Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career
The engineering mindset | Will Larson (Carta, Stripe, Uber, Calm, Digg)
Episode guests
Podcast summary created with Snipd AI
Quick takeaways
- Engineers should be treated as peers and given responsibilities and opportunities for growth.
- Systems thinking involves considering stocks and flows in a given system and understanding how they interact.
- Having a clear engineering strategy is crucial for decision-making and resource allocation.
Deep dives
Understanding the importance of treating engineers as peers
The speaker emphasizes that engineers should be treated as peers and given responsibilities and opportunities for growth. Sheltering them from important work can hinder their development.
The value of systems thinking in problem-solving
Systems thinking involves considering stocks and flows in a given system and understanding how they interact. The speaker provides examples of systems thinking in incident management at Stripe and the concentration of carcinogens in the food chain.
Developing effective engineering strategies
Having a clear engineering strategy is crucial for decision-making and resource allocation. The speaker highlights the importance of understanding the current status quo, defining guiding policies, and taking action to implement them.
Strategies for making time to write
Finding topics that directly relate to work can help make time for writing. The speaker advises writing about what energizes and interests you to maintain motivation. Additionally, publishing consistently and not obsessing over perfection can help sustain writing habits.
Importance of Alignment and Showing Progress
It is crucial for teams to align their efforts with customer needs and product goals. Additionally, showcasing the valuable work accomplished in the past six months can be a powerful way to gain recognition and demonstrate impact. By highlighting meaningful contributions and explaining their effects, team members can earn trust and space to work. Metrics and tools like DORA's four metrics can be useful for diagnosis but should not be the sole basis for evaluating a company's success or making decisions about team members.
Defining Honest, Applicable, and Reversible Values
When defining company values, it is important for them to be honest, applicable, and reversible. Values should accurately reflect the company's actions rather than just aspirational goals. They should be relevant to the specific work and provide clear guidance for decision-making. Values that cannot be realistically applied or differentiate the company from others are not useful. It is essential to avoid merely adopting identity values that don't add value or offer actionable guidance.
Will Larson is Chief Technology Officer at Carta. Prior to joining Carta, he was the CTO at Calm and held engineering leadership roles at Stripe, Uber, and Digg. He is the author of two foundational engineering career books, An Elegant Puzzle and Staff Engineer, and The Engineering Executive’s Primer, which will be released in February. In our conversation, we discuss:
• Systems thinking: what it is and how to apply it
• Advice for product managers on fostering productive relationships with engineering managers
• Why companies should treat engineers like adults
• How to best measure developer productivity
• Writing and its impact on his career
• How to balance writing with a demanding job
• How to develop your company values
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Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-engineering-mindset-will-larson
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Where to find Will Larson:
• X: https://twitter.com/Lethain
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/will-larson-a44b543/
• Website: https://lethain.com/
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
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In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Will’s background
(04:12) Changes in the field of engineering
(06:27) We need to stop treating engineers like children
(08:32) Systems thinking
(13:23) Implementing systems thinking in hiring
(16:32) Engineering strategy
(20:21) Examples of engineering strategies
(25:08) How to get good at strategy
(26:48) The importance of writing about things that excite you
(32:40) The biggest risk to content creation is quitting too soon
(35:24) How to make time for writing
(37:41) Tips for aspiring writers
(41:18) Building productive relationships between product managers and engineers
(43:45) Giving the same performance rating to EMs and PMs
(48:24) Measuring engineering productivity
(55:53) Defining company values
(01:02:10) Failure corner: the Digg rewrite
(01:11:05) Will’s upcoming book, The Engineering Executive’s Primer
(01:12:04) Lightning round
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Referenced:
• The end of the “free money” era: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/apr/11/techscape-zirp-tech-boom
• Work on what matters: https://lethain.com/work-on-what-matters/
• Sheryl Sandberg to Harvard Biz Grads: “Find a Rocket Ship”: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/05/24/sheryl-sandberg-to-harvard-biz-grads-find-a-rocket-ship/?sh=708c9a93b37a
• What Is Systems Thinking?: https://www.snhu.edu/about-us/newsroom/business/what-is-systems-thinking
• Introduction to systems thinking: https://lethain.com/systems-thinking/
• Thinking in Systems: https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/1603580557
• Silent Spring: https://www.amazon.com/Silent-Spring-Rachel-Carson/dp/0618249060
• Writing an engineering strategy: https://lethain.com/eng-strategies/
• Carta: https://carta.com/
• Eric Vogl on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericvogl/
• Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The difference and why it matters: https://www.amazon.com/Good-Strategy-Bad-difference-matters/dp/1781256179
• The Crux: How Leaders Become Strategists: https://www.amazon.com/Crux-How-Leaders-Become-Strategists/dp/1541701240/
• How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything in Between: https://www.amazon.com/How-Big-Things-Get-Done/dp/0593239512/
• Technology Strategy Patterns: Architecture as Strategy: https://www.amazon.com/Technology-Strategy-Patterns-Architecture/dp/1492040878/
• The Value Flywheel Effect: Power the Future and Accelerate Your Organization to the Modern Cloud: https://www.amazon.com/Value-Flywheel-Effect-Accelerate-Organization/dp/1950508579
• The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win: https://www.amazon.com/Phoenix-Project-DevOps-Helping-Business/dp/1942788290
• The Engineering Executive’s Primer: Impactful Technical Leadership: https://www.amazon.com/Engineering-Executives-Primer-Impactful-Leadership/dp/1098149483
• An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management: https://press.stripe.com/an-elegant-puzzle
• Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track: https://www.amazon.com/Staff-Engineer-Leadership-beyond-management-ebook/dp/B08RMSHYGG
• Gergely Orosz’s newsletter: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/author/gergely/
• Leaving big tech to build the #1 technology newsletter | Gergely Orosz (The Pragmatic Engineer): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/videos/leaving-big-tech-to-build-the-1-technology-newsletter-gergely-orosz-the-pragmatic-engineer/
• The art of product management | Shreyas Doshi (Stripe, Twitter, Google, Yahoo): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/videos/the-art-of-product-management-shreyas-doshi-stripe-twitter-google-yahoo/
• Henry Ward on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heward/
• Vrushali Paunikar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vrushali-paunikar/
• Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations: https://www.amazon.com/Accelerate-Software-Performing-Technology-Organizations/dp/1942788339
• How to measure and improve developer productivity | Nicole Forsgren (Microsoft Research, GitHub, Google): https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-measure-and-improve-developer-productivity-nicole-forsgren-microsoft-research-github-goo/
• DORA: https://dora.dev/
• Setting engineering org values: https://lethain.com/setting-engineering-org-values/
• Digg: https://digg.com/
• Kevin Rose on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinrose/
• Digg’s v4 launch: an optimism born of necessity: https://lethain.com/digg-v4/
• Dash Gopinath on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dashgopinath/
• Rich Schumacher on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richschumacher/
• The ALL NEW Don’t Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate: https://www.amazon.com/ALL-NEW-Dont-Think-Elephant-ebook/dp/B00NP9LHFA
• Top Chef on Peacock: https://www.peacocktv.com/watch-online/tv/top-chef/5172289448907967112
• Hard to work with: https://lethain.com/hard-to-work-with/
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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
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