Yes - that mental picture of a divorced dad watching old family photos come to life, while sitting alone on his couch - is just gutting. Like a literal punch in the gut. But having said that, is "loneliness" the correct…
I joined a company last year that has a handful of legacy products, and we successfully moved one of them to a CD model a few months ago. It's hilarious to sit back and watch every other team have the same monthly loop…
The "once they start trying to change things" aspect is where I'm most keen to watch. Surely we have all been involved with large-to-small systems where we were curious how well/long they would stand up on their own…
This is interesting - I have been passively monitoring LinkedIn and a few others for senior engineering management roles for the last year or so (VPE, DoE). I am not really looking, I have only pursued a couple of them,…
Is there a term for the phenomenon where a supremely powerful person can comment on some event that may happen, perhaps innocently, and the fact they said it makes it more likely to happen? In many ways, the health of…
Comment on your edit: I don't disagree on the potential for a worse technique or tech on either side, but isn't there also potential for the opposite? As in, exposure to a technology/architecture/process at Company B…
While I generally agree about the annoyance with UI changes, and how that grinds on people, I hope we don't just handwave over the "CD for bug fixes is fine" bits. It varies product-to-product obviously, but I'd guess…
I am genuinely interested in this, please excuse my naivety. My expectation would be that new Product work would, at some high-ish level, be sanctioned by company leadership. Or you wouldn't be spending…
On a whim I picked up The Metaverse, Matthew Ball's book released last week (7/19). I am only about 1/3 of the way through it, so I can't recommend it yet, but I have two main takeaways so far... 1. If you can get…
> If we can't make the cars just as smart as an alert and capable driver, then maybe we need to meet halfway and make the roads a littler "dumber" (simpler) to accommodate the robots. This aspect of FSD has always…
Last Spring (21) when we thought the pandemic was subsiding, we started optional in-office days. I went in one day, stopped by the kitchen, and bumped into a peer I had not seen in a year. Not even on Zoom. Our teams…
> Don't project into the future. What is now is not indicative of the future. This is fantastic. Nobody cares that the neighbor kid started walking at 8 months while yours hasn't yet. It doesn't mean anything. You'll…
Is it really not thriving? Surely it's relative vs SF/NYC, but when I got here in the 90s, it was all just banking & insurance. Also advertising, but very little tech there. It was super frustrating at the time, but the…
I am not going to wade into the crime chatter all over this thread, people have their own stories and barometers on that stuff. But I cannot let Bean anecdotes slide without an alternate take. We take our kids (two…
Oh 100%, this drives my consultanty-productivity-efficiency brain mad. I get doing this so people can check that they are paying for what they ordered, but mistakes/inaccuracies are exceptions. The vast majority of…
Using silence strategically is a superpower. Best leader I ever worked with had a "7 second silence" rule. Just don't say anything for 7 seconds. Requesting input on a topic/idea in a meeting? Wait in silence for 7…
I am probably 95% in line with this, SAFe is mostly terrible, but there are some nuggets in there that I think are good. Mostly around the cadence and checkpoints on progress in delivery. (Yes, we can argue whether some…
More than two years into this, "*returning* to the office" is incorrect framing in a lot of cases. I have been hired via Zoom to companies out of state TWICE in this period, each headquartered more than 1k miles away. I…
I don't feel that the realities of rent/utilities/snacks get nearly enough attention in conversations like this. If you have more than a handful of employees with office space in a major metro area, rent is easily equal…
"Number of engineers" has become another vanity metric in the VC ecosystem and it needs some pushback. I have viewed of a ton of tech leadership job postings in the last year+, and almost all of them have a…
This is good advice for multiple reasons. One I haven't seen mentioned yet - When Product is accountable & responsible for testing the outputs, they will understand the effort required and can therefore prioritize…
When I had a train commute in the before-times, the one thing I really leaned into was the train ride home. It was about 30 minutes. I used that time in a variety of ways - reading, podcasts, napping, meditating,…
In a weird way - this kind of thing has pushed me towards companies that aren't anywhere near my current location, even/especially international. It makes the conversation super clear, recruiters & hiring managers can't…
My father has given me a version of the same advice in strange, disruptive, crazy economic times over the years: "At a certain level, the economy is just a collective state of mind. You can contribute to it, be a slave…
When I took a full remote position late last year, I also invested in a cheap treadmill for my home office, plus a laptop attachment. I get on it first thing every day, and do my normal inbox processing, generally at a…
