Service Level Objectives (SLOs) often miss the point because they measure whether systems are working, not whether they deliver real value to users or the business. Even if every technical metric looks healthy, a service can still fail the customer, for example, if a rideshare app responds quickly but has no drivers nearby. Instead define business SLOs around actual user outcomes (e.g., “99.5% of rider requests have at least three cars within 2 km”), aligning reliability goals with product-level decisions that matter to users and the bottom line.
In this article, I introduce DuckLake; a lightweight, portable data lake solution perfect for busy engineering managers. You'll learn how to easily collect, store, and analyze data from sources like Jira and GitHub without the hassle of traditional databases or expensive cloud warehouses. The guide walks you through setting up DuckLake, ingesting your data, and exporting it for visualization, all while keeping things fast, flexible, and cost-effective. If you want to make data-driven decisions without the usual overhead, this article shows you how DuckLake can simplify your workflow.
Many tech companies strategically exaggerate or obscure details about their technologies, not just to impress investors or the public, but to mislead competitors and protect their edge. From Google’s PageRank spin and Apple’s secretive codenames to today’s AI hype, the pattern is clear: secrecy and marketing often blur the line between real breakthroughs and clever storytelling. The article reminds us to stay critical, question the hype, and remember that what’s claimed isn’t always what’s real.
Most disciplines have a standardized material to work with.
Wood for carpenters. Numbers for mathematicians. Sound for musicians.
For managers, the material is people.
And people don't follow neat abstractions.
You can’t "standardize" your way through managing humans. Tools like DISC and MBTI can help you get started but they're maps, not the terrain. Real management starts where generalizations end: in the moment, with a person in front of you who may defy your assumptions.
What worked for one engineer last month might fall flat with another today.
That's why growing as a manager isn’t about memorizing more frameworks. It’s about exposure: seeing more real situations, having more real conversations, and learning from how others handle complexity.
Just published "Know Your Worth" - a practical guide to navigating compensation and promotion conversations at work. I break down key concepts like compensation structures, compa ratios, and how to connect your work to business impact using the Input → Output → Outcome → Impact model. The article includes specific tools for tracking achievements with a bragdoc and creating simple visualizations that clearly demonstrate your value. If you're looking to have more effective compensation conversations backed by data rather than emotion, you might find these strategies helpful.
In any growing company, it’s easy for teams to fall into an "us vs. them" mindset, celebrating our own group while mistrusting others.
But as engineering managers, we have the power to bridge those divides. This article explores how to turn tribal instincts into team-wide alignment through transparency, shared goals, empathy, cross-team collaboration, and a renewed sense of belonging. When “us” starts meaning all of us, everyone wins.
Every project starts with optimism, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe from hidden risks. In my latest article, I explore the pre-mortem; a simple, practical technique to help teams imagine what could go wrong before it actually does. Whether you're shipping a new feature or planning a major migration, a pre-mortem can uncover blind spots, reduce surprises, and set your team up for success. If you want to build more resilient plans and avoid unnecessary postmortems, this one’s for you.
Giving feedback is one of the most important (and challenging) skills for engineering managers to master. In this article, I explore popular frameworks like BIO, BOOST, and STAR, as well as the pitfalls of approaches like the "shit sandwich".
But more importantly, I introduce the Superpowers method: a mindset shift that helps you deliver feedback by recognizing each engineer’s unique strengths—even when those strengths occasionally get in their own way. If you're looking for a more authentic, empowering way to support your team's growth, this is for you.
If you're an engineering manager looking to make your 1:1s more impactful, this article is for you. I share a practical framework to help you turn routine check-ins into powerful conversations that drive growth, trust, and team success. Whether you’re managing one engineer or twenty, you’ll find actionable tips on agenda-setting, feedback, and meeting your engineers where they are. Read on to learn how to make every 1:1 count!
Ever feel like your calendar is running your life instead of helping you live it? I wrote this piece to share how I wrestled mine back under control. In Calendar Wrangler, I walk through the tools and habits I use—from designing an "Ideal Week" to using colors and context to reduce mental load. It’s not about being perfect; it’s about being intentional with your time so you can focus on what matters most. If you're feeling calendar chaos, this might help.
Hey everyone, I've been thinking about how companies are a lot like people going through a life cycle.
They begin as naive newborns, grow into experimenting children, and face the awkward, dangerous teenage years where they might burn cash and expand too fast. If they make it through, they find stability as adults.
A structured, evidence-based interview process is essential to minimize unconscious bias and ensure fair hiring decisions, especially as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives face challenges. Bias, such as the halo effect, can skew judgment, but defining a candidate profile with required skills and behaviors, crafting targeted questions, and focusing on observations rather than interpretations can help mitigate its impact. By asking open-ended, competency-focused questions and using follow-ups to gather detailed responses, hiring managers can evaluate candidates objectively. Decisions should rely on documented evidence rather than gut feelings, ensuring a fair and respectful process that identifies the best talent for the role.
