Tech Lead Journal

“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." Patrick Kua is a seasoned technology leader with a passion to accelerate the growth and success of tech organisations and technical leaders. In this episode, we discussed Pat’s latest course, Engineering Manager Essentials, which covers all the building blocks required to be an effective Engineering Manager (EM). We first discussed what an EM role is, how it differs from a tech lead role, and the common manager vs IC career track. Pat shared his view on why being an EM is not a promotion and what are some of the success criteria to be a good EM. Towards the end, Pat shared some anti-patterns that EM should avoid to become successful. Listen out for: Pat’s Latest - [00:07:30] Engineering Manager Essentials - [00:09:25] The Role of Engineering Manager - [00:11:21] Difference With Tech Lead - [00:14:19] Manager and IC Paths - [00:16:28] EM Is Not a Promotion - [00:21:02] EM Success Criteria - [00:28:08] Multiplier Instead of Maker - [00:30:48] Course Structure - [00:33:21] Interviewing EM - [00:37:20] Antipattern 1: Continuing as a Maker - [00:39:58] Antipattern 2: Assuming Everyone Knows What You Do - [00:43:01] Antipattern 3: Optimizing Parts Instead of The Whole - [00:48:34] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:51:30] _____ Patrick Kua’s Bio Patrick Kua is a seasoned technology leader with 20+ years of experience having done a wide variety of roles including being a developer, tech lead, consultant, CTO and more. His current mission is accelerating the growth of technical leaders through coaching, mentoring and training. 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 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, Scott Hanselman, Venkat Subramaniam, Kevlin Henney, and many others! The conference takes place online, and we have the 10% discount code for you: AWSM_TLJ. Skills Matter is the global community and events platform for software professionals. It is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. 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.

“We want to write as little software as possible, and we want it to have as much value as possible. If you actually focus on that, it means you have to be close to your customer." Dave Thomas is the founder & chairman of Bedarra Corp, creator of IBM Smalltalk, VisualAge for Java, Eclipse, Kx Analyst workbench and Skills Matter YOW! Australia conferences. In this episode, Dave shared about his personal research, 42D, on ideas we can use to develop high-value software rapidly. He started by describing the current developer’s productivity challenges and touched on the idea that big is not better, relating to the size of the team and code base, and how development tools are becoming more complicated and complex. We then discussed the importance of developers understanding domain knowledge, leveraging tools such as decision tables and spreadsheets, and how the choice of programming language actually matters. Towards the end, Dave shared about using a data-centric approach to deal with legacy systems and his perspective on query as the future of programming. Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:06:17] 42D - [00:15:26] Developer Productivity Challenge - [00:16:37] Maximum Value, Maximum Speed - [00:19:53] Big is Not Better - [00:21:24] Tools Getting More Complex - [00:26:43] Importance of Domain Knowledge - [00:31:02] Decision Tables and Spreadsheets - [00:39:10] Importance of Programming Languages - [00:41:55] Data-Centric Approach with Legacy - [00:47:02] Future Programming is Query - [00:50:51] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:54:31] _____ Dave Thomas’s Bio Dave Thomas is the founder and chairman of the YOW! Australia and Lambda Jam conferences, and is a GOTO Conference Fellow. He served as the Chief Scientists of KX Systems and the Managing Director of Object Mentor. Dave also co-founded Object Technology International, becoming CEO of IBM OTI Labs after its sale to IBM. Nowadays, Dave is the Chairman of Bedarra Corp, a company he co-founded that created the Ivy visual analytics workbench. Dave is recognized as an ACM Distinguished Engineer for his contributions to Object Technology, which includes IBM VisualAge and Eclipse IDEs, Smalltalk, and Java virtual machines. Follow Dave: Twitter – @daveathomas LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidathomas Website – http://www.davethomas.net Email – dave@bedarra.com Our Sponsor Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals. Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. 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/93.

