ShareDo’s Post

Post assumes a Modern Software Engineer ("She") can assume authority over a Real Programmer ("Guy") because She does not like Guy. She claims Guy is "causing bugs" and "blocking team". I assume latter is Guy refusing to participate in counter-productive activities. I doubt Guy merges buggy code. I wonder why She believes Guy causes bugs. Is Guy's code better than She can understand? Tests must be deleted before merging. She should not know whether Guy wrote any tests. -- She desires BadFad™ methods which Guy innately avoids: Programming is solitary activity. Modern Software Engineers like Pair Programming to share blame, not caring the method destroys productivity. My alternative to Pair Programming has many benefits without the negatives. [Opinion about Pair Programming is easy way to distinguish between Real Programmers and Modern Software Engineers, if Real Programmers understand honest opinion is required, not whether the Real Programmer will tolerate this awful practice. I mentor my partner during Pair Programming, and do all my programming at night while partner cannot interrupt.] "Feedback" sounds like PR (Public Ridicule), a method needed in Open Source projects receiving code from unknown sources. PR does not belong in corporate world, offends professional software writers, slows progress, and inevitably destroys software. -- As Manager, I would know more, investigate, and manage my subordinates. Does Guy actually "cause bugs" and "block team"? Or is this just her impression? Should I teach Guy to develop better? Or tell She to stop pestering Guy? She needs mentoring and managing. - "Lead" is granted by team. She is trying to assume authority without knowledge, skills, or agreement. I would carefully explain She cannot assume authority not granted by team or company (and which cannot/will not be granted because She is unskilled and inexperienced.) - I need to discover if She has corrupted Programmer Brain. Can She be rehabilitated into a Real Programmer? Is She willing to start over to learn how to program properly? - Or is She stuck as Modern Software Engineer? Do I need to keep She away from production code? I can assign She to handle useless tasks like Code Coverage and documentation, or useful tasks like making coffee, ordering lunch, blocking Business People from interrupting Programmers, maybe getting details which Programmers want without Programmers needing to talk to Business People. - The last may be dangerous as we normally give gofers a prestigious title (e.g. Project Manager) to impress Business People. She has already demonstrated inclination to assume ungranted authority. Better to give She a less impressive title (e.g. Business Analyst). 20240801

Ever had someone tell you, “You’re not technical enough for this role”? As someone who’s been on both sides of the table, I’ve seen how limiting that perspective can be. Technology isn’t just about who can write the most complex code or know every stack—it’s about understanding the impact of tech on real-world problems. Some of the most successful people in tech aren’t the ones who can build the most intricate systems. They’re the ones who ask the right questions, who understand what the user actually needs, who have an eye for solving problems in creative ways. The best “tech” talent isn’t just technical—they’re insightful.

Hiring a CTO is one of tech's most consequential decisions. They'll shape your engineering culture. They'll drive technical strategy. They'll determine if your best engineers stay or leave. Recently, a product leader in our Supra community asked for advice on interviewing CTO candidates. The insights shared were gold. Here are some areas our members like to get signal: 1/ Check for inspiration. ↳ Do you leave the conversation feeling energized and excited? This is a key signal. Great technical leaders don't just build systems—they build excitement and inspire their teams. But inspiration isn't enough. 2/ Ask about development and mentorship: ↳ "After working with you for a year, what's the single biggest thing our junior engineers will have learned?" This reveals: •  Their strongest technical superpowers •  Self-awareness about their impact •  How they approach growing talent 3/ Probe their ability to innovate under constraints: ↳ "If we froze technical hiring for a year, how would you ensure the team continues to innovate and scale?" This surfaces: •  Problem-solving approach •  Resource optimization mindset •  Ability to think creatively 4/ Check for ethical considerations. How do they think about: •  Data privacy •  Access controls •  Algorithmic bias A CTO who deprioritizes these signals major compliance risks down the road. 5/ Look for signs they can build a culture of experimentation and curiosity. The best CTOs retain engineers by engaging their intellectual curiosity, not just competing on comp. Remember: You're not just hiring a technical leader. You're choosing a partner who will shape your company's future. What other questions would you add to the list?