A Personal Improvement Plan (PIP) is a powerful tool for engineering managers to address performance issues while supporting team members' growth. By clearly outlining expectations, providing structured support, and maintaining thorough documentation, managers can create opportunities for struggling engineers to succeed. Whether the PIP leads to improvement, role adjustments, or termination, handling the process with empathy and professionalism ensures fairness, protects team morale, and upholds organizational standards.
Did you know that your organization's structure directly impacts the software you build? Conway's Law highlights the deep connection between team dynamics and system architecture. By aligning your teams with your desired technical outcomes, you can create a virtuous cycle of innovation and efficiency. Learn how to map, analyze, and optimize this relationship to drive positive change in both your organization and your technology.
In this article I talk about how effective post-mortems can transform software failures into valuable learning experiences.
Post-mortems are structured processes conducted after incidents or project completions to analyze what happened, why it happened, and how to prevent similar issues. They're vital for learning from mistakes, improving processes, building blameless cultures, and sharing knowledge across organizations.
The most effective post-mortems require timely execution, clear objectives, diverse participation, thorough data collection, structured discussion frameworks (like "5 Whys"), and documented action items with clear ownership.
Two innovative approaches can dramatically improve outcomes: Incident Recreation in controlled environments and Reverse Chronology Analysis. The first allows teams to safely reproduce failures for deeper understanding, while the second works backward from failure states to uncover root causes without hindsight bias.
Follow-through is critical. SRE teams can enforce accountability by embedding post-mortem action items into engineering roadmaps and establishing regular review cadences. Service Level Objectives (SLOs) provide concrete measurements to validate whether implemented fixes actually resolve underlying issues.
By transforming failures into opportunities for improvement, organizations build resilience and continuously enhance their software development practices.
This article delves into the artful journey of becoming an exceptional engineering manager by mastering self-awareness—a process comparable to a craftsman perfecting their trade. It explores how tools like DISC analysis and Clifton Strengths assessments can illuminate natural tendencies and talents, while examining critical leadership dimensions that exist on spectrums rather than absolutes: autocratic vs. democratic approaches, hands-on vs. hands-off involvement, strategic vs. tactical thinking, pragmatism vs. precision, and emotion-driven vs. data-driven decision-making. The piece argues that effective engineering management isn't about finding the "correct" style but rather understanding your unique strengths and leadership dimensions to build a management approach that authentically leverages your natural abilities while creating balanced, high-performing teams. Much like a master craftsman who intimately knows their tools, the engineering manager who understands themselves can skillfully navigate the nuanced art of leadership to foster excellence and collaboration.
Check out Letterpress, a project that simplifies self-publishing with a ready-to-use AsciiDoctor template. It includes built-in support for diagrams, code examples, and math formulas, making it perfect for technical authors. With devcontainers for local builds and GitHub workflows for CI/CD, Letterpress helps you generate PDF and EPUB formats effortlessly. Just bring your content, run make, and you’re good to go!
Discover how the principles of Gemba Kaizen, originally designed to optimize manufacturing processes, can be applied to software engineering to enhance team performance and satisfaction. This article explores practical methodologies such as the Gemba Walk, Red Button, Root Cause Analysis, and Kanban, providing actionable insights to help your team achieve continuous improvement and exponential growth. Learn how to identify inefficiencies, address root causes, and implement effective processes to transform your software development workflow.
This counterintuitive approach isn't about planning your exit—it's a powerful management hack that turns frustrations into objectives, tracks organizational health, and helps you distinguish between fixable problems and deal-breakers. The document becomes either your roadmap to creating positive change or your evidence for knowing exactly when to leave. I've used this method for years to drive meaningful improvements and avoid wasting time in toxic environments.
In our latest article, we dive into the powerful methodologies of Gemba Kaizen, originally developed to revolutionize manufacturing, and explore how they can be applied to software engineering. From the Gemba Walk to Root Cause Analysis, discover practical techniques to boost your team's performance and satisfaction.
Read more to learn how continuous improvement can lead to exponential growth in your organization.
In fast-paced engineering, brief Call To Action documents help teams solve problems quickly by using clear, simple steps. These one- to two-page memos highlight a real issue with supporting data, explain why it matters, and suggest straightforward next steps. For example, they can help reconnect managers with their teams or update essential tools, turning challenges into clear, actionable tasks that get everyone moving in the same direction.
Workplace conflicts are a natural part of any professional setting, whether it's disagreements over technical decisions or simple meeting etiquette. The article explains how creating a “working agreement”—a collaborative document that outlines clear behavior expectations—can transform these challenges into opportunities for growth and better teamwork.
By coming together to set guidelines and regularly reviewing them, teams foster accountability, clear communication, and mutual respect. This proactive approach not only resolves immediate issues but also builds a foundation for a more transparent and cohesive work environment.