“Testing is an activity that happens throughout. It is not a phase that happens at the end. Start thinking about the risks at the very beginning, and how we are going to mitigate those with testing." Janet Gregory and Lisa Crispin are the co-authors of several books on Agile Testing and the co-founders of Agile Testing Fellowship. In this episode, Janet and Lisa shared the agile testing concept and mindset with an emphasis on the whole team approach, which was then followed by an explanation of the holistic testing concept with a complete walkthrough how we can use the approach in our product development cycle, including how Continuous Delivery fits into holistic testing. Janet and Lisa also described some important concepts in agile testing, such as the agile testing quadrants (to help classify our tests) and the power of three (aka the Three Amigos). Towards the end, Janet and Lisa also shared their perspective on exploratory testing and testing in production. Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:06:35] Agile Testing - [00:13:56] Whole Team - [00:15:17] Agile Testing Mindset - [00:19:19] Holistic Testing - [00:24:42] Continuous Delivery - [00:34:53] Agile Testing Quadrants - [00:39:03] The Power of Three - [00:42:50] Exploratory Testing - [00:47:08] Testing in Production - [00:50:49] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:54:10] _____ Follow Janet and Lisa: Janet’s Website – https://janetgregory.ca Janet’s Twitter – @janetgregoryca Janet’s Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/janetgregory Lisa’s Website – https://lisacrispin.com Lisa’s Twitter – @lisacrispin Lisa’s Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-crispin-88420a Agile Tester Blog – https://agiletester.ca/blog Agile Testing Fellowship Website – https://agiletestingfellow.com Our Sponsor Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals. Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. 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/92.

"Pull, don’t push. Don’t tell people what to do. Tell them what results you want and let them figure out how best to achieve the outcome that’s needed." Mary & Tom Poppendieck are the co-authors of several books related to Agile and Lean, including their award-winning book “Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit” published in 2003. In this episode, Mary & Tom shared about lean software development, its principles and mindset, and the concept of a pull system. Mary & Tom then pointed out the problems of having proxies in software development and how it is much better to manage by the outcomes by having the people directly figuring out the best way to achieve those outcomes. Later on, Mary & Tom talked about the concept of flow, why it is important to optimize flow, and how to optimize flow by analyzing the value stream map and minimizing approval process. Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:05:26] Lean Software Development - [00:18:50] Pull, Don’t Push - [00:23:34] Proxies - [00:31:00] Managing by Outcome - [00:37:10] Optimizing Flow - [00:41:18] Value Stream Map & Approvals - [00:47:00] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:55:05] _____ Mary Poppendieck’s Bio Mary wrote the now-classic book “Lean Software Development: an Agile Toolkit”, proposing an approach which focuses on customers, respects software engineers, concentrates on learning, and leverages flow. Mary is a popular writer and speaker. Sequels of her first book include “Implementing Lean Software Development: from Concept to Cash”, “Leading Lean Software Development: Results are Not the Point” and “The Lean Mindset: Ask the Right Questions”. Tom Poppendieck’s Bio Tom has over three decades of experience in computing, including several years of work with object technology. Tom holds a PhD in Physics and has taught physics for ten years. He is the coauthor of four books: “Lean Software Development” (2003), “Implementing Lean Software Development” (2006), “Leading Lean Software Development” (2009) and “Lean Mindset” (2013). Follow Mary and Tom: Website – http://www.poppendieck.com/ Mary’s blog – http://www.leanessays.com/ Mary’s Twitter – @mpoppendieck Our Sponsor Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals. Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. 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/91.

“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." Robert C. Martin (aka Uncle Bob) is the co-founder of cleancoders.com, an acclaimed speaker at conferences worldwide, and prolific author of multiple best-selling books. In this episode, Uncle Bob shared some insights from his latest book, “Clean Craftsmanship”. He first started by sharing the current major challenge of the software development industry, i.e. as a young discipline, it suffers from the state of perpetual inexperience amid exponential acceleration of demand for programmers, which drove Uncle Bob writing the book to help define disciplines, standards and ethics for software craftsmanship. He then touched on the five key disciplines of clean craftsmanship, specifically focusing on test-driven development and refactoring. Towards the latter half, Uncle Bob described a few essential standards and ethics of clean craftsmanship, such as never ship s**t, always be ready, do no harm, and estimate honestly. Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:07:29] Clean Craftsmanship - [00:10:54] Programmer as a Profession - [00:15:31] Craftsmanship - [00:18:46] Disciplines - [00:22:45] Disciplines: Test-Driven Development - [00:28:50] Disciplines: Refactoring - [00:34:32] Code Coverage - [00:39:02] Standard: Never Ship S**t - [00:42:35] Standard: Always Be Ready - [00:47:16] Ethics: Do No Harm - [00:50:01] Ethics: Estimate Honestly - [00:53:56] 2 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:57:50] _____ 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 Sponsor Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals. Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. 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.

