Tech Lead Journal

“Emotional intelligence is about knowing yourself, empathizing with other people, and always defining a win-win outcome in everything you do." Trenton Moss is the founder of Team Sterka and the author of “Human Powered”. In this episode, Trenton shared the importance of having good emotional intelligence and people skills in digital product teams. He shared the 6 key skills we need to succeed as outlined in his book: conflict resolution, building strong relationships, leading and influencing, facilitation, storytelling, and outbound communications. Trenton also shared some frameworks we can use to improve some of those skills, such as PLEASE, MASTER, and LEAD frameworks. And throughout our conversation, Trenton emphasized multiple times the importance of achieving the win-win outcome in every interaction we have with each other. Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:05:37] Importance of People Skills - [00:10:07] Emotional Intelligence - [00:12:52] 6 Key Skills - [00:20:45] Win-Win Outcome - [00:22:58] Conflict Resolution & PLEASE Framework - [00:24:59] Improving Conflict Resolution Skill - [00:29:54] Active Listening - [00:33:10] Strong Relationships - [00:36:50] MASTER Framework - [00:38:43] Negative Behaviors - [00:45:05] Leading & Influencing & LEAD - [00:48:47] Over-communication - [00:51:47] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:55:36] _____ Trenton Moss’s Bio Trenton is a business leader, trainer and coach who inspires everyone around him to achieve more than they think they can. His bestselling book, ‘Human Powered’, was published last year. It helps you gain all the people skills and EQ you need to succeed. He’s the founder and head coach at Team Sterka, a training and coaching business that creates high-performing teams. Previously, Trenton spent 15 years as founder and CEO at one of the UK’s first product design consultancies, Webcredible. When he’s not working, you’ll usually find him running around after his kids. Or sleeping. He loves a post-lunch power nap. Follow Trenton: LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/trentonmoss Twitter – @trentonmoss100 Team Sterka – https://sterka.team/ _____ Our Sponsors Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones. Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends. Like this episode? Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Pledge your support by becoming a patron. For episode show notes, visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/116.

“An engineering manager should make sure that the team has a good balance of delivering things that the business needs with enough capacity to do it sustainably over time." Today's clip is from episode 94 with Patrick Kua. In this clip, we discussed Pat’s latest course, Engineering Manager Essentials.  We discussed what an engineering manager role is, how it differs from a Tech Lead role, and the common manager versus IC career track. Pat also shared his view on why being an engineering manager is not a promotion. Listen out for: Engineering Manager Essentials - [00:00:50] The Role of Engineering Manager - [00:02:46] Difference With Tech Lead - [00:05:43] Manager and IC Paths - [00:07:53] EM Is Not a Promotion - [00:12:27] _____ Patrick Kua’s Bio Patrick Kua is a seasoned technology leader with almost 20 years of experience. His personal passion is accelerating the growth and success of tech organisations and technical leaders. He has had many years of hands-on experience, leading, managing and improving complex organisations and software systems as the CTO and Chief Scientist of N26 (Berlin, Germany) and as a Technical Principal Consultant at ThoughtWorks. He is a frequent keynote and conference speaker, author of three books including “The Retrospective Handbook“, “Talking with Tech Leads“ and “Building Evolutionary Architectures“ and runs the free popular newsletter for leaders in tech, “Level Up” and the “Tech Lead Academy“, offering online training for technical leaders, or running his very popular “Shortcut to Tech Leadership“ workshop. Follow Patrick: Website – https://patkua.com/ Twitter – @patkua LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/patkua/ EM Essentials Course – https://www.patkua.com/em-essentials/ Tech Lead Academy – https://techlead.academy/ Level Up Newsletter – https://levelup.patkua.com/ _____ Our Sponsors Mental well-being is a silent pandemic. According to the WHO, depression and anxiety cost the global economy over USD 1 trillion every year. It’s time to make a difference! Learn how to enhance your lives through a master class on mental wellness. Visit founderswellbeing.com/masterclass and enter TLJ20 for a 20% discount. Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones. Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends. Like this episode? Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and submit your feedback. Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Pledge your support by becoming a patron. For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/94.

