engineering Manager — So you have just become an Engineering Manager — congrats! That said — being a new Engineering Manager can be overwhelming. You have a lot of things to immediately start making progress on: Letting those around you get to know you and acclimate to your style Getting to know your…

Personas will connect your data execution to your data strategy — What is a User Persona? User personas are fictional characters developed to help empathize, easily understand, and connect with users. They are often segmented in some way, by role for example, to illustrate different types/categories of users. At the bottom of this article are links to the actual personas used by two organizations. These give…

Reflections on my first two years as a Manager — Your first day as a manager is exciting — meeting your team, fellow managers, and the leadership above you. But — leaving an individual contributor role can be terrifying since many managers were promoted because they excelled as an individual performer. Now you are responsible for an entire team’s performance…

The Great Resignation gives an opportunity for employers to reflect on their hiring practices and diversity — Over 65 percent of employees are looking for a new job per a recent survey by PwC. The United States is near an all-time record high for open jobs — with over 10 million jobs currently open.

A lightweight way to document change over time — Developing great software architecture doesn’t mean much if it can’t be maintained over time. Part of maintaining quality architecture requires an understanding of how the current architecture has evolved over time, and what the decisions, assumptions, and constraints at critical points in time. This can be extremely challenging, as software…

Steps you need to take now to prepare your company and team — Bloomberg Economics estimates there is a 53% chance the United States will start a recession in the next 12 months. There are 4 major factors driving US economic uncertainty: The current and future impact of COVID-19 Russia and Saudi Arabia oil price feud Uncertainty of Brexit and its impact US economic policy is highly uncertain given its political environment

Navigating the murky waters of debating and selecting tech — For the past ten years I’ve led software development teams. Some of the biggest debates I’ve been a part of involved the frameworks, languages, processes, and platforms used to create, deliver, and manage software.

And How to Get Over Them — I’ve led software engineers for the last ten years. I have mentored or promoted around a dozen developers to team lead, management, and leadership roles. In my experience, there are a few common pitfalls with new managers. Pitfall #1: Failing to treat management like a technical skill you must learn As with software development — in management there are frameworks, practices, even languages…