“What’s your management style?” It seemed like an innocent enough question. After all, I’ve been managing teams of engineers on and off for fifteen years, and have spent the last two and a half years organizing my thoughts on the subject. Easy. “Well, you know, I’m, uh… Hmm.” Yes, that sound you just heard was all […]
Category Archives: Management
One of your key team members just quit. A top performer, she’d slotted into the team as though she’d always been there, and quickly become your go-to person for several key initiatives. Now you’re wracking your brain, trying to figure out what just happened. Things were going so well, why is she leaving? Was it […]
For the last six and a half years, I’ve worked in a “speed wins” culture of quick iterations, speed of execution, done is better than perfect. A culture that believes that the faster you go, the more you can iterate, the closer you can curve-fit to the user’s needs. Of course, it doesn’t always work […]
Culture can be top down, or bottom up. The big commandments come from on high (“Speed wins!” “Done is better than perfect!” “Don’t be evil!” “Worse is better!”), and everyone scurries to figure out what they mean and how to make them happen. Eventually, a company will settle into a rhythm (hopefully sounding more like […]
The old-timers have it, of course. They started it, built it, went through hell to ship it, stepped up and created something from nothing in the midst of one disaster after another. You bet your ass they feel a part of what they created, feel like part of a special club, know with a justifiable sense […]
I was running late. I needed to get to work and was on my way out the door when I suddenly remembered that I’d forgotten to make lunch. Not a big deal – I usually just slap a PB&J together – but I was already late, bundled up and mentally on my way. It was going to be […]
Every company optimizes for something. Sometimes this is an external measure – price, quality, security, customer service, etc. Sometimes it’s internal – hiring, project/risk/change management, and so on. Of course every company wants to do everything perfectly, but when you look at how they make decisions, there’s usually a central organizing theory. At TripAdvisor, the […]
When I started hiring, I used to look for the 10x programmers, the rockstars, the embarrassingly named “ninjas” (I blame you for starting the trend, Srinija). I quickly learned that these were impossible to hire – they looked exactly like every other “good” programmer, until one day you realized that they’d significantly improved performance by rearranging […]
“Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are […]
I recently wrote a post about negative feedback, and how useful it was to learn ways in which you could improve. By itself, of course, constant negative feedback would be incredibly depressing. We also need to know when we’re doing well. This sounds trite, and yet it’s the rare manager who consistently gives positive feedback. I remember […]
Dan Dreams of Coding 