“Interactions with domain experts play a key role in implementing software. You have to make sure that you understand the problem you’re solving. You cannot provide a software solution without understanding the problem first." Today's clip is from episode 76 with Vladik Khononov, the author of “Learning Domain-Driven Design”. In this clip, Vladik shared why understanding business domain is crucial in software engineering and how DDD can help build the shared understanding between the domain experts and software engineers. Vlad also explained the importance of DDD's strategic design. Listen out for: Importance of Understanding Business Domain - [00:00:51] How Domain-Driven Design Helps - [00:06:21] DDD Strategic Design - [00:10:30] _____ Vladik Khononov’s Bio Vlad (Vladik) Khononov is a software engineer with over 20 years of industry experience, during which he has worked for companies large and small in roles ranging from webmaster to chief architect. Vlad maintains an active media career as an author, public speaker, and blogger. He travels the world consulting and talking about domain-driven design, microservices, and software architecture in general. Vladik lives in Northern Israel with his wife and an almost-reasonable number of cats. Follow Vladik: Twitter – @vladikk LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/vladikkhononov/ Website – https://vladikk.com/ _____ Our Sponsors Mental well-being is a silent pandemic. According to the WHO, depression and anxiety cost the global economy over USD 1 trillion every year. It’s time to make a difference! Learn how to enhance your lives through a master class on mental wellness. Visit founderswellbeing.com/masterclass and enter TLJ20 for a 20% discount. Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones. Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends. Like this episode? Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and submit your feedback. Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Pledge your support by becoming a patron. For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/76.

“The simplest way to describe craftsmanship is pride of workmanship. It is the mindset that you are working on something important and you are going to do it well." Today's clip is from episode 90 with Robert C. Martin, more widely known as Uncle Bob. In this clip, Uncle Bob shared some insights from his latest book, “Clean Craftsmanship”. He shared the current major challenge of the software development industry as a young discipline, which drove Uncle Bob writing the book to help define disciplines, standards, and ethics for software craftsmanship. He also touched on the five key disciplines of clean craftsmanship. Listen out for: Clean Craftsmanship - [00:00:55] Programmer as a Profession - [00:05:32] Craftsmanship - [00:08:46] Disciplines - [00:12:46] _____ Robert C. Martin’s Bio Robert Martin (Uncle Bob) has been a programmer since 1970. He is the co-founder of the online video training company cleancoders.com and founder of Uncle Bob Consulting LLC. He served as Master Craftsman at 8th Light inc and is an acclaimed speaker at conferences worldwide. He is a profilic writer and has published hundreds of articles, papers, blogs, and best-selling books including: “The Clean Coder”, “Clean Code”, “Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices”, and “Clean Architecture”. He also served as the Editor-in-chief of the C++ Report and as the first chairman of the Agile Alliance. Follow Uncle Bob: Twitter – @unclebobmartin Clean Coder – http://cleancoder.com Clean Coders – https://cleancoders.com GitHub – https://github.com/unclebob _____ Our Sponsors Mental well-being is a silent pandemic. According to the WHO, depression and anxiety cost the global economy over USD 1 trillion every year. It’s time to make a difference! Learn how to enhance your lives through a master class on mental wellness. Visit founderswellbeing.com/masterclass and enter TLJ20 for a 20% discount. Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones. Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends. Like this episode? Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and submit your feedback. Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Pledge your support by becoming a patron. For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/90.