Yes - that mental picture of a divorced dad watching old family photos come to life, while sitting alone on his couch - is just gutting. Like a literal punch in the gut. But having said that, is "loneliness" the correct…
I joined a company last year that has a handful of legacy products, and we successfully moved one of them to a CD model a few months ago. It's hilarious to sit back and watch every other team have the same monthly loop…
The "once they start trying to change things" aspect is where I'm most keen to watch. Surely we have all been involved with large-to-small systems where we were curious how well/long they would stand up on their own…
This is interesting - I have been passively monitoring LinkedIn and a few others for senior engineering management roles for the last year or so (VPE, DoE). I am not really looking, I have only pursued a couple of them,…
Is there a term for the phenomenon where a supremely powerful person can comment on some event that may happen, perhaps innocently, and the fact they said it makes it more likely to happen? In many ways, the health of…
Comment on your edit: I don't disagree on the potential for a worse technique or tech on either side, but isn't there also potential for the opposite? As in, exposure to a technology/architecture/process at Company B…
While I generally agree about the annoyance with UI changes, and how that grinds on people, I hope we don't just handwave over the "CD for bug fixes is fine" bits. It varies product-to-product obviously, but I'd guess…
I am genuinely interested in this, please excuse my naivety. My expectation would be that new Product work would, at some high-ish level, be sanctioned by company leadership. Or you wouldn't be spending…
On a whim I picked up The Metaverse, Matthew Ball's book released last week (7/19). I am only about 1/3 of the way through it, so I can't recommend it yet, but I have two main takeaways so far... 1. If you can get…
> If we can't make the cars just as smart as an alert and capable driver, then maybe we need to meet halfway and make the roads a littler "dumber" (simpler) to accommodate the robots. This aspect of FSD has always…
Last Spring (21) when we thought the pandemic was subsiding, we started optional in-office days. I went in one day, stopped by the kitchen, and bumped into a peer I had not seen in a year. Not even on Zoom. Our teams…
> Don't project into the future. What is now is not indicative of the future. This is fantastic. Nobody cares that the neighbor kid started walking at 8 months while yours hasn't yet. It doesn't mean anything. You'll…
Is it really not thriving? Surely it's relative vs SF/NYC, but when I got here in the 90s, it was all just banking & insurance. Also advertising, but very little tech there. It was super frustrating at the time, but the…
I am not going to wade into the crime chatter all over this thread, people have their own stories and barometers on that stuff. But I cannot let Bean anecdotes slide without an alternate take. We take our kids (two…
Oh 100%, this drives my consultanty-productivity-efficiency brain mad. I get doing this so people can check that they are paying for what they ordered, but mistakes/inaccuracies are exceptions. The vast majority of…
Using silence strategically is a superpower. Best leader I ever worked with had a "7 second silence" rule. Just don't say anything for 7 seconds. Requesting input on a topic/idea in a meeting? Wait in silence for 7…
I am probably 95% in line with this, SAFe is mostly terrible, but there are some nuggets in there that I think are good. Mostly around the cadence and checkpoints on progress in delivery. (Yes, we can argue whether some…
More than two years into this, "*returning* to the office" is incorrect framing in a lot of cases. I have been hired via Zoom to companies out of state TWICE in this period, each headquartered more than 1k miles away. I…
I don't feel that the realities of rent/utilities/snacks get nearly enough attention in conversations like this. If you have more than a handful of employees with office space in a major metro area, rent is easily equal…
"Number of engineers" has become another vanity metric in the VC ecosystem and it needs some pushback. I have viewed of a ton of tech leadership job postings in the last year+, and almost all of them have a…
This is good advice for multiple reasons. One I haven't seen mentioned yet - When Product is accountable & responsible for testing the outputs, they will understand the effort required and can therefore prioritize…
When I had a train commute in the before-times, the one thing I really leaned into was the train ride home. It was about 30 minutes. I used that time in a variety of ways - reading, podcasts, napping, meditating,…
In a weird way - this kind of thing has pushed me towards companies that aren't anywhere near my current location, even/especially international. It makes the conversation super clear, recruiters & hiring managers can't…
My father has given me a version of the same advice in strange, disruptive, crazy economic times over the years: "At a certain level, the economy is just a collective state of mind. You can contribute to it, be a slave…
When I took a full remote position late last year, I also invested in a cheap treadmill for my home office, plus a laptop attachment. I get on it first thing every day, and do my normal inbox processing, generally at a…