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November 8 · Issue #65 · 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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Shining a light on darkness One topic that repeated in conversations this week was the idea of technical leaders shining light on darkness. For some teams, “darkness” might mean unknown technical debt, and shining a light means identifying and visualising the technical debt. For other teams, “darkness” might represent their worries about the company or job stability. Shining a light in this situation means listening carefully to fears and iterating known facts. For others, “darkness” might be the stress and fears from what many people read in the press and shining a light might be acknowledging these feelings and giving time and space for people to process this. What are you doing to shine a light on darkness for your team? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, so feel free to send me a quick reply. I hope you enjoy this week’s content. If you find it useful, please forward to someone else. Stay safe and healthy 🙏
Book now for the Nov 18 cohort of “Shortcut to Tech Leadership”, an online guided course on technical leadership, the last course in 2020 🎉!
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It's hard to know where you're going without light
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We don’t need a meeting to share status updates that could be shared asynchronously. In this blog, LinearB.io‘s Dan Lines proposes a new framework for the daily stand-up that works better for remote teams. |
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How to uncover leadership opportunities
Reading time: 11mins People, earlier on in their journey, may ask, “How do you find leadership opportunities?” This article offers some concrete advice. If you’re in an existing leadership role, consider how you can use these ideas to create opportunities for others.
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Q&A with Thoughtworks' CTO Dr Rebecca Parsons
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Leadership Starts With Trust
Reading time: 4mins
Tanmay Vora (@tnvora) focuses on a great point in this article ; Great leaders don’t start with boasting about their credentials or accomplishments and jump straight into action. Great leaders start with building a foundation of trust. Read the article to find out why (and see some of the fun sketchnotes Tanmay shares)
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Last workshop for 2020 (Nov 18). Click the banner to find out more
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Macro trends in the tech industry
Reading time: 10mins If you didn’t get a chance to go through the ThoughtWorks Tech Radar included in last week’s edition, this article from Global Head of Technology Mike Mason (@mikemasonca) may give you a good overview as he reflects on macro trends and the themes from the report. |
The keyboard IS the computer - A review of the Raspberry Pi 400
Reading time: 9mins A very cool device I saw doing rounds was the Raspberry Pi 400, a computer (Raspberry Pi 4) embedded into a keyboard 😲. Read this review by Les Pounder (@biglesp) to find out more. |
Start at the edge, typically with an API gateway, and work inwards
Reading time: 8mins This is a great interview with Daniel Bryant (@danielbryantuk) about how API gateways have evolved, what impact microservices have on APIs, service meshes, and more. |
What's so great about Go?
Reading time: 5mins John Biggs and Ben Popper (@benpopper) from StackOverflow share three traits that have lead to rising popularity of the Go Programming language. |
Making GitHub CI workflow 3x faster
Reading time: 5mins If you’re building software with engineering practices, it’s natural that your build times start to creep up. A long build time frustrates developers who need to wait for feedback. Read this article by Keerthana Kumar (@keerthanakumar) from GitHub to find out what they did to speed up their build. |
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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. 🌟🌟🌟 |
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What To Do About Hierarchy?
Reading time: 6mins This is an excellently written essay by Product and Engineering Leader, Ebenezer Ikonne (@eikonne) that explores the role of hierarchy. I found myself nodding throughout with statements like, “Hierarchy in organizations is both formal and informal” and “I disagree that hierarchy is inherently oppressive”. Read this even if you’re aiming to build a teal organisation. 👏 |
Evolving Reddit’s Workforce
Reading time: 4mins We’ve had organisations commit to supporting fully remote work but I haven’t read many articles that explain what specifically has changed. In this article, Reddit shares several concretes decisions they’ve made to support this.
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Map your way to understanding and agreement
Reading time: 4mins
Liz Douglass (@LizDouglass) provides a great answer to the question, “Why does it take so long?” or “Why is it so complex?” I’ve also seen this approach work quite well and doing this exercise with people can generate lasting insights.
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A resignation can be an opportunity
Reading time: 5mins If you’ve built a high-performing team, a resignation can be a shock to the system. Kevin Goldsmith (@kevingoldsmith) offers a great perspective of using a resignation as an opportunity to pause and reflect. Read the article to find out what to reflect on. |
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A great example of shining a light
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@ @ One thing I learned watching Janeway growing up is how leadership means being responsible for working through dilemmas w/ no clear answers. All the easy decisions are made before it gets to the top. Janeway leads w/ focus on her mission - to get her crew home. Thank you Kate! 🖖🏽
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A great twitter thread 🧵 about prioritisation issues that hide behind strategy issues. Click on the tweet to expand the thread
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“My team has a prioritization problem. Help!“
Product prioritization, a thread:
(1/30)
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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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