Younger engineers keep asking how I prioritize in a chaotic environment. Here's my approach.
- Bugs that block critical operations. Users can't make purchases, we can't deliver results, site is down, ... These are all hands on deck fires. Fix first.
- Does anyone need help? This includes code review. Unblocking others provides the biggest output gains. Output is a leading indicator for outcomes.
- New bugs in recent ships. You shipped something and it's got a bug. Fix the bug now while it's fresh in mind. This helps keep our defect rate down and trains your testing muscle. Pay attention to the kind of bugs people find quickly. Prioritize these when building new features.
- Bugs that block workflows. If people can't do their work, you should fix that quickly. Let small fires burn when people are annoyed, but quickly fix anything that blocks progress and doesn't have a workaround. Take note of annoyances, they may be feature requests in disguise.
- Data corruption bugs should be fixed quickly. The more data you have to fix, the more painful it gets. If you can't fix the broken data, this is a p-zero fire. Long-term data consistency is gold.
- OKR-aligned work comes next. This is the meat and butter where you should, in theory, spend the most time. Working on features that align with team goals. Ideally this includes gardening where you leave the code better than you found it.
- Ad-hoc requests are asks that aren't exactly bugs and they're not super important features either. But they make someone's life easier, a workflow go smoother, or remove a nag from someone's brain. These little favors build trust.
- Making-it-easier work is the work that makes everything else easier. Solving common bugs systemically by implementing new tools, increasing test and type coverage, extracting common patterns into libraries, adding observability, ...
Help first, fix bugs, business priorities. If this sounds bad, write fewer bugs.
Cheers,
~Swizec
PS: the more your title looks like lead or staff engineer, the more your focus shifts towards the make-it-easier work.
PPS: when choosing between OKR-aligned work, think "What will make everything else easier or unnecessary?"
Continue reading about What to work on next?
Semantically similar articles hand-picked by GPT-4
- Let small fires burn
- How *do* you break down a large project?
- Make mistakes easy to fix
- How do you prioritize?
- Coordinating at the end is too late
Become a *true* Senior Engineer
Get promoted, earn a bigger salary, work for top companies
Getting that senior title is easy. Just stick around. Being a true senior takes a new way of thinking. Do you have it?
The Senior Minset email crash course
Get a free chapter from the Senior Engineer Mindset book and a sample audiobook chapter, followed by a Senior Mindset 101 email course.
You'll get insights to apply at your work right away.
Have a burning question that you think I can answer? Hit me up on twitter and I'll do my best.
Who am I and who do I help? I'm Swizec Teller and I turn coders into engineers with "Raw and honest from the heart!" writing. No bullshit. Real insights into the career and skills of a modern software engineer.
Want to become a true senior engineer? Take ownership, have autonomy, and be a force multiplier on your team. The Senior Engineer Mindset ebook can help 👉 swizec.com/senior-mindset. These are the shifts in mindset that unlocked my career.
Curious about Serverless and the modern backend? Check out Serverless Handbook, for frontend engineers 👉 ServerlessHandbook.dev
Want to Stop copy pasting D3 examples and create data visualizations of your own? Learn how to build scalable dataviz React components your whole team can understand with React for Data Visualization
Want to get my best emails on JavaScript, React, Serverless, Fullstack Web, or Indie Hacking? Check out swizec.com/collections
Did someone amazing share this letter with you? Wonderful! You can sign up for my weekly letters for software engineers on their path to greatness, here: swizec.com/blog
Want to brush up on your modern JavaScript syntax? Check out my interactive cheatsheet: es6cheatsheet.com
By the way, just in case no one has told you it yet today: I love and appreciate you for who you are ❤️