“The goal of software is often to sustain an organization. An organization invests in software in order to achieve some goal and hopefully to sustain itself in helping it achieve that goal." Mark Seemann is an acclaimed author, international speaker, and a highly experienced developer. In this episode, Mark shared some insights from his latest book, “Code That Fits in Your Head”, on how to write sustainable software and manage software complexity. Mark first started by sharing why he wrote this book and explained why software development is hard. He also pointed out the difference between software engineering and other physical engineering disciplines, especially on the set of constraints. Mark then explained the importance of writing sustainable software and shared the perspective that code is a liability instead of an asset. Towards the end, Mark shared about the Rule of 7 as a guideline to manage code complexity and a few practices we can use to build sustainable software, such as checklist, vertical slice, x-driven development, and command query separation. Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:06:26] Code That Fits in Your Head - [00:07:49] Software Development is Hard - [00:10:55] Software Engineering vs Physical Engineering - [00:15:01] Sustainable Software - [00:17:58] Code is a Liability - [00:19:55] Rule of 7 - [00:22:43] Checklist - [00:31:23] Vertical Slice - [00:35:52] X-Driven Development - [00:39:47] Command Query Separation - [00:45:07] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:49:38] _____ Mark Seemann’s Bio Mark Seemann is a bad economist who’s found a second career as a programmer, and he has worked as a web and enterprise developer since the late 1990s. As a young man, Mark wanted to become a rockstar, but unfortunately had neither the talent nor the looks – later, however, he became a Certified Rockstar Developer. He has also written a Jolt Award-winning book about Dependency Injection, given more than a 100 international conference talks, and authored video courses for both Pluralsight and Clean Coders. He has regularly published blog posts since 2006. He lives in Copenhagen with his wife and two children. Follow Mark: Website – https://blog.ploeh.dk Twitter – @ploeh LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/ploeh Our Sponsor Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals. Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. 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/89.

Liz Fong-Jones, co-author of the "Observability Engineering" book and Principal Developer Advocate for SRE and Observability at Honeycomb, discusses observability and its importance in the industry. She explains the core analysis loop, cardinality, and dimensionality, and the concept of debugging from first principles. She also talks about observability-driven development and the observability maturity model. Other topics include implementing observability, the challenges of understanding complex cloud-native microservices, and the importance of social alignment in observability.

“You don’t know what you don’t know. So when you’re learning something, it’s very hard to identify your own knowledge gaps, especially if you’re a programmer and you’re moving from one language to another." Jeremy Walker is the co-founder of Exercism and Kaido. In this episode, Jeremy first shared about Exercism, a not-for-profit online platform for learning different programming languages. He explained the importance of programming in the idiomatic way, the role of mentorship when learning new languages, and shared his experiences running Exercism as one of the largest open source program, such as how to get consensus and how to run remote distributed teams. Later, Jeremy then talked about Kaido, an employee culture platform for building happier, healthier, and better connected teams. He shared how companies could strive to do more to build company culture before then shared some practical tips on how we can improve our personal wellbeing. Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:05:08] Exercism - [00:08:24] Programming in Idiomatic Way - [00:11:34] Mentorship When Learning Languages - [00:13:52] Inclusiveness & Equality - [00:17:04] Running Large Open Source - [00:21:19] Getting Consensus - [00:27:11] Running Remote Distributed Teams - [00:30:42] Kaido for Wellbeing and Culture - [00:37:00] Tips on Personal Wellbeing - [00:43:40] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:49:13] _____ Jeremy Walker’s Bio Jeremy Walker is the co-founder of Exercism and Kaido. He is a software developer and entrepreneur who has been building tech businesses and not-for-profits for over 15 years. He is passionate about building great places to work and creating opportunity through education. In his space time he boulders and gets geeky about coffee. Follow Jeremy: Exercism – https://exercism.org/ Kaido – https://kaido.org/ Twitter – @iHiD LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/ihidjeremywalker/ GitHub – https://github.com/ihid Our Sponsor Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals. Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. 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/87.

