đȘ Translating Tech Debt, Design Thinking, Tiger Hiring, Take-homes, Code Ownership, Breach Legal Costs: TMW #260 by CTO Craft
Hello, welcome to the week!
A massive thanks to everyone who's completed the CTO Craft Member Survey - we now have several hundred data points with which to iterate on our events, resources and community activities. Watch out for some new initiatives very shortly - you'll hear about them first here in TMW and in Slack.
You'll notice a theme in today's stack of links; we're taking a close look at the Hiring Arc, from sourcing to onboarding. If you have any thoughts or insights you'd like to share or would like to feature in upcoming TMW issues on this topic, please drop us a line!
On with the show - have a great week!
Andy @ CTO Craft
How to be a Tech Debt Translator - from the CTO Craft Blog
Youâve probably heard of âtech debtâ and how it can impact a company. However, have you ever tried to explain it to non-technical colleagues in basic terms? Itâs important to your company, and itâs essential that other functions in the company understand its impact and even its existence!
CTO Craft Bytes
How Design Thinking can solve your challenges: Fri 8 Apr at 12:30 GMT
For quite some time, design thinking has been perceived as a magic methodology to set yourself apart from competitors by focusing on your customerâs needs. Yet, innovation labs come and go â building in-house teams to focus on the future alongside running the day-to-day business has proven to be challenging.
Reads of the Week
Tech Hiring Report 2022
Learn where you stack up against other companies in this tight labor market and the latest tech hiring data and trends.
Prioritization is a Political Problem as Much as an Analytical Problem
Most of our tools and processes around product/feature prioritization are heads-down analytical: RICE, opportunity trees, Kano, weighted 16-column spreadsheets, WSJF, Eisenhower, whatever.
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Culture & People
The Tiger Hiring Algorithm
Iâm going to try to do something hard: simplifying hiring down to a dead simple algorithm based on only four data-backed, high-signal attributes.
The Ultimate Guide to Onboarding Software Engineers
Itâs Monday. Youâre back at work after a nice weekend, feeling excited as the new engineer is joining your team today! She arrives, gets her laptop and first coffee, you have a nice chat about the weekend, then the question hits you: âSo, whatâs my first task?â.
How To Hire A Data Scientist
Running data science projects successfully is already quite challenging, and the first step is to hire some data scientists. Given the current market this is no easy task.
How GitHub does take home technical interviews
There are many ways to evaluate an engineering candidateâs skills. One way is to ask them to solve a problem or write some code. We have been striving for a while to make this experience better at GitHub.
Dear Manager, Youâre Holding Too Many Meetings
Where your work meets your life. See more from Ascend here. Meetings serve different purposes, ranging from informal social gatherings to formal brainstorming sessions. They often show up on our calendars as recurring events (with no end date in sight!).
Leadership & Self-management
7 Mental Models For Great Engineering Leadership
A couple of weeks ago, I hosted a talk with Point Nine, where I presented what I believe are the essential building blocks of great engineering leadership.
How Engineering Managers Fail
Engineering Managers (EMs) donât intentionally set out to fail. Instead, they are often set up for failure. But even if they are set up for success, there are some common ways new Engineering Managers fail. This article will cover these and what to do instead.
Startup Jobs: Whatâs it like being a Chief Technology Officer (CTO)?
At ease with experimentation, prototyping, & MVP development: Have you built something that had to be thrown away? Comfortable with ambiguity/constant change: How do you balance technical debt with the need to move quickly?
How to Alleviate Leadership Anxiety With the Power of Perspective
One of the most important functions of effective leadership is to master the power of perspective. Leaders require the ability to look at problems and determine their relative size and importance.
Agile, Engineering & Product
Code Ownership, Stewardship, or Free-for-all?
As the pendulum has swung from monoliths to micro-everythings - services, front-ends, you name it - we find ourselves with more "things" to build and maintain. And so it begs the question, who is responsible for what?
How to estimate legal costs from a data breach.
We need budget and headcount to mitigate risks. Larger risks should encourage more resources towards mitigation efforts. Legal costs are wild area of costs⊠along with costs to the business and regulatory risks.
The Agile Elephant and the agile mindset
Confession: Iâve been avoiding the words âagile mindsetâ for some time because I donât know what it is. And, completely by coincidence, Iâve recently had a couple of encounters that have caused me to think again. So let me explainâŠ
Thatâs it!
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Have an amazing week!
Andy