Great question from Ryan Cox! For a raw startup, that inflection point - where the tree starts growing around the bicycle - is when the communication pathways start breaking down, right around five engineers or so. At that point, and especially in a remote environment, you can't keep everybody on the same page organically. You need a conduit, a central point, a node that can coordinate and organize the work. It's also about when the work starts splintering into different streams and engineers start creating silos. With almost any engineer, there are job inflection points at 1.5 years and 3 years. A year and a half is about how long it takes an engineer to get bored with the current problem set and start casting about for new problems to solve. Three years is when that cycle interacts with an annual review (and most annual reviews suck, a topic for another day). So, any engineering org can last about a year and a half without decent people management before engineers start wandering - short of other measures (big pay bumps, title inflation, etc ... which can cause other problems). This ends up manifesting one of two ways at small startups: 1. Companies hang at that ~5 or fewer engineers level for longer than ideal for the business to grow 2. They end up hiring an engineering manager sooner than they should need to (since the founding engineer isn't doing it, somebody needs to or engineers start leaving) For bigger organizations, this grinds to a halt when engineering productivity starts stalling out. When you have one engineer with a title soaking up a lot of code, it atrophies the rest of the team. So, when you go to the business to ask to hire more engineers you're met with resistance. Because you've reached a point where you've bottlenecked stuff enough that you can't sell increased productivity through more engineering head count. This also often manifests as having hiring practices that tend to hire less capable engineers - because they don't threaten the bottleneck or create "distractions" for them. https://lnkd.in/gZmcWcQF

Founder mode is great for founders, but bad for Big Tech engineers. The best engineers I've worked with channel their inner Kanye -- they operate as if they didn't have a manager. These engineers identify problems, proactively forge partnerships, and make things happen. But now you have a bunch of middle managers in Big Tech who will use founder mode as a reason to get into the weeds and micromanage their reports. The result is more communication overhead and less independence. This prevents ambitious engineers from rapidly growing their ownership and impact. Do you think founder mode has a place in Big Tech companies? Most of my audience works at large tech companies, so I'm curious to hear your opinion.

"Scaling a tech team from 5 to 250 engineers - what a journey!" A good read from 🌀 Luca Rossi got me thinking about the challenges of rapid growth. Hiring isn't always the silver bullet, and traditional outsourcing can add extra stress to internal teams. Task-based models are emerging as a faster and less risky way to adjust velocity as needed. It's about finding the right balance between building in-house and leveraging external expertise. What strategies have worked best for you? Here's a great read: https://lnkd.in/dh8J4dZ6

Building Trust Through Compliance At Agile33, we are committed to maintaining a legal workforce and ensuring compliance with all employment laws. E-Verify is a web-based system that allows enrolled employers to confirm the eligibility of their employees to work in the United States. By using E-Verify, we not only uphold our commitment to legal hiring practices but also provide assurance to our clients and partners.  Agile33’s Commitment to a Legal Workforce Accuracy and Efficiency: E-Verify helps us quickly and accurately verify the employment eligibility of our workforce. Compliance: It ensures we are compliant with federal regulations, reducing the risk of legal issues. Trust: State and local agencies benefit from working with employers who use E-Verify, as it promotes a legal and fair hiring process. We believe that our participation in E-Verify strengthens our dedication to integrity and excellence in all our business practices. Thank you for your continued support! #Agile33 #Compliance #Integrity

What are the skills that tech managers need right now? Leslie tells us in this new post!

Separate but related topic, I’ve observed that the companies say they don’t necessarily have PMs (non-technical product managers), but that each engineer and designer leads on their team actually PM, which means they save money, two they have ownership. The small teams that got acquired like WhatsApp, Instagram were small, and I believe Box in its early days also operated similarly with no PMs, but folks in product themselves managing themselves. Also people who don’t code and design at all or know how to shouldn’t tell people who know how to code and design how they should do their job imho—biggest pet peeve of PMs who have no knowledge of the tech stack and know what it’s like to suffer through debugging and product development have no real empathy or the pulse of how long it can take to him build something of quality, just my two cents. I hated PMing anything really without coding or designing some part of it myself, personally, it left me feeling naked and whole something might have gotten done, I would have to rewrite some things from scratch or refactor anyway.

To POC or not to POC?! On the plus side, a POC can: 1️⃣ Be a great way to validate that a product does what it claims to. 2️⃣ Confirm existing requirements and identify new ones 3️⃣ Gain some early engagement in a product. 4️⃣ Test out potential ROI numbers and allow comparison to existing forecasts. This last point does highlight some of the key risks of a POC. Its unlikely that you are going to gain maximum ROI in the early phases of a project. There will be some resistance to change, internal resources may need upskilling (or hiring). These factors could lead to lower ROI than expected during a POC, which could kill the project completely. Its important therefore that if a POC is carried out, objectives and success criteria are balanced and realistic. Stakeholders are engaged and expectations are managed. Doing a POC doesn't mean you can skip the prep-work you would expect to do for a wider roll-out (requirements gathering, business case, etc.) I touched on this in a talk I did for Jon Beaumont a while ago, and would like to thank Puranjay Trehan who's post and our conversation this morning prompted me to re-visit the topic. Do you think its still important to do a thorough analysis and business case for new #legaltech projects, or is a more agile approach needed as the pace of innovation and change continues to accelerate?