Cortex’s Post

I love talking about real developer challenges, and it's not just about the tech we use. I've been on conference stages for 14 years 🎤, discussing what matters to developers. Most of my fellow speakers focus on new technologies and how to use them, which is fantastic and helps us build better software 💻. But I've always believed the bigger challenge is collaboration 🤝. How do we create a culture where everyone knows what's essential and improve how work flows through an organization? How do we best collaborate across product management, operations, QA, and design? It takes a team of teams to deliver successful software, and that's where many organizations struggle 🏗️. That's why I'm giving two talks about these topics at the dev2next Conference in Denver. One will cover Atlassian's journey to a microservice architecture and how we changed our team structure 🔄. The other will focus on bringing joy back into software development 🎉 and how to find out what to measure and improve. I hope to see you in Denver to chat about real developer challenges. Check out the link in the comments! 📍

Can you have Founder Mode without skin in the game? As a startup cofounder, in a funding round I signed a contract guaranteeing my house and other possessions if the company was not successful. That was with small children and knowing my presence in the US was dependent on the company visa. That's skin in the game. The founder dynamic comes up in Peter Hyde's new profile of software engineering at Atlassian. Peter asks: "How important is the founder dynamic still in Atlassian, and do you feel it is valuable to retain it as you grow?" Mike Cannon-Brookes (cofounder of Atlassian) answers: "Most of my life has been spent building this company. I’m also one of the largest shareholders so my long-term interests are very much aligned with the long-term success of the company, employees and shareholders. In short, I’ve got a lot of skin in the game, and am really driven by a passion for Atlassian’s mission and vision." Can you have founder mode without an actual founder? Counter-examples include Satya Nadella at Microsoft - not a founder but acting like a founder. And, of course, one of Atlassian's co-founders has left (Scott Farquhar). And are there degrees of Founder Mode? https://lnkd.in/e_-f4WvE (Gartner sub req'd)

Ever wondered why your devs are sitting idle in the middle of a sprint? Imagine you have a backpack that has a fixed size. You can fit a lot of small items or a few large ones. But it’s rare to find a combination of items that will completely fill the backpack without going over. Either, you will have a bunch of space left over. Or… You overpack, and the backpack becomes so tightly packed that it breaks open on your hike. 🎒💥 Sprints are like these backpacks with a size of 2 weeks. For these 2 weeks, we could plan too little or plan too much. If we plan too little, the devs sit idle. 💤 If we plan too much, tickets just slide into the next sprint anyway ⏰💥 Here’s the thing – stakeholders don’t care about the sprint. They only care about shipping valuable features ASAP. Sprints enforce an arbitrary 2-week schedule that is not necessary. Even without a sprint, ✂️ You can still break the project into smaller parts and shippable parts.  ⏳ You can also push unimportant, non-urgent tasks into the future.  🔍 You can be transparent about what your team is working on and why. None of these things require you to shoehorn your projects into 2-week periods. ----- 👋 Hi, I am David Guttman. I help SaaS Founders create high-performing engineering teams.🔧 Check out my profile to get a free chapter of my book, "The Superstruct Manifesto."

My strategy that secured me a role at Atlassian. When I shared my story, I received many DMs asking how I went from 4LPA to 11 in my first switch. The key lies in the problem-solving skills I developed through numerous setbacks over time. Here are a few approaches I found useful during my prep: ✔️ Breaking down problems: I start by creating an algorithm to divide problems into small parts. ✔️ Prototyping: Building small prototypes can help visualize the problem and potential solutions. ✔️ Iterative coding: After the above steps, I code in iterations, debug, and then solve the next part. To enhance these skills, I practiced problems involving real-life scenarios. And I completely agree that it can be overwhelming sometimes. And if you're feeling the same, I am here to help you develop all the required skills like problem-solving, critical thinking, and help you build real-life projects, and prepare for your interviews 💪🏻 Book your session with me, and we can plan your prep - https://lnkd.in/g_EdtFry Let’s convert your struggle to success! 😊

We've been trying out different approaches with our software engineering team to better manage demand across client projects from a product development perspective. I'm interested in learning from startups and medium-sized businesses that are navigating multiple business models and seeing growing market interest. How do you balance priorities, deliver value, and validate your product for PMF (Product-Market Fit), all while keeping your engineering teams from burning out? If anyone is keen to jump on a quick call or be in the comment section, please share.

