Writing

Essays on engineering leadership, team effectiveness, and building software organizations.

• The Kids Are Alright Not hiring junior engineers won't solve the problem you think you have.
  August 2, 2026
• Why I spent a year turning this blog into a book The tools changed. The job didn't.
  June 14, 2026
• Will Humans Still Review Code? The critical question companies must answer now
  February 17, 2026
• The Engineering Manager's Areas of Responsibility What exactly do they have to do?
  July 31, 2024
• Team Principles How should your team work?
  July 6, 2024
• Engineering Management Basics Where do we start from?
  July 4, 2024
• Success as an Engineering Manager What is an Engineering Manager trying to achieve?
  July 4, 2024
• All You Need is Focus When the normal is to be distracted, focus is the main advantage a team can have
  April 11, 2024
• Ownership as a Skill for Engineering Managers Whether you think you can or you think you can't — you're probably right.
  February 24, 2024
• Avoiding Bureaucracy in Software Teams How to make process improvement effective
  August 25, 2023
• Strategy for Engineering Managers What is the next move?
  August 8, 2023
• To Write or Not to Write (Code)? What does it mean to be technical, and how it helps Engineering Managers
  July 3, 2023
• Planning Engineering Projects Effectively The database schema is not what you should worry about
  May 10, 2023
• Product Management for Engineering Managers Your best contribution might be outside of engineering
  April 24, 2023
• Engineering Leadership Tactics: Resilience Through Collaboration Building stronger software engineering teams
  April 16, 2023
• Using Metrics in Software Engineering Management Principles for measuring it right
  March 27, 2023
• The Effective Engineering Manager Focusing on what matters most
  March 20, 2023
• The Times Are Changing in Software Engineering How we can make the most of it?
  February 20, 2023
• Engineering Leadership Tactics: Mind the Input How an engineering team's performance is defined by the work they take in
  January 30, 2023
• Engineering Leadership Tactics: Finding Focus Making your software engineering team work less and deliver more
  January 13, 2023
• Engineering Leadership Tactics: Building Alignment How to find buy-in as an Engineering Manager?
  December 14, 2022
• Engineering Leadership Tactics: Circle of Influence How to achieve change with less effort?
  December 1, 2022
• The Engineering Manager's Tools What is in a manager's toolbox?
  October 20, 2022
• Influencing as an Engineering Manager How to make change happen
  September 27, 2022
• The Systems within a Software Team A brief insight into what is affecting your team's results
  September 12, 2022
• There is always a System Why systems thinking matters and Engineering Managers should care about it
  September 8, 2022
• Leading Software Teams with Systems Thinking How Systemic Leadership can help your engineering team
  August 18, 2022
• Project Leadership and Collaboration How project leadership practices affect team collaboration
  August 11, 2022
• The Big Tech Way Why copying big tech companies might not be the best strategy
  August 10, 2022
• Engineering Leadership in Action A framework for Engineering Management
  July 26, 2022
• Leading as an Engineering Manager How you can help your reports by working on your team
  July 20, 2022
• Managers, keep your focus Being passive is not the goal
  October 3, 2021
• Team and Individuals The how-to for a tricky balance in software development
  August 19, 2021
• Why does Process Matter?
  June 28, 2021
• Forgetting Management How the software industry is leaving essential knowledge behind
  May 10, 2021
• Improve it! Running an Effective Software Team
  April 12, 2021
• Punching Above your Weight A few tips on getting big results with small engineering teams
  September 29, 2020
• What should Engineering Managers do? Views on a role that is more art than science
  July 15, 2020
• Make it Faster with Slow Decision Making
  June 30, 2020
• Tell Me How You Measure Me A practical view of software engineering metrics
  May 18, 2020
• Inside Job @ QCON 2019
  May 17, 2020
• Change Your Standups The simple action that will change your team for the better
  May 8, 2020
• How is it going? Reporting up as an Engineering Leader
  May 4, 2020
• Eye on the Prize Some principles & tactics on software engineering management
  March 17, 2020
• Pull Requests Considered Harmful
  January 28, 2020
• The Snail Pace of Pull Requests
  January 28, 2020
• On Accountability in Software Development
  January 19, 2020
• Customer Service: the not so secret weapon of every startup
  February 14, 2017
• Democratic Product Management at YourGrocer
  January 15, 2017
• How to make 100 people love your product
  November 16, 2016
• Product Management Without the Budget What we've learned about products in our first year at YourGrocer
  October 2, 2014
• Development is support, support is development
  November 20, 2012
• Evolving Infrastructure
  November 6, 2012
• LAST Conference — Take it Offshore
  August 2, 2012
• Beware of Technical Projects
  July 16, 2012
• Developing internally? You are not special
  June 20, 2012
• Duplication? Yes, please.
  June 13, 2012
• Knowledge Sharing on Steroids
  February 22, 2012
• Kaizen Lego Game @ Agile 2011
  October 2, 2011
• Can I just throw it over the wall?
  February 15, 2011
• Simple Planning
  May 4, 2010
• We Need Standards
  October 17, 2008
• Uncertainty
  May 20, 2008
• Velocity, Capacity and Productivity
  May 13, 2008
• Software (Engineering or Development?)
  April 6, 2008