“Stay curious and be humble”
— The Software Engineer’s Guidebook: Navigating senior, tech lead, and staff engineer positions at tech companies and startups by Gergely Orosz a.co/8mJJFTZ
“Mentor others Mentoring is about guiding someone, sharing your knowledge, and helping them grow. As a staff + engineer, you have plenty of experience which can help others grow faster. Mentoring doesn’t need to be formal, it can be as easy as offering to help new joiners get up to speed. By getting into the habit of helping others grow–while expecting nothing in return–you will improve your ability to teach and explain. If you keep mentoring and helping others over time, you’re likely to build up a reputation as someone whom senior-and-above engineers can seek out for advice.
“Too much process. If a team operates with too much red tape, it can feel like a huge effort to get simple things done, such as changing code or using a new tool. This can pull down team efficiency and morale, and cause more attrition.”
— The Software Engineer’s Guidebook: Navigating senior, tech lead, and staff engineer positions at tech companies and startups by Gergely Orosz a.co/06EkZo3
“Design documents/ requests for comments (RFCs)”
— The Software Engineer’s Guidebook: Navigating senior, tech lead, and staff engineer positions at tech companies and startups by Gergely Orosz a.co/7wdHdVx
“RFC, wait for feedback, then build. For projects with lots of dependencies or teams that are dependent on what’s being built, progress may ultimately be faster if feedback from all stakeholders is gathered first.” (eg for corporate official website)
— The Software Engineer’s Guidebook: Navigating senior, tech lead, and staff engineer positions at tech companies and startups by Gergely Orosz a.co/6QIZuPJ
“Ensure your work has the right balance of quality and speed. At startups, “great” might lean towards shipping things quickly, while at larger companies, “great” might mean well-tested, clean code, or code changes which are straightforward to review, or maintainable solutions.”
— The Software Engineer’s Guidebook: Navigating senior, tech lead, and staff engineer positions at tech companies and startups by Gergely Orosz a.co/43HTHwW
micromanagement
Prescriptive direction Certain managers tell their teams exactly how to execute tasks rather than highlighting what needs to be done. This approach stifles the team’s autonomy and creativity and hampers their ability to find innovative solutions.
trivial tweakers
“Impact When people realize the true impact of their work, they’re more engaged, innovative, and productive. Research shows that working on significant tasks can have a positive impact on job performance. When people know that their work matters, it creates momentum; people feel valued when their work is recognized. "
from “Leading Effective Engineering Teams”
“Replace blame with curiosity Instead of assigning blame when mistakes occur or something goes wrong, managers should cultivate a culture of curiosity. They can encourage team members to explore the underlying reasons, contributing factors, and lessons learned from a situation. This shift in mindset from blame to curiosity helps create an environment where mistakes are seen as opportunities for growth and learning rather than reasons for punishment or shame”
from “Leading Effective Engineering Teams”
“empowers their team to do excellent work by giving them space to make decisions and solve problems independently. Empowerment without micromanagement is key”
from “Leading Effective Engineering Teams”
“Good coaches are patient, empathetic, and supportive”
from “Leading Effective Engineering Teams”
“Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, famously said, “Day 2 companies make high-quality decisions, but they make high-quality decisions slowly. To keep the energy and dynamism of Day 1, you have to somehow make high-quality, high-velocity decisions”
from “Leading Effective Engineering Teams”