“We need to consider our system that we built as sociotechnical systems. The system is more than the sum of its parts. It’s a product of their interactions. We need to focus on improving the performance of the whole, instead of separate parts of the system." Susanne Kaiser is the author of the upcoming book “Adaptive Systems with Domain-Driven Design, Wardley Mapping, and Team Topologies: Architecture for Flow”. In this episode, Susanne explained how she connected the dots between 3 different methodologies–Wardley Mapping, Domain-Driven Design, and Team Topologies–to design and build adaptive systems for a fast flow of change and why it is important for any organization to have adaptive systems. Susanne went in depth to explain about the Wardley Mapping strategic framework, its five sections, and how they support designing and evolving effective business strategies based on situational awareness and movement following a strategy cycle. She then explained how to translate from a Wardley map into Domain-Driven Design, how DDD helps in applying the Wardley Mapping doctrine principles, before then explaining how Team Topologies helps to create effective team boundaries and optimize team’s cognitive load. Towards the end, Susanne shared from her experience how we can apply this process in our organizations, as well as in legacy systems. Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:07:00] DDD, Wardley Mapping & Team Topologies - [00:09:56] Adaptive System - [00:15:57] Wardley Mapping - [00:19:53] Doctrine Principles - [00:28:09] Domain-Driven Design and Team Topologies - [00:31:16] How to Apply in an Organization - [00:38:49] How to Apply to Legacy - [00:41:30] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:47:04] _____ Susanne Kaiser’s Bio Susanne Kaiser is an independent tech consultant from Hamburg, Germany, supporting organizations with building socio-technical systems. She is passionate about connecting the dots between Wardley Mapping, Domain-Driven Design, and Team Topologies as a holistic approach to design and build adaptive systems for a fast flow of change. Susanne was previously working as a startup CTO and has a background in computer sciences and experience in software development and software architecture since 2002. She is the author of the book “Adaptive Systems with Domain-Driven Design, Wardley Mapping, and Team Topologies: Architecture for Flow” (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Vernon), 2022). Follow Susanne: Website – https://www.susannekaiser.net/ LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/susannekaiser1/ Twitter – https://www.twitter.com/suksr Our Sponsor Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals. Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. 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/86.

“Today, employees want more autonomy, e.g. work-life balance and working from home, and at the same time, they want more social inclusion to get as many authentic insights into the company and the new job as possible." Jens Olberding is the author of “Agile Recruiting” and an expert in agile HR management. In this episode, we opened our conversation discussing the great resignation trend and its underlying reasons. Jens then shared the concept of agile recruiting and explained how it is very much relevant to the latest changes in the current job landscape. He emphasized that recruiting should not only put focus just on the hiring departments’ needs but also equally on the candidates to understand better what they truly want from their career. Jens also shared a few recruiting best practices, such as getting the recruiting teams’ involvements in the recruitment process, building cross-functional teams, and the SuSiBOL interview technique that he shared towards the end to help in assessing candidates’ behaviors and competencies better. Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:06:00] The Great Resignation - [00:07:33] Agile Recruiting - [00:11:10] What the Candidate Wants - [00:14:12] Recruiting Team Involvement - [00:15:55] Hire for Talent, Train for Skills - [00:18:50] Cross-Functional Team - [00:20:24] Assessing Potentials - [00:22:52] Communication Among Equals - [00:24:23] Preselection - [00:26:22] Diversity of Experience - [00:30:51] SuSiBOL Technique - [00:34:21] Onboarding - [00:39:14] Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:42:48] _____ Jens Olberding’s Bio Jens Olberding is an expert in agile HR management and recruiting. He is a qualified organisational psychologist and has a Master’s degree in Human Resource Management. He is also a lecturer for diagnostics and recruitment and teaches methods for competence-based recruiting processes. His focus is on supporting agile transformations and the development of agile HR organisations in medium-sized companies. As a coach for leadership and transformation, he accompanies teams, leaders and organisations on their way to more agility. Follow Jens: LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/jens-olberding-130b618a/ Twitter – @jens_olberding Website – https://www.jo-agilehr.de/ Website – https://www.laeuft.io/ Our Sponsor Today’s episode is proudly sponsored by Skills Matter, the global community and events platform for software professionals. Skills Matter is an easier way for technologists to grow their careers by connecting you and your peers with the best-in-class tech industry experts and communities. 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/85.