A living document titled "Why I Want to Leave" serves as a powerful tool for transforming workplace frustrations into actionable objectives by capturing everything from technical challenges to cultural misalignments, ultimately offering a clear roadmap for both personal growth and organizational improvement. It encourages a disciplined reflection on everyday issues, enabling the differentiation between what can be influenced and what is beyond control, while fostering strategic conversations with leadership and tracking progress over time through tangible achievements. By continuously reviewing and refining these documented challenges, you can gauge the health of your work environment and celebrate the milestones of resolved issues—a process that not only bolsters accountability but also cultivates insight into systemic problems. But what happens when the list starts growing faster than the solutions you can implement—could this signal the inevitability of a transformative turning point?
Manager Performance Surveys, inspired by groundbreaking initiatives like Google's Project Oxygen and Project Aristotle, serve as a powerful tool for engineering leaders to capture honest, actionable feedback from their teams, driving a continuous loop of improvement that bolsters not only technical and career development but also overall team dynamics and psychological safety; by focusing on clear communication, effective problem-solving, and inclusive decision-making, these surveys pave the way for meaningful change in leadership style and team engagement, yet as managers act on this structured feedback to transform their practices, one must wonder: what unforeseen shifts and innovations will emerge when every small feedback loop catalyzes a ripple effect across the entire organization?
Innovation is stifled when outdated systems become the norm, locking even the brightest minds into a cycle of conventional thinking that resists change and creativity. Over time, processes that once served well turn into obstacles that hinder growth and obscure fresh opportunities. Cultivating an environment that welcomes new perspectives—through unconventional strategies like hackathons, dedicated slack time, and the unique insights of newcomers—can shatter these entrenched habits and unlock potential breakthroughs. Yet, when the discomfort of the familiar finally drives the push towards radical change, just how ready are we to handle what comes next?
Engineering management is likened to carpentry, where the true resource is people whose needs must be understood through Maslow’s hierarchy—from basic physiological and safety needs to the pursuit of self-actualization—ensuring that every strategy is supported by a healthy, cohesive team. By recognizing cultural differences, employing practical tools like the "5 Whys" and Likert scales, and promoting personal growth through feedback and development plans, managers can transform a group of skilled engineers into a supportive, innovative community. Yet, as one navigates these human intricacies and adapts to constant changes in both personal and professional landscapes, one must ask: what unforeseen challenge will next put this delicate balance to the ultimate test?
In a shadowed forge where engineering management meets art, this piece reveals a secret blueprint for transforming a group of talented individuals into a cohesive and resilient team. Like a mystic carpenter who shapes unyielding wood, savvy managers learn that hidden beneath everyday tools lies the profound alchemy of human needs—from the silent whispers of safety to the elusive heights of self-actualization. The narrative hints at cryptic strategies: listening to unspoken concerns, unraveling root causes, and adapting to diverse cultural rhythms, all orchestrated to inspire a subtle yet powerful shift. Ultimately, it invites leaders to navigate a labyrinth of empathy and strategy, unlocking the mysteries behind true team transformation.
Challenging the status quo is crucial for fostering innovation and personal growth, yet it’s a trap many organizations and individuals stumble into. Early in our careers, we lack the confidence or knowledge to question existing methods. Over time, we either cling too firmly to our beliefs or grow complacent, accepting outdated practices without probing for improvements. This article highlights that human nature, with its adaptability, fuels this complacency. By comparing it to examples of Stockholm Syndrome and referencing real-world case studies, it illustrates how easily we find comfort—even in flawed processes.
Organizations that enjoyed early success often accumulate complex systems without ever pausing to ask if there’s a better way. They onboard bright engineers, but train them in the same dated approaches, effectively boxing them into constrained thinking. These newcomers then propose incremental fixes rather than imagining radical solutions—yet genuine transformation depends on stepping outside that box.
To break this cycle, the article advises seeking fresh perspectives: welcome new employees without rigid frameworks, consult external experts, and encourage hackathons to spark untethered creativity. Artificial constraints—like intentionally slowing a CI pipeline—can push teams to innovate rather than just accept inefficiencies. Moreover, allocating “slack time” invites engineers to experiment, often leading to breakthroughs that can reshape an entire organization.
Ultimately, challenging the usual approach is risky, but the payoff is immense. By applying scientific methods—testing assumptions, questioning norms, and learning from experiments—companies and individuals can uncover innovative solutions. Whether it’s containerization for development, rethinking product features, or designing new collaboration models, consistent curiosity can propel teams forward and enrich careers.
Read the full article to discover how small mindset shifts can spur remarkable growth. Don’t let complacency stifle your potential—embrace the struggle and stand apart from the crowd. Challenge the status quo, and watch innovation flourish in your organization and beyond.
Discover how Google's groundbreaking research, Project Oxygen and Project Aristotle, revolutionized management effectiveness and team dynamics. Learn why Manager Performance Surveys are the ultimate tool for engineering managers to boost team success, build trust, and foster a culture of continuous improvement. Get actionable insights, sample survey templates, and implementation guidelines to transform your leadership style. Don't miss out on this game-changing strategy!