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December 12 · Issue #122 · View online
Level Up delivers a curated newsletter for leaders in tech. A project by https://patkua.com. Ideal for busy people such as Tech Leads, Engineering Managers, VPs of Engineering, CTOs and more.
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Make time to reflect and plan for 2022 I’m sure that many of you are in peak crunch time before the end of the year, aiming to hit your OKRs, quarterly plans and that things remain smooth before the end of year holidays. In the rush, it’s easy to forget to make time for yourself. As your company heads into the holiday season, see if you can block out time to reflect on this year and make personal plans for 2022. You might be lucky with a free afternoon. Or be generous to yourself and block out an entire day. Like with all good planning activities, reserve the time in advance, or you’ll quickly find your calendar filled up with other activities. I made some time this week to reflect on how 2021 went and also what I am going to focus on for next year. Like last year, I’m sharing a free 2021 end of year retrospective template to duplicate and fill out. Another great resource is the Year Compass book which encourages you to look even more holistically at your life and not just your work activities. Your challenge this week is to carve out time for personal reflection. If you can’t find enough time this week, then at least block out time before the end of the year and use that time to reflect and plan for 2022. Enjoy this week’s newsletter and be sure to pass it on to a friend or colleague.
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This time is a great time to reflect on how your year went, but make sure you block out the time for it
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Running a remote engineering team? Want to learn about how we run effective engineering teams remotely? Register for our upcoming webinar to learn about engineering management best practices used in our branches across the world.
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Three things that are limiting your impact as an engineer
Reading time: 10mins I recently wrote this article aimed at individual contributions who struggle to demonstrate leadership because of three limiting habits. If you’re in a formal leadership role, you might consider sharing this with your team. If you’re an individual contributor role I hope it helps you improve your impact.
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CTO to CEO: The case for putting the tech expert in charge
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Use Your Influence To Inspire A New Generation Of Leaders
Reading time: 5mins Leadership writer and author Tanveer Naseer (@TanveerNaseer) outlines 6 ways you can use your influence to inspire other leaders. These are great reminders that even if you’re not in a position of authority, you can still change things through influence. |
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🌟🌟🌟 Reach thousands of engineering leaders around the world. Maybe you want to share a leadership role you’re looking to fill? Interested in becoming a sponsor? Get in touch for details for a sponsorship slot in 2022. 🌟🌟🌟 |
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Digging deeper into Log4Shell - 0Day RCE exploit found in Log4j
Reading time: 8min A 0Day exploit was recently found in Log4J, putting many (if not most) Java-based enterprise software at risk. Given how many Internet-based Java applications exist, the magnitude of this exploit is very worrying. Fastly share a great overview of the situation and what you can do about it. |
Snaring the Bad Folks at Netflix
Reading time: 6mins Cloud security is a hard problem, but an even harder one is cloud security at scale. Read how Netflix approached this by building their own platform, which they call SNARE reported by their Cloud Infra Security Team (Alex Bainbridge, Mike Grima, and Nick Siow)
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Design Patterns for Serverless Systems
Reading time: 13mins I’m reviewing a lot more cloud-based systems using Serverless (or more precisely FAAS) as their foundation. Tridib Bolar (@bolarbolar) highlights a number of patterns you might find useful if working on a serverless software system. |
Have some training budget for 2021? Check out the courses at https://techlead.academy/
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Want to Build Better Leaders? Focus on Mindset, Skills, Knowledge
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Shopify Reflections: Learnings on my first Black Friday!
Reading time: 8mins Fascinating reflections from Dion Almaer (@dalmaer) reflecting on his first few months at Shopify after having just gone through an amazing Black Friday. Great reflections on opportunity, organisational culture and more. |
Cross-Team Communication: Avoid Dependencies
Reading time: 4mins This is a nice short overview for technical leaders who are thinking about team or org design by Fran Ortiz (@Fortiz2305). He outlines the principle which I think is better phrased as “Minimise Dependencies” and a good overview of how to do so using the work from Team Topologies. |
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All software now is so complicated that, as a good first approximation, no one understands anything. Even things that they use all day every day. But it seems like the cultural push for simplicity among programmers is well and truly dead. I guess we must like this!
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Building on the previous tweet 🤣👇
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If you enjoyed this newsletter, please send me feedback and share it with others! |
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Patrick Kua, Postfach 58 04 40, 10314, Berlin, Germany
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