I'm taking time out this week ☀️😎. For me, this means I'm intentionally staying away from "work" topi
|
|
July 26 · Issue #50 · 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.
|
|
I’m taking time out this week ☀️😎. For me, this means I’m intentionally staying away from “work” topics like catching up on my daily/weekly reading of blogs, twitter, and other sources. But like any good leader, you plan to make sure things keep working without you, which means this edition of Level Up should still hit your inbox. I wrote some scripts to generate statistics from past editions. So this edition is a recap, containing some of the most popular articles since Level Up first started 🎉. 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 🙏
|
|
Taking some time off, but some great reads still to come
|
|
CSML 🤖 Easy Code for Complex Chatbots!
Cut complex chatbot development lifecycle to mere hours instead of weeks. CSML is an easy-to-learn, scalable and full-featured open-source programming language for expert chatbots. Is your organization developing chatbots now?
|
|
|
🚀 Verity is hiring a Head of Engineering!
Verity has assembled a strong, interdisciplinary team of engineers with a track record of delivering cutting-edge autonomous indoor drone systems. Will you help take it to the next level?
|
|
|
What makes a good leader?
Reading time: 8 mins Adam Grant, organizational psychologist at Wharton, offers 20 books to read this year to help you become a better leader. More books to add to the ever growing list 😅
|
The Definition of a Tech Lead
Reading time: 9mins An updated comprehensive article about what the boundaries of the Tech Lead role and the core competencies.
|
5 Engineering Manager Archetypes
Reading time: 14mins Compare what Engineering Managers do across teams and organisations and you’ll quickly discover there are many variations. After reading 100s of job descriptions and talking to many more, here are 5 common archetypes you’ll find with the “Engineering Manager” role.
|
The Thing About Burnout
Google Presentation: 42 slides This excellent presentation from Ashley Willis (McNamara) (@ashleymcnamara) tackles an especially important topic many technical leaders and managers may need to deal with on their teams but also may be on the path to themselves. Beautiful visuals, and important topic with excellent advice.
|
|
How I created an Engineering Roadmap
Reading time: 7mins Director of Engineering John Graham (@JohnGrahamDev) shares his experience report of building an engineering roadmap, an essential tool for all technical leaders at all different levels.
|
Drawing good architecture diagrams
Reading time: 10mins Toby W (unsurprisingly without a twitter handle) from the British National Cyber Security Centre shares what makes a great diagram and what makes a poor diagram and what you can do to improve an architecture diagram.
|
GitHub Repository - Diagram as Code for prototyping cloud system architectures
This OS project, Diagrams lets you draw the cloud system architecture in Python code. It was born for prototyping a new system architecture design without any design tools. You can also describe or visualize the existing system architecture as well.
|
Books about Designing Systems of Scale
|
|
Google's Top Productivity Expert, Laura Mae Martin, Says This Is How You Should Spend Your Day
Reading time: 5mins Many technical leader struggle with finding more time. It’s one of the reasons I made this the topic of the first course at the Tech Lead Academy. This article was the most read link from the stats I have available and one key tip is changing how you define ‘productivity.’
|
Leading from afar. How to be an effective leader in a remote world
Reading time: 7mins This article was very timely with more of the world suddenly switching to fully remote teams. Pete Gillard-Moss (@petegillardmoss) shares his experience after leading a widely distributed team for many many years.
|
Effective career conversations
Reading time: 5mins
Yuan Liu (@RealYuanLiu), Engineering Manager at Stripe offers some great advice on how to tackle the topic of career growth conversations in 1:1s
|
The one-on-one meeting template for your end of the year review
Reading time: 4mins Although this article was posted in December, you really shouldn’t be waiting until the end of the year to offer feedback. Claire Lew (@clairejlew) shares an excellent set of questions aimed for the end of the year and still highly relevant as a mid-year review process too.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Click through to see this awesome 3D wallpaper in action 🤯
|
|
|
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please send me feedback and share with others!
|
Did you enjoy this issue?
|
|
|
|
If you don't want these updates anymore, please unsubscribe here.
If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe here.
|
|
Patrick Kua, Postfach 58 04 40, 10314, Berlin, Germany
|