Teamwork

Principles of high output engineering teams

A few engineering principles I aim to instill in every team I join. Lead or not.

Code yourself out of the job

Let go of your legos and let others do the work.

How *do* you break down a large project? INVEST

Going from Big Vision to Series of Executable Steps is a key skill for senior+ engineers. PMs can help but they don't know everything.

How do you prioritize?

How do you choose what to work on first? As an empowered engineer that's a key skill.

Coaching AI to write your code

Working with AI is here and it's skill. Just like google-fu became important in the mid 2000's. A few things I've learned.

Why learning and teaching the good stuff is hard

You can't learn to ride a bike from reading a book.

The swarm doc

Here's a doc I like to use to structure the pre-work design chat that makes later code review a breeze.

"Yes caviar is great, here's a ham sandwich"

Why do some projects ship and others seem to drag on forever? You need 3 people to get this right.

Make mistakes easy to fix

You can't prevent bugs. You'll burn out. Instead focus on making them quick to fix.

How big up-front design fails

A long design phase without shipping kills many software projects. Here's a story from production I haven't shared before.

What helps you ship confidently?

Been thinking about what needs to be in place for engineers to ship with confidence

Get us over the water, not build us a bridge

effective engineering teams should work *with* their product owner/manager, not *for* them

Coordinating at the end is too late

When working: sync first *then* async

Approve with comment

A shift in your code review process can boost your team's productivity. Empower authors to make the call.

Code yourself out of the job

Don't get stuck being a critical member of the team.

The quickest way to kill a team

The answer to 5 soloists in a trench coat

Team dysfunction where everyone's a soloist? Try this fix: Force the team to work on ONE story at a time.

5 soloists in a trench coat

Ever felt like your software team is just soloists in a trench coat? You may be right!

Why you need a regular retro

Agile is something you are, not something you do.

5 tips for effective standups

Talk about today, not yesterday

Be action oriented

Unearth the surprising connection between the CIA's Simple Sabotage Manual and your productivity, and learn how to transform tiny actions into big wins. Dive into Swizec's engaging exploration of how small actions can make a huge impact on your progress.

Let juniors speak first

Want an engaged engineering team? Let juniors speak first.

What I learned from Team Topologies

You can't escape Conway's Law. Might as well use it for good.

Working with product

A strong partnership with product is key to an enjoyable engineering life

Effective standups

The secret to effective standups that don't suck

Squash merge? Really!?

Learn why squash merging is your friend - from hating it to loving it! Squash merging helps you keep moving and focus on the work instead of recording the work.

Why trunk-based development is best

Merging finished work straight to main and deploying to production right away, scales to teams of thousands. This approach is counterintuitive to many engineers who may be used to working on their own

Scaling teams is a technical challenge

A founder friend asked me about growing pains on his team. How do you avoid stepping on each other's toes?

The art of the cowboy merge 🤠

how do you catch a critical deadline that cannot be missed? We're talking external stakeholders, millions on the line, and it all hinges on *your* team getting it done on time. No overtime

Reader Question: What do collaborative teams look like?

New members on our team invariably say 2 things: 1. Wow I've never seen a team move this fast 2. This approach feels weird. I'm uncomfortable Teams like this are not common.