Interview with Tim Olshansky, EVP of Product & Engineering at Zenput on creating a software engineer career ladder for your own team.This isn't a template you can just copy and paste, then forget it ever even existed. This is a guide to creating a meaningful engineering career ladder from Tim, who has been through it more than once.In this interview we're covering:Building a software engineer career ladder at ZenputThe first steps of building a career ladderPeople to involve in the processKey differences between the career levelsThe importance of experience in the career ladderThe transition to engineering managementThe role of engineering leaders and managers in the career ladderUpdating your engineering career ladderCommon mistakes in creating software engineer career laddersExcerpt from the interview:"The first four levels of the engineering career ladder are about writing code. Engineers on these levels do their part in supporting their team too, but it isn’t their focus. As they move beyond the senior engineer level, supporting the team becomes their priority.Either they choose engineering management and do one-on-ones, feedback sessions, and everything that comes with it, or they pick technical leadership, and help people make the right technology decisions.They end up working with people on the highest levels either way."Click here to read the full interview!

Interview with Ola Sitarska, Engineering Lead at Onfido about addressing diversity and inclusion at the base level: integrating these values into your recruitment process.Why do you want to put up the effort? How do you balance it with hiring the most competent developers? What goals are realistic? You get these answers and more right here.In this interview we're covering:The difference between diversity and inclusionHow to balance hiring for diversity and competenceWhat makes an inclusive hiring processObstacles in implementing diversity in recruitingFirst steps to make your hiring process more diverseHow to make your interviews inclusiveHow to encourage your team to be more inclusiveExcerpt from the interview:"When you’re running a business, you always want to hire the best candidates. Increasing diversity and inclusion broadens the pool of qualified candidates applying to work at your company.If the pool is limited, then your ability to hire the best is limited as well. You always want to work towards broadening the pool of exceptional people who may have gone through a non-traditional path in their career.My story is an example of this..."Click here to read the full interview!

Software engineers, like any other person can get stuck. Their personal development slows down, their career may not move in the direction they want to go to.Great engineering managers and leaders can do a lot to stop that from happening, facilitate growth for their developers and advancement from junior engineer to the senior level and beyond that. Get the know-how from Farhan Thawar, VP of Engineering, Shopify!In this interview we're covering:Differences between a junior and a senior engineerThe best way to level up coding skillsPotential career roadmaps in software developmentA manager's methods to develop the career of their engineersA company's options to facilitate professional developmentCreating a career plan in software engineeringMotivating developers to keep honing their craftIncorporating soft skills trainingExcerpt from the interview:"I was talking to one of our senior developers about a promotion. The next career level from there is either staff engineer or engineering manager. This person was interested in the staff engineer route.We figured out that to move up the ladder, this person at this time needed to have an impact beyond his group. Helping with building software for Shopify in a broader context is the job of a staff engineer. So this person shifted focus toward that.We checked in again after six months. He was doing well, and he was about to receive the promotion, but it turns out that he didn’t enjoy the staff engineer work. He saw how it would broaden his skills, how he’d work with other groups, and he didn’t want to do that.Here's what we did..."Click here to read the full interview!

GitHub versus Facebook feedback culture comparison with a breakdown of their key elements and cultural differences. Learn the secrets of a healthy feedback culture both on an organizational and personal level from Ryan Nystrom, Director of Engineering at GitHub.In this interview we're covering:The essential elements of a big company's feedback cultureGitHub vs Facebook feedback culture comparisonFormal performance reviews at GitHubThe benefits of a healthy feedback cultureCrucial elements to build a feedback cultureKeeping feedback usefulHandling strong emotional reactions to feedbackA leader's role in a good feedback cultureGathering feedback as an engineering leaderWhen to avoid giving feedback face to faceHR's involvement in GitHub's feedback cultureExcerpt from the interview:"When I’m encouraging people to share feedback, I tell them to consider their feedback a data point. I used to be nervous about giving critical feedback about others, because I didn’t want to cause trouble for them.As a director, if I hear one thing from one person, but I don’t hear it from anyone else, I consider it a small issue. I’ll look into it and ask around if others are observing the same thing. If I see more corroborating evidence, only then will I consider acting on it.No one is exclusively responsible for the consequences coming from their feedback."Click here to read the full interview!

James Stanier, SVP of Engineering at Brandwatch, shares tips on effective one-on-one meetings for engineering managers, including handling challenging personalities, preparing for meetings, giving critical feedback, and common mistakes to avoid. He emphasizes the importance of listening to frustrated team members and turning negativity into constructive energy.