Until a few weeks ago, I had never seen a panel session erupt into a full-room debate. The question was, is 10% engineering time a privilege or a necessity? Jovana Dunisijevic explained that Atlassian engineers are given 10% of their time to improve their own developer experience, e.g., reducing tech debt, adjusting pipelines, etc. Someone passionately interrupted, saying 10% time isn't a privilege; it's a necessity. Engineers can't be successful without having some time to improve their tooling and reduce tech debt. Another person matched the enthusiasm in disagreement, saying it is a privilege. In most companies, engineers are not given the time to fix tech debt or improve their tooling setup. Full. Room. Discussion 💥 Everyone agrees that giving engineers time to work on the delivery machine is a good idea. Personally, I think it's both a necessity and a privilege. Engineers need space and time to improve and adjust things, it's a necessity for performance. Having said that, a lot of companies don't give engineers this space and time (even if they should), making it a privilege. So... Privilege or necessity? Do you get 10% time? If not how do you make time to tune the machine? #DeveloperExperience #DevOps

Another “a-ha” moment: This brings up a crucial point: while we often negotiate for what feels like incremental gains, we sometimes overlook the underlying issues causing significant inefficiencies. If a 40% drag is identified, it should unquestionably become the primary focus until resolved. Addressing these bottlenecks can lead to more substantial overall improvements than any isolated negotiation for smaller gains. However, it's equally important to acknowledge that even small improvements, such as a 10% gain, can be vital in certain contexts, helping to counteract biases and ensuring consistent progress. The key lies in accurately diagnosing and prioritizing issues based on their true impact.

As I've written about before, I believe developers don't need permission to deliver the highest quality work they can, and that means taking time to improve architecture and processes. I don't mean creating Jira tickets for refactoring, or adding tech debt removal as a line item on an invoice. This is about process, about improving things as a necessary step of getting work done. Imagine a general contractor building an extension on a house. Should they ask you if they should take the time to ensure the structure is built to code, that it can withstand a storm, that it'll last a lifetime, that it's structurally sound? Are these considered add-ons? Are they billed for separately? Of course not - these things we take for granted as being part of the process, so much so that they're enshrined in law. Organizations need to think about a building code for software, that not only allows but encourages and empowers team members to improve the quality of the system every day, and to think about the long term and what it takes to build systems that last.

Two weeks into my new role, and the only thing I can really say with confidence is that I’m even more excited about Crafting than I was before joining. Seeing the impact we’re having on engineering teams at scale and how much the product resonates with our customers is incredibly humbling. Although Crafting’s instant sandboxes are a fantastic offering, they only begin to scratch the surface of what we’re building. Watching engineers magically debug traffic across services with our k8s tooling, giving custom groups easily configurable customized DB snapshots, and empowering developer platform teams to focus on macro problems over unique issues in custom environments are all part of the ecosystem we’re building to unleash engineering teams’ creativity. Selfishly, I love that our tools make it incredibly simple for rusty engineers (like many eng managers) to instantly be productive during those precious few hours they may serendipitously have to dig into their teams’ tech stacks. I'll share more details on how we help make that happen soon.

I don't know a single team within an organization that isn't trying to figure this out... How do we reduce the friction in the daily lives of team members? As leaders, we need to focus on this problem if we want to win in a hyper-competitive market. Reduced friction improves retention because people get to do what they came to the org to do; it makes people happier because they spend more time in a flow state, which can be culture-changing. When we launch new features or improvements at OpsLevel, it's fun. But this batch of releases (and what we have on the roadmap) is exciting because it's all aimed at team-wide efficiency, not just efficiency for one group. While the 2010s saw the explosion of tools, I think the next five years will be about harnessing all the combined power of the stack.