Dude, Where's My Code?

Ignoring the data cost this engineering manager and team a smooth migration. After a migration didn't quite go as planned, Graeme had some valuable learnings in retrospect. Upon reflection, the team did in fact have helpful data. This data could have provided them with the context they needed and avoided a misjudgement. Despite the planning that went into this, it didn't go as smooth as it could have. But it was important to reflect and understand why for next time. ---- 👀 Check out the full video on our channel! 🗣️ Share with your network! #softwareengineering #planning #data #engineeringmanagement

Doing the same with less is hard. Doing more with less is even more hard. In this conversation, Nick shares with Graeme about a team transition where individuals on a team had been moved to another group. The remaining individuals were moved to Nick as the new manager. But not only was the team expected to do the same amount of work... It was more work, based on the team charter and areas that needed focus. How do you navigate this as an engineering manager? ---- 👀 Check out the full video on our channel! 🗣️ Share with your network! #softwareengineering #engineeringmanager #engineeringmanagement

The loudest person in the room wins? Graeme explains to Nick in this conversation that in order to be effective at prioritizing, you need techniques for filtering feedback. Without these, the loudest person in the room might convince you their's is the highest priority -- regardless of whether that's reality. How might this differ when working with product teams that create things for external end-users? What about platform teams where the "customer" is other internal teams and users? Share what you've seen work well for navigating this! ---- 👀 Check out the full video on our channel! 🗣️ Share with your network! #softwareengineering #engineeringmanager #engineeringmanagement

How do you balance bottom-up and top-down approaches in planning? In this conversation, Nick shares with Graeme about some of his experiences where PM roles did a great job facilitating this during planning. Making space for the engineers to bring forward ideas for where the code needs attention, tech advancements, as well as feature enhancements is critical. They know the ins and outs of the products to an incredible degree. But we need to balance this with company priorities and asks from other teams as well. How have you seen this done to ensure proper balance? What have you seen be disastrous? Let's hear! ---- 👀 Check out the full video on our channel! 🗣️ Share with your network! #softwareengineering #engineeringmanager #engineeringmanagement

Prioritizing tech debt pay-down requires healthy communication between roles. In this clip, Nick shares his thoughts on technical debt with Graeme and Brian Jenney. In Graeme's current role, he's a director of engineering at his company. Even he's understanding of the technical debt that needs to be addressed thanks to the engineers being vocal. But this needs to be well understoof with product owners and roles stakeholders involved need to be on the same page for value and priorities. When it comes down to prioritizing, you need to communicate the right value to stakeholders so that they understand! ---- 👀 Check out the full video on our channel! 🗣️ Share with your network! #SoftwareEngineering #Management #Leadership

People underestimate how much time should be spent on people as an engineering manager. Coaching, mentoring, and otherwise working on the individuals of your team should be part of your regular day to day focus as an engineering manager. Yes, the size of your team will impact this. Yes, different personality types and backgrounds will influence this. However, if you're not carving out time to do this regularly for your team, it's very likely that your team members are not getting the most out of your potential leadership. ---- 👀 Check out the full video on our channel! 🗣️ Share with your network! #SoftwareEngineering #Management #Leadership

If YOU can't convey the meaning to your audience YOUR communication is ineffective. As software engineers, we spend a lot of time talking with other software engineers. In this conversation, Nick and Graeme discuss with Brian Jenney how more interactions with other roles help to build up more effective communication. When it comes to leveling up as a software engineer, and especially leveling up as an engineering manager, your ability to communicate is critical. If you cannot convey the meaning to your audience like your communication is completely ineffective ---- 👀 Check out the full video on our channel! 🗣️ Share with your network! #SoftwareEngineering #Management #Leadership

Customers don't care about your code. So how can engineers make sure they articulate the value of tech debt paydown to product owners? In this video, Nick and Graeme discuss a common challenge that engineering teams have where tech debt work seems to not get prioritized. How have you worked with your engineering teams to ensure tech debt is paid down accordingly? ---- 👀 Check out the full video on our channel! 🗣️ Share with your network! #softwareengineering #engineeringmanager #engineeringmanagement

As a platform team, what do "customer" interactions look like? In this video, Nick and Graeme discuss the idea of getting a feedback loop established with customers and the benefits of it. However, as a platform team mostly serving internal teams directly... Who are the customers? Can we separate external end-users from internal "customers"? How do we approach solving for these stakeholders differently? Do you think this is a unique challenge for platform teams? ---- 👀 Check out the full video on our channel! 🗣️ Share with your network! #softwareengineering #engineeringmanager #engineeringmanagement

Organizations need to be able to balance delivery velocity and investing in individuals. It's often misunderstood that managing engineering teams is not just about finding the highest velocity way to deliver things. And that's because a key element is omitted when you take that perspective: Learning and Growth. If we want our software engineering teams to continue to be effective long-term, we need to ensure they have opportunities to learn and grow. This might feel like a brief slowdown, but there's tremendous long-term value. ---- 👀 Check out the full video on our channel! 🗣️ Share with your network! #softwareengineering #engineeringmanager #engineeringmanagement