Building trust across the board and becoming familiar with the whole context of a company is a common challenge for engineering leaders and managers as they transition to a new workplace. Nadia Alramli explains HubSpot's process to set up newly hired managers for their role.In this interview we're covering:The challenges of transitioning to a new company as an engineering leaderHubSpot's engineering leader onboarding processThe idea behind the processDifferences between the leadership onboarding and the engineer onboarding experienceThe documentation of the processThe crucial factorsMeasuring the successAlternatives of HubSpot's manager onboarding processExcerpt from the interview:"Engineering leaders during the embedding process don’t have privileged access to information, nor management responsibilities. They’re expected to focus exclusively on doing an individual contributor’s job. They take the same training courses and go through the same engineer onboarding process as everyone else.Leaders and managers are switching between the different engineering teams they will be responsible for in this period. They’re building features, fixing bugs, and reporting to the manager of the team they’re working with at the time.The embedding experience is a great way to learn HubSpot’s tech stack, the product details, and the guiding principles. But really, it’s all about the relationships you get to build with the engineers. The whole point is the trust you build."Click here to read the full interview!

Learn how to build an engineering team that not only survives under pressure, but consistently gets better. Adam Wolff explains the key ideas you need to know to make your team antifragile, and shows you how they've worked out through his personal experience from Robinhood and Facebook.In this interview we're covering:Concepts of antifragilityInternal and external sources of stress for engineering teamsNecessary characteristics of an antifragile engineering teamAgile methods and antifragilityHow to measure antifragility in an engineering teamThe leader's contribution to antifragilityHow to make an agile team antifragileHiring for antifragilityExcerpt from the interview:"What I don't like about agile is that it's become more like a cult than a set of ideas. It has great basics, like the team should get together every day to discuss what they're doing, or to run development in a few weeks of increments. Agile also preserves optionality well if development doesn’t go smoothly.What I sometimes miss from agile software development is the longer arc.Agile can be surprisingly short-sighted. You set a goal, and you work towards that in two-week increments. It lacks the moments where you consider a black swan event and the monthly checkpoints where you make sure if you’re still building the right product..."Click here to read the full interview!

Learn the basics of engineering leadership from seasoned veteran and praised writer of the leadership world: Michael Lopp a. k. a. "Rands". Everything you need to know is in this interview, so you won't have to learn the hard way, like Michael did.In this interview we're covering:The biggest challenge in leadershipMastering the finer points of leadershipThe biggest takeaway from decades of leadership experienceTraits and skills of great engineering leadersDaily practices of engineering leadershipBuilding your influenceCommon mistakes in engineering leadershipBuilding a personal brand as a leaderDelegating effectivelyExcerpt from the interview:"Engineering leadership is all about your ability to delegate, and it’s hard to do.You get a big task, hand it to an engineer on your team, and you’re not doing the actual work. Maybe you slice it up into different tasks, and then give it to others. This is fundamentally tough for engineers, because we like building things ourselves.Leaders don't get to do any of this work. Management is a ton of work, but you don’t do testing, don’t improve performance, don’t do anything that’s been your work as an engineer."Click here to read the full interview!

Do you want access to the best talent out there in the tech world? Obviously. This is why you need to build your engineering employer brand. You aren't Google or Netflix, you may not even become them, but you can make yourself visible in the right way to the right people, and you can get them into your organization. Learn pro tips from Sarah Wells, Technical Director at Financial Times!In this interview we're covering:Synchronizing the engineering brand coexisting with the company brandThe challenges of building an engineering employer brandThe key elements of a powerful engineering brandThe tools to build your engineering brandThe first steps to building your employer brand in engineeringInvolving your employees in facilitating your brandKeeping your employer brand consistent across different officesOrganizing an internal tech conferenceThe results of investing into the FInancial Times' engineering brandExcerpt from the interview:"The Financial Times came up with a list of cultural values about a year ago that we wanted to demonstrate. I attended a workshop with people from all over the company to figure out how to demonstrate these values. Some key values were creativity, trust and integrity; I focused on creativity.I found it interesting that many suggestions coming from other departments were ones engineering had been doing naturally. The 10% days came up as an idea, but in product and technology, we've been doing 10% days for a long time.This shows there’s a fit in our overall values, but each department ends up being specifically focused on their own area. We write software and operate systems, so that leads to inherent differences."Click here to read the full interview!

Learn the top time management and productivity tips, tricks, hacks and practices engineering managers use to get on top of their endless mountain of work. Profit from the hard-earned experience of Matt Martin, CEO of Clockwise to become the best manager you can be!In this interview we're covering:Time management 101 for managersHow to do a calendar auditHow to use time dedicated to proactive managementMetrics of productivity for managersHow to develop team membersDelegating tasksHow to handle your emailsHow to lead meetings productivelyProductivity myths managers should avoidThe signs of good time management for managersExcerpt from the interview:"I've struggled with delegating effectively in the past. It's easy for managers at all levels to take on more work than they need to.The toughest thing about delegating is that you’re often better at doing a task. Usually, you get promoted for a reason. You know the context, you have the information, and you've probably been a great individual contributor.You might be the best person for a task, but that doesn't mean you should do it. If there's an opportunity to put a task on a team member, think critically about delegating it to them."Click here to read the full interview!