Finding Focus through Intention (and a Timer App)

Why and how I use the Session App to help me structure my days.

Managing Impostor Syndrome as a New Engineering Manager

That persistent feeling of being a fraud hits hard when stepping into engineering management. It's not just about doubting your abilities anymore - suddenly you're responsible for other people's careers while trying to figure out your new role. Let's look at how to handle it.

Notes on the 2024 DORA Report

This is the 11th time DORA (acquired by Google in 2018) publishes their yearly Accelerate State of DevOps report. I went through the 100+ pages, and listed a few points that surprised me — surprised often not in the sense of radically new ideas, but more like earlier beliefs that are

How to Spot Red Flags when Interviewing for an Engineering Manager Position

Job changes for managers carry significant risks. While red flags during interviews are often subjective, some warning signs can indicate organizational, cultural, or technical problems. I listed some of these issue areas, and added questions to help probing them during an EM interview process.

Get Hired as an Engineering Manager

Between May and June 2024, I ran a mini-series covering the hiring process for Engineering Managers looking for a new job. Here I introduce all the episodes, link an interview with my co-author, and provide PDF and EPUB versions to download for your e-readers.

Engineering Managers' Guide to Effective Annual Feedback

Breaking down the feedback cycle process from preparation to follow-up. Approaches I found useful, antipatterns to avoid, and a document structure that can help bring it all to one place. I hope to turn this often-dreaded task into a powerful tool for individual growth and organizational success.

Follow-Up on My Management Under Pressure Article

My last post got popular on various platforms, most notably making the front page of Hacker News, which resulted in 200+ comments. I put those aside for a bit, but went through them earlier today and identified a few points I missed in the article, things I could learn from.

How to Lead Your Team when the House Is on Fire

Wartime can be extremely demanding for Engineering Managers. But by ruthlessly focusing on delivery, building a resilient team, investing in individuals, and maintaining their own strength, an EM can lead their people to not just survive but thrive under pressure.

Get hired as an Engineering Manager - part 5: Closing the Offer

We’re covering the entire process of getting hired as an EM together with Péter Batiz, an experienced consultant who’s been helping startups and scale-ups find tech talent for more than a decade. If you prefer reading offline, you can also download all the articles about finding a job

Get hired as an Engineering Manager - part 4: Interviewing

We’re covering the entire process of getting hired as an EM together with Péter Batiz, an experienced consultant who’s been helping startups and scale-ups find tech talent for more than a decade. If you prefer reading offline, you can also download all the articles about finding a job

10 takeaways from the 10th Craft Conference

As I mentioned in my latest Friday updates newsletter, I had the chance to participate in this 2-day tech conference last week. I took a lot of notes and this morning I finally had time to distill them and select ten takeaways that stayed with me. We were living through

Get hired as an Engineering Manager - part 3: Searching and Applying

We’re covering the entire process of getting hired as an EM together with Péter Batiz, an experienced consultant who’s been helping startups and scale-ups find tech talent for more than a decade. If you prefer reading offline, you can also download all the articles about finding a job

The Retrospective #3: 4-day workweek

We launched the latest episode of our podcast, this time with a guest, Benoit Terpereau, the CPTO of Lunii. We discussed the motivations and challenges with the 4-day workweek they introduced recently. I wrote about a similar experiment at a Hungarian company earlier, so it was especially interesting to compare

Get hired as an Engineering Manager - part 2: Perfecting your CV and LinkedIn profile

We’re covering the entire process of getting hired as an EM together with Péter Batiz, an experienced consultant who’s been helping startups and scale-ups find tech talent for more than a decade. If you prefer reading offline, you can also download all the articles about finding a job

Get hired as an Engineering Manager – part 1: Capturing your Preferences

I’m covering the entire process of getting hired as an Engineering Manager in this mini-series. With the tech industry changing gears, more and more EMs find themselves out on the job market or considering a switch soon. (See the stats in my last newsletter about close to half of

Why can’t I focus?

Being able to focus, to do deep, meaningful work is a key skill for engineering leaders. Yet, oftentimes it seems hard to maintain a sustained high concentration level. I thought about my experiences when I struggled with this, and listed a few reasons I might have had trouble maintaining focus.

Becoming Staff Engineer

I prepared my thoughts about the Staff Engineer title in preparation for a podcast recording. These are my notes on the subject. A lot depends on the company. Hiring a Staff Engineer or promoting someone to that level is answering a company's need for technical leadership. It often

Celebrating Failure

A small mindset change from "tolerating" to "celebrating" mistakes can benefit the person and the organization through learning and system improvements, increasing innovation, transparency, and resilience – if it's done well, being mindful of all aspects and risks.

How to Drive Change Beyond Your Role

What can you do when you're not in a leadership role but want to push for a change in your team? What aspects are helpful in this situation, and what can managers do to encourage taking initiatives?