Executing a Sunset

We all know how exciting it is to build new products, the thrill of a pile of new ideas waiting to be tested, new customers to reach, knotty problems to solve, and dreams of upward-sloping graphs.  But what happens when it is no longer aligned with the trajectory of the company.

#MenteeGoals Prepping for your mentoring relationship

There are so many benefits to having a mentoring program within your company. In my past roles at Reddit and Microsoft, employee mentoring programs helped me rise through the ranks, pick up soft skills, and give back to the next generation of leaders.

Why we re-designed our engineering career paths at CircleCI

Note from the author: this post was written in collaboration with Justin Cowperthwaite, engineering manager, with additional input from Jeff Palmer, VP Engineering.

How to Hire a Product Manager

It’s been a while since I was hiring at a startup, and recruiting at a startup is very different from hiring at a big company. At Yahoo! Search, it seemed like we were constantly hiring. I did an average of 5-8 interviews a week.

Lena Reinhard - Director of Engineering, CircleCI

In this talk, Lena explores how engineering leaders can think about their use of language to improve their effectiveness.

Why You Should be a More Understanding Manager (and what to do)

In 1964, a young and fierce activist was sentenced to life in prison. However, while alone in the darkness, he found hope. Hope that would inspire people of different races, beliefs, and classes. The activist’s name was Nelson Mandela.

Building a First Team

One of the focus points was to create a leadership “first team”, where we focused on leadership unity, alignment, and teamwork rather than defending our own functional silos. It’s actually a relatively minor point (reference) in the book. But it stood out to us as an important learning in building a true leadership team.

Design Patterns for Managing Up

Have you ever been in a situation where you are presenting to your manager or your manager's manager and you completely flub the opportunity by saying all the wrong things? Me too. It is from such encounters that I started to put together design patterns for handling these difficult situations.

Tips to Avoid Obnoxiously Aggressive Criticism

If you think you’ve given criticism that was Obnoxiously Aggressive, check out these tips for moving towards Radical Candor! This doesn’t mean sugar coating. It means seeing your criticism as an act of kindness, meant to help the person improve.

Digital Transformation Is Human Transformation

A decade ago, many still questioned the relevance of digital technology. While Internet penetration was already significant, e-commerce made up less than 4% of retail sales. Mobile and cloud…

What Does “Being Professional” Mean, Anyway? Notes on Authenticity

I’ve been noodling on the weirdness of “being professional” quite a bit recently. It’s one of those things that we know when we see it, and when we see a transgression of it, and understand that we are expected to abide by its rules.

Why Agile Isn’t Working For You: The Top 5 Agile Coaching Pitfalls

Reading Time: 7 minutes Written by Stefan Lindbohm and Viktor Cessan.

A framework for R&D

Impactful innovation is what Research & Development (R&D) teams around the world are working hard towards. Yet, there don’t seem to be blueprints that are reused and trusted across companies.

The process: Open sourcing BuzzFeed’s single sign-on experience

Many security teams are plagued by the eternal question of whether to “build” or “buy” technical solutions for the complex challenges they face.

How automation can raise the bar on security

The rise in popularity of cloud providers such as AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure over the last decade has brought enormous change to the way we build and operate web services.