Having to deal with a low performer who is not responding to positive reinforcement can bring out some of the worst instincts in a manager. Managers of a certain personality type will take the confrontational route: strong verbal feedback ranging from expressing disappointment to shaming the employee or even threatening…

It can happen to the best of us: with minutes to understand something they would normally ponder about for hours in real life, and an interviewer watching them with an inscrutable expression, even a seasoned software engineer can find themselves failing a technical interview for a job they can do…

Agile methodologies suggest that software be developed and delivered in small, non-breaking increments. This generally involves slicing a feature vertically into small “featurettes” (or user stories), rather than horizontally into front-end and back-end tasks. While this is relatively easy to do with user-facing features, it can be quite challenging to…

As it is with many things in software engineering, there are different schools of thought about what an engineering manager should be doing. So before we answer the question “how to become an engineering manager”, it’s best to look at the historical origins of the role. In the beginning, there…

Twenty years ago, a group of highly experienced software developers, including as Martin Fowler (now known for microservices), Ron Jeffries (extreme programming), Robert C. Martin (now famous as “Uncle Bob”) and Jeff Sutherland (inventor of SCRUM) met in Snowbird, Utah for two days to discuss some serious industry-wide problems that…

Unless you have had formal training in people management (which many engineering managers don’t), the need for regular one-on-one meetings with direct reports is something that tends to sneak up on you unawares. For the first twelve years of my engineering career, I had a string of managers (themselves once…

It is the nature of business that things do not always go as planned. It is also the nature of business that you will have a boss, and that boss is probably under more pressure than you are. So it is no surprise that many professionals shudder at the thought…

Leadership is often confused with management. Here’s a checklist to tell which one you are: You are accountable for reaching a goal, rather than performing a task. The goal cannot be accomplished by you alone. It requires a team. Team members are free to say no to you or leave…