Instead of being given a roadmap of features, an empowered team is given a problem to solve and they get to figure out the best way to solve that problem." Today's clip is from episode 102 with Marty Cagan, the founder of the Silicon Valley Product Group and the author of “Inspired” and “Empowered”. In this clip, Marty explained the importance of building the right product and shared the two inconvenient truths about building products. Marty then elaborated on the traits a good product team has and how to create an empowered product team. Listen out for: Writing Inspired & Empowered - [00:00:51] Building the Right Product - [00:05:36] Two Inconvenient Truths - [00:06:57] Traits of Good Product Teams - [00:11:19] Engineering Involvement - [00:14:06] Empowered - [00:15:57] _____ Our Sponsors Mental well-being is a silent pandemic. According to the WHO, depression and anxiety cost the global economy over USD 1 trillion every year. It’s time to make a difference! Learn how to enhance your lives through a master class on mental wellness. Visit founderswellbeing.com/masterclass and enter TLJ20 for a 20% discount. Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones. Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends. Like this episode? Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and submit your feedback. Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Pledge your support by becoming a patron. For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/102.

“Engineering discipline is the most effective, efficient way of doing high-quality work. If our software development practices do not allow us to build better software faster, we should really change them because they are not engineering." Today's clip is from Tech Lead Journal episode 100 with Dave Farley, the one who runs the popular "Continuous Delivery" YouTube channel, and also the author of "Continuous Delivery" and the latest book, "Modern Software Engineering". In this clip, Dave explained his view on modern software engineering and why it emphasizes on the practices for building better software faster. Dave described the foundations of the software engineering discipline and explained the core competencies we need to succeed by becoming experts at learning.  Listen out for: Modern Software Engineering - [00:00:59] Better Software Faster - [00:03:37] Software Engineering - [00:06:01] Expert at Learning - [00:09:16] _____ Dave Farley’s Bio Dave Farley, founder and consultant for Continuous Delivery Ltd., has been a programmer, software engineer, and systems architect since the early days of modern computing. With Jez Humble, Farley coauthored the best-seller Continuous Delivery. As Head of Software Development for the LMAX, he built one of the world’s fastest financial exchanges. One of the earliest adopters of agile techniques employing iterative development, continuous integration, and high levels of automated testing, he also coauthored the Reactive Manifesto. Follow Dave: Twitter – @DaveFarley77 LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-farley-a67927 Youtube – https://www.youtube.com/c/ContinuousDelivery Website – https://countinuous-delivery.co.uk Courses – https://courses.cd.training _____ Our Sponsors Mental well-being is a silent pandemic. According to the WHO, depression and anxiety cost the global economy over USD 1 trillion every year. It’s time to make a difference! Learn how to enhance your lives through a master class on mental wellness. Visit founderswellbeing.com/masterclass and enter TLJ20 for a 20% discount. Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones. Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends. Like this episode? Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and submit your feedback. Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Pledge your support by becoming a patron. For more info about the episode (including quotes and transcript), visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/100.

“Every organization has a mission, a vision, and a set of values. As a leader, your number one task is to live those values and talk about them at every opportunity with your team to create alignment." Manoj Awasthi is the CTO at JULO and previously the SVP of Engineering at Tokopedia. In this episode, Manoj shared engineering leadership lessons from his recent experiences. Manoj started by describing the role of a senior engineering leader before then explaining some important aspects of engineering leadership, such as scaling up engineering team, hiring engineers and engineering managers, creating culture alignment, putting in place engineering governance, and maintaining engineering productivity. Towards the end, Manoj shared some of his important lessons learned before ending by sharing his tech leadership wisdom. Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:05:46] Role of Senior Engineering Leader - [00:15:02] Scaling Engineering Team - [00:21:31] Hiring Engineers - [00:24:28] Hiring Engineering Managers/Leaders - [00:27:06] Aligning Culture - [00:28:47] Engineering Governance - [00:32:25] Maintaining Engineering Productivity - [00:35:58] Sharing Lessons Learned - [00:39:12] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:41:39] _____ Manoj Awasthi’s Bio Manoj Awasthi is the CTO at JULO, a fintech startup based in Jakarta. Prior to JULO, Manoj spent more than six years leading technology teams at Tokopedia wearing multiple hats during the growth years of Tokopedia from 2016 until 2022 as it scaled. During this time, he witnessed the tech team growing from 80 people to 2000+. He is a techie at heart, has a natural empathy for people and believes that wonders can happen through the alignment of teams towards a clear goal. When he is not working, he can be found either reading a book (almost every day) or having quality time with his family. Follow Manoj: LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/manojawasthi/ Twitter – @awmanoj GitHub – github.com/awmanoj Blog – awmanoj.github.io/ _____ Our Sponsors Mental well-being is a silent pandemic. According to the WHO, depression and anxiety cost the global economy over USD 1 trillion every year. It’s time to make a difference! Learn how to enhance your lives through a master class on mental wellness. Visit founderswellbeing.com/masterclass and enter TLJ20 for a 20% discount. Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones. Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends. Like this episode? Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Pledge your support by becoming a patron. For episode show notes, visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/115.

