A recent industry retreat of senior engineering practitioners published their findings on where software development is heading. Reading it felt like someone had been reading my mind — and the minds of the people I follow online — and synthesized it all into one document. When a lot of people arrive at the same conclusions independently, that’s signal worth paying attention to. Here’s my take on each major theme.
There’s a reckoning coming for a specific type of software engineering manager. Not the good ones. The ones who turned themselves into human Jira routers. The ones whose primary skill is translating documents into tickets and running standups. Those jobs? Gone. Faster than you think.
I’ve been thinking a lot about excellence lately. Not the motivational-poster kind. The real kind – the kind that gets baked into your bones when you’re twenty-two years old and surrounded by people who simply will not accept anything less. For me, that happened on a nuclear submarine.
The US Navy gave me a solid foundation in leadership and operational excellence. But translating that into the business world requires a few more things.
I had a lot of fun being interviewed by Aimee Vincent-Bunn who hosts the fabulous Women in STEM podcast.
I’ve been a “leader-of-leaders” for a long time. It’s changed post-covid. But when I talk to some Engineers about the difference between “Leader of Others” and “Leader of Leaders” they don’t know what I’m talking about. So I thought I’d blog about it, and maybe even learn more myself.
A friend was telling me about “Dream Teams” at Netflix and I realized that is exactly what I have been trying to build/encourage around me. That is what I want!
I had a lot of fun being interviewed by James Holder for the Software Synergy Podcast. You can listen on Spotify or Apple.
Three months since I posted, so here’s some random thoughts and updates.
What’s old is new again: I’ve joined BrightSign as their Head of Software Engineering!
I’ve come to firmly believe that Engineering Leadership has a 3-2-1 principle to create Engineer happiness, which is a key prerequisite for high performance Engineering teams.