Lyft’s Post

"Will Larson is the 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 of next year. 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" https://lnkd.in/ezUCfZMK

The quote below resonates with me. In 2024 I will strive to help teams achieve more long-term wins by enabling better ways to unblock themselves. “things usually become more siloed. When building your own service to unblock yourself is easier than to make a small change to another team’s one (because they keep ignoring your request): you get an engineering team that keeps reinventing the wheel, thanks to teams and engineers not particularly helping each other. Short-term gain, long-term pain!”

This topic is exactly the kind of discussion engineering teams have when looking for ways to make Staff+ engineers more impactful. Create impact by unblocking other engineers.

Something interesting about Stripe’s engineering culture: helping (unblocking) other engineers is a big focus. Which sounds… smart? When a company goes beyond a certain size, being blocked by others is the most common time waster in my experience. And at companies that don’t have any incentives for engineers to help others outside their immediate team, things tend to slow down. Not only this: things usually become more siloed. When building your own service to unblock yourself is easier than to make a small change to another team’s one (because they keep ignoring your request): you get an engineering team that keeps reinventing the wheel, thanks to teams and engineers not particularly helping each other. Short-term gain, long-term pain! This is how David Singleton describes their approach in The Pragmatic Engineer: Full article with more details: https://lnkd.in/dPY3RwUa

There's few things that irk me at work as much as seeing someone blocked on something, wasting hours upon hours that could've been solved quickly had someone else seen the problem. To address this, I've done the following: 1. Intentionally posted my own questions when I've been blocked, or I'm stuck making a decision about something. This came up in a conversation yesterday, and I strongly believe It is A Good Thing (tm) for junior engineers to see experienced engineers blocked. It is even more A Good Thing for them to see how experienced engineers go about discussing and solving the problem. 2. Encouraged my colleagues to post questions in open channels when they're unsure about something, or need help. 3. When I've seen signals that our Solutions Engineers were sometimes getting blocked in their work, I started a regular "office hours" meeting with them, just 30 minutes a week, where they bring me whatever problem they want my input on, and I've found it to be really productive in helping them moving forward. Caveat: put your own mask on first. If you're busy and under deadline pressure, that's not the time to be freelancing out.

We've recently extended offers to two founding engineers at Multiwoven. I have spent some thinking about what a founding engineer should look like. Here's a glimpse of the job description we shared with our team. Definition: A founding engineer is the cornerstone of both the technical and cultural aspects of an engineering team. They establish the standard for future engineers and excel in environments with minimal structure, effectively navigating and thriving in ambiguous situations. Expectations:  1. Autonomous Execution: Demonstrates a rapid learning ability and independently drives initiatives from product design to system architecture and coding with minimal guidance, embodying an owner's mindset in every task. 2. Navigating Ambiguity: Uses first principles thinking to convert ambiguous challenges into actionable strategies, showcasing the foresight and decisiveness of a stakeholder. 3. Balancing Speed and Quality: Excelling at the intersection of speed and quality, setting a high standard for efficiency and excellence, reflective of an owner's commitment to the company's success. 4. Commitment to Transparency: Builds trust within the team through complete transparency, including regular updates on Slack, frequent code commits, and sharing work-in-progress specifications, akin to an owner's openness and accountability. 5. Enjoying the Ride: Last but not least, someone who can embrace and enjoy the startup roller coaster.

Hello Folks!! Excited to share that I conquered the Lyft Forage Job Simulation for Backend Engineering! It was an intense ride, but I learned a ton about their systems and how I can tackle real-world backend challenges.On this simulation I had the opportunity to practice on : - Software Architecture - Refactoring - Unit Testing - Test-Driven Development Feeling excited about the future and ready to put my skills to the test! #lyft #backendengineering #forage #jobsimulation #challenge #growth

Today is day 5 of my journey at Ramp! I've been following Ramp ever since my time at Stripe and it's been incredible to see the company's explosive growth. A couple of quick takeaways: 1. Every day counts - Ramp writes the days that the company has been in existence at the front of presentations to put things into perspective. What have we done in the last 30 days and how can we ensure the next 30 days get us closer to our goals? 2. Customers love the product - And it's by design, the product and engineering teams are laser focused on what customers care about and collaborate with different teams to deeply understand each persona. 3. Incredible talent - The folks I've spoken to so far embody a rare combination of ownership, curiosity, and humility. The energy at the New York office is contagious and I look forward to learning more in the coming weeks.

Thrilled to share that I've successfully navigated through the challenges of the Forge - Lyft - Backend Engineering simulation, covering pivotal areas in software development. I have designed microservices, fine-tuned communication protocols, and developed resilient systems in the field of Software Architecture. My refactoring process became an art form as I focused on optimizing code, tackling code smells, and making the codebase more readable. Each component was rigorously tested to ensure that it was resilient, with rigorous tests validating authentication logic, ride request handling, and more. This hands-on, immersive experience utilized Test-Driven Development (TDD) to shape robust features. After gaining these skills, I am ready to start working on real-world applications, fueled by a desire to learn and grow. #Forge #Lyft #BackendEngineering #ContinuousLearning #TechJourney