“Intrinsic motivation is a great predictor of success. When people are doing things they feel intrinsically motivated to do, they tend to be much more successful." Matt K. Parker is the author of “A Radical Enterprise”. In this episode, Matt started by sharing his views on the underlying causes of the great resignation trend, which includes the dominator hierarchies. Matt then explained in-depth the four key imperatives mentioned in his book that organizations must practice for establishing radical collaboration, which are: (i) team autonomy, (ii) managerial devolution, (iii) deficiency gratification, and (iv) candid vulnerability. Matt also touched on several other interesting concepts, such as how to establish autonomy while minimising chaos, the concept of a dynamic and contextual leadership, and a few alternatives for structuring the salary and compensation in a devolved organization. Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:05:14] Great Resignation - [00:10:51] Dominator Hierarchies - [00:15:26] 4 Imperatives - [00:19:12] Imperative 1: Team Autonomy - [00:26:14] Autonomy Without Chaos - [00:32:25] Imperative 2: Managerial Devolution - [00:37:15] Dynamic & Contextual Leadership - [00:41:46] Salary & Compensation - [00:44:30] Imperative 3: Deficiency Gratification - [00:50:49] Imperative 4: Candid Vulnerability - [00:54:23] Applying Radical Collaboration - [00:59:54] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [01:02:42] _____ Matt K. Parker’s Bio Matt K. Parker is a writer, speaker, researcher, and third-generation programmer. Over the last two decades, he’s played a variety of roles in the software industry, including developer, manager, director, and global head of engineering. He has specialized in hyper-iterative software practices for the last decade, and is currently researching the experience of radically collaborative software makers. He lives in a small village in Connecticut with his wife and three children. Follow Matt: Website – mattkparker.com Twitter – @realMattKParker LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/matt-k-parker/ Email – matt@mattkparker.com _____ Our Sponsors Mental well-being is a silent pandemic. According to the WHO, depression and anxiety cost the global economy over USD 1 trillion every year. It’s time to make a difference! Learn how to enhance your lives through a master class on mental wellness. Visit founderswellbeing.com/masterclass and enter TLJ20 for a 20% discount. Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones. Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends. Like this episode? Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Pledge your support by becoming a patron. For episode show notes, visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/114.

