I sensed a theme of feedback this week in some of my conversations. It must be review season. Or diff
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May 24 · Issue #41 · View online
Level Up delivers a curated newsletter for leaders in tech. A project by http://patkua.com. Ideal for busy people such as Tech Leads, Engineering Managers, VPs of Engineering, CTOs and more.
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I sensed a theme of feedback this week in some of my conversations. It must be review season. Or difficult times that companies are going through as they choose to let people go. Have a question about feedback? I’d love to hear it - send me an email. We receive so many poor examples of feedback every day. This cycle repeats as companies fail to train managers on effective feedback. One of my favourite books on this topic is, “ Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well.” Giving feedback as a leader or manager is not trivial. You have a power imbalance between you and the receiver that adds barriers. A key to offering effective feedback is also a key to building high performing teams - fostering psychological safety. If people feel threatened, or they perceive their job at risk, it’s natural they disagree, justify and dismiss feedback. A big warning sign is when they fail to acknowledge your feedback. This is very different to agreeing or disagreeing with your point of view 🙅♀️🙅♂️. One technique I find useful to foster psychology safety is to ask people to suggest a suitable time. In these times, it’s hard to know what may be going on at home - childcare, health or other worries. Springing feedback on someone is bound to trigger defensiveness. I hope you enjoy this week’s content. If you find it useful, please forward to someone else and send me feedback. Stay safe and healthy 🙏 |
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New Managers: Effective Management
Reading time: 9mins A nice post finishing off a five post-series for new managers from Angela Riggs (@AngelaRiggs_). Lots of good advice if you’re looking to be a manager or new to the role. |
Discussing Microsoft's open-sourcity
Reading time: 5mins I’m including this in the Leadership section because the shift in MS’s strategy to embrace Open Source is significant. Namely because cultural change is very hard in large organisations and it’s one that I think has been very successful. Arek Nawo (@areknawo) does a great job highlighting how the MS leadership lead this change. |
The #1 Rule of “No”
Reading time: 4mins First time leaders are used to saying “yes” because they don’t want to disappoint anyone. It is also an easy path to never-ending work and burnout. Learning when and how to say “No” is a key to teaching others that when you say “yes”, it really means “yes”. James Altucher (@jaltucher) shares a few heuristics he uses of when to say “no” and when to say “yes”. |
No Brilliant Jerks: How to Deal with Maverick CEOs
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ALGOL 60 at 60: The greatest computer language you've never used and grandaddy of the programming family tree
Reading time: 10mins It seems to be year the programming language anniversaries. I’ve shared a few in past issues. I find it’s useful to understand where we’ve come from by looking at history and I didn’t realise that ALGOL 60 was what eventually lead to Pascal and C (both programming languages I have written code in). I love the fact they also used a picture of a Lorenz system plotted by an ALGOL program ❤️. |
Five Years of Rust
Reading time: 11mins It really is the year of programming language anniversaries with the folks over at Rust Lang reflecting on 5 years. This article gives a short synopsis of how the language evolved with some quotes from the team and a reflection about the community. |
The Third Age of JavaScript
Reading time: 4mins A very interesting article from Shawn Wang (@swyx) which summarises the history of JS and suggests that this year is a significant year on how programming in JS will change (yet again). |
The most successful developers share more than they take
Reading time: 14mins
Ben James, host of the Distinguished Devs podcast shares some of his takeaways after interviewing a number of well known devs and summarises a few characteristics he noted.
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What I’ve learned while ramping up on a large software project
Reading time: 12mins This is a very excellent post from Denise Yu (@deniseyu21) sharing some lessons learned and valuable advice ramping up on the GitHub team including lots of great tips for developers in general. |
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This Editorial Team Ditches Zoom And Instead Starts Using Red Dead Redemption For Meetings, Here's How It Goes For Them
Reading time: 8mins This is a fun article sharing how how Viviane Schwartz (@vivschwarz) experimented with a game (Red Dead Redemption) for a meetings instead of tradition VC. 😆 |
Tell Me How You Measure Me - Francisco Trindade - Medium
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You might recognise the start of this from engineering leader, @randyshoup. 😂 |
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I Am The Very Model of A Modern Software Architect
I am the very model of a modern software architect
Whose data planes and services do elegantly intersect.
Far and wide I’m celebrated for my keen ability
To balance throughput, latency, and high-availability.
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A great 🧵 from @KieranSnyder (CEO of @textio) dealing with delegation during the COVID-19 times when everyone is remote. |
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1 Today a manager asked me how to think about assigning work equitably right now when everyone on the team is in a different place with what they can personally take on. It started me thinking. Thread >>
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This is another lovely 🧵 from @nota_bennett showing when a person recognises “power imbalance” in conversations and what you can do to have more effective conversations. |
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So here’s a Manager Trick I picked up that’s useful for anyone working with people with less positional authority than you
Sometimes people will come to you very upset about something
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If you enjoyed this newsletter, please send me feedback and share with others! |
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Patrick Kua, Postfach 58 04 40, 10314, Berlin, Germany
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