“An ADR is a simple text file describing the context, the decision, and the consequences of a single architectural decision stored in the version control repository." Michael Keeling is an experienced software engineer, architect, and the author of “Design It!: From Programmer to Software Architect”. In this episode, Michael shared in-depth about ADR. He first shared his story of discovering ADR before describing what an ADR is. Michael then shared the objectives and benefits of using ADR to record architecture decisions and explained the key behavior changes happening when we practise ADR. Towards the end, Michael shared a few practical tips on creating and updating ADR, some patterns and anti-patterns he observed from his experience, and suggestions on how we can practise ADR effectively as a team. Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:05:02] Discovering ADR - [00:07:05] ADR - [00:08:57] ADR Objectives - [00:11:18] Facilitating Good Design - [00:12:31] Not Capturing Design Decisions - [00:15:06] Distance Between Developers and Design - [00:17:19] Key Behaviour Changes - [00:19:11] Recent Popularity - [00:22:11] ADR Tips - [00:24:31] When to Create an ADR - [00:26:36] Updating Previous ADR - [00:27:55] Diagrams - [00:29:28] ADR Patterns - [00:31:06] ADR Anti-Patterns - [00:32:48] Doing ADR as a Team - [00:34:25] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:37:05] _____ Michael Keeling’s Bio Michael Keeling is a software engineer at Kiavi and the author of Design It!: From Programmer to Software Architect. Prior to Kiavi, he worked at IBM on the Watson Discovery Service and has experience with a variety of software systems including service-oriented architectures, enterprise search systems, and even combat systems. Michael is an award-winning speaker and regularly participates in the architecture and agile communities. He holds a Masters in Software Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a BS in Computer Science from the College of William and Mary. His current research interests include software design methods, patterns, and human factors of software engineering. Follow Michael: Twitter – @michaelkeeling LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/michaelkeeling Website – www.neverletdown.net _____ Our Sponsors Mental well-being is a silent pandemic. According to the WHO, depression and anxiety cost the global economy over USD 1 trillion every year. It’s time to make a difference! Learn how to enhance your lives through a master class on mental wellness. Visit founderswellbeing.com/masterclass and enter TLJ20 for a 20% discount. Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. You get on-demand access to their latest content, thought leadership insights as well as the exciting schedule of tech events running across all time zones. Head on over to skillsmatter.com to become part of the tech community that matters most to you - it’s free to join and easy to keep up with the latest tech trends. Like this episode? Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Pledge your support by becoming a patron. For episode show notes, visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/113.

“Developer experience is an approach to thinking about engineering excellence and maximizing engineering performance by increasing the capacity and performance of the individuals and the team as a whole." Abi Noda is the CEO & co-founder of DX. In this episode, Abi started by sharing what developer experience is, why it is becoming an industry trend nowadays, and the different ways of how it is being implemented in the industry. Abi explained why the traditional metrics normally used to measure developer productivity do not really work and can even provide perverse incentives. Abi then touched on the two popular researches widely known in the industry, i.e. the DORA report and SPACE framework, before then explained how DX is building on top of both researches to provide the measurements and KPIs to measure developer experience and productivity. Towards the end, Abi shared his advice on how we can start investing in improving developer experience, including when to form a dedicated team and getting the buy-in from company executives. Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:06:22] Developer Productivity Industry Trend - [00:09:14] Developer Experience for Developers - [00:11:28] Different Names of Developer Experience - [00:13:30] Traditional Metrics - [00:17:15] DORA & SPACE - [00:21:16] DX Measurements - [00:26:30] DX KPIs - [00:32:01] Starting With Developer Experience - [00:36:49] Developer Experience Team - [00:40:49] Building a Case for Developer Experience - [00:43:08] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:46:18] _____ Abi Noda’s Bio Abi is the founder and CEO of getdx.com, which helps engineering leaders measure and improve developer experience. Abi formerly founded Pull Panda, which was acquired by GitHub. Follow Abi: LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/abinoda Twitter – @abinoda Website – abinoda.com DX – getdx.com Software Engineering Research – abinoda.substack.com _____ Our Sponsors Mental well-being is a silent pandemic. According to the WHO, depression and anxiety cost the global economy over USD 1 trillion every year. It’s time to make a difference! Learn how to enhance your lives through a master class on mental wellness. Visit founderswellbeing.com/masterclass and enter TLJ20 for a 20% discount. DevTernity 2022 (devternity.com) is the top international software development conference with an emphasis on coding, architecture, and tech leadership skills. The lineup is truly stellar and features many legends of software development like Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin, Kent Beck, and many others! The conference takes place online, and we have the 10% discount code for you: AWSM_TLJ. Like this episode? Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Pledge your support by becoming a patron. For episode show notes, visit techleadjournal.dev/episodes/112.