Just a quilt of ideas, musings, and observations from the world of software development from our team.
Amjad is the founder and CEO of Repl.it. Repl.it is a Y Combinator-backed online development environment that helps developers learn, build, collaborate, and host all in one place. They’re on a mission to make programming more accessible.
In this episode, Amjad shared why he believes that discovery great people is the key to great teams. He contrasts that with talent identification, which is about credentials and resumes.
Read MoreMitch Stewart is the co-founder of Guru, a software company based out of Pennsylvania that is working with companies like Shopify, Square, and Spotify to unify their team’s collective knowledge and empower them with information when they need it most.
In this episode, we talk about some of the management practices that have made Mitch successful at Guru. We dive into his transition from developer to manager, and the lessons he learned about building and motivating teams along the way.
Read MoreThis week on Scaling Software Teams, we talked to Austin Broyles, the Director of Engineering at Primer - a Bay Area software company using Machine Learning and natural language processing to help their clients make sense of huge datasets.
Read MoreOn this week’s episode of Scaling Software Teams, we talked with Eric Tobias, former CTO at iGoDigital and currently a Partner with High Alpha, a Venture studio that conceives, launches, and scales next-generation enterprise cloud companies.
Read MoreAde Olonoh is the founder of two companies with similar names, but very different stories.
Formstack is an online form builder that has witnessed slow, steady growth since its founding in 2006. Formspring was an anonymous social Q&A app that grew from zero users to over a million users in 45 days, making it the fastest growing social network in history at the time.
In this episode, Ade shared what he’s learned about fast growth, as someone who naturally a steady approach.
Read MoreIn 2018, TechPoint partnered with Woven to screen the engineering applications for their Xtern program, and the result was 75% assessment completion rate, a dramatic increase over the prior year. The secret to improvement wasn’t luck or magic. It was a tried-and-true formula that Woven’s Founders had crafted while screening over 2,000 engineering candidates throughout their careers.
Read MoreIn part one of our conversation, we discussed how Jacob helps rapid-growth software companies navigate change using the Satir Change Model, and how prioritizing the emotional well-being of contributors is the key to weathering whatever storm comes your way. Today’s interview touches on two things that every startup leader should be thinking about as they grow their team: how to craft company policies that are equitable and accessible to all, and how to document those policies so they have an equitable impact.
Read MoreIf you’re on a fast-growth software team, you know that change is inevitable. But when you’re a team leader within your organization, people will look to you to weather this change, and to help them determine what their future looks like. In our recent conversation with Jacob Kaplan-Moss, we discussed one such process - the Satir Change Model - and how it’s helped several fast-growth software teams navigate change without going off the deep end.
Read MoreThis week on Scaling Software Teams, we’re sharing part one of our interview with Jacob Kaplan-Moss. Jacob is a veteran software leader and the co-creator of Django, the python web framework that powers Pinterest, Eventbrite, and Instagram. Chances are, many of our listeners are using Django to build their own startup, so this is a really cool listen.
Read MoreAccording to the Stack Overflow 2018 Developer Survey, nearly one in five developers say that they struggle with mood disorders, anxiety disorders, or both. If this is something that you or your team struggles with, one of the easiest ways to reverse the trend is my creating a strong culture of psychological safety among your team.
Read MoreAccording to the Stack Overflow 2018 Developer Survey, nearly one in five developers say that they struggle with mood disorders, anxiety disorders, or both. And while there are plenty of reasons for this statistic, it’s an issue that Micah took upon himself to explore - both for his own mental health, and that of his team. So, if you’re managing a software engineering team today, what changes can you make to be conscious of your team’s mental health?
Read MoreHiring great engineers is hard, and the faster your organization is growing, the harder it is. You need to get talented people in the door today in order to hit your product roadmap goals, but the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that the cost of hiring the wrong employee is at least 30% of their first year’s salary. So, what can you do in your hiring process to minimize the likelihood that you hire the wrong person? Let’s explore…
Read MoreHiring for a high-growth software team is tough. So, how long will it take you to fill the software engineering positions you have open? In this post, we’ll discuss how many days your hiring process should be, and how long it will take for you to fill your software engineering role. Additionally, we’ll explore how much management time it takes to vet and interview candidates for your software development roles…
Read MoreRoger Deetz is the textbook definition of a software leader. Early in his career, however, Roger never saw himself going down this path. He bristled at the idea of management, wanting to avoid wasting time buried in his email so that he could prioritize creating—a sentiment familiar to many software engineers. This is the story of how he made the transition to engineering management…
Read MoreWhether you’re new to managing software engineers, or you’re an experienced software leader, motivating your software engineering team to do their best work can be a challenge. You don’t want to be too heavy-handed and play your “boss card” too often, or you risk alienating your team. Let’s explore some ways you can motivate your team without relying on your role power.
Read MoreOn today’s episode of Scaling Software Teams, we’re talking with Randy Syring, Chief Executive Developer at Louisville-based software development firm Level 12. Randy has one of the more unique backgrounds of any tech leader you’ll find - trying his hand at flying Apache helicopters and pursuing a career as a pastor before getting into engineering full-time. But once he fell into software development, he never looked back.
Read MoreSteve is the VP of Data, Infrastructure, and Security at Springbuk, where he leads a fast-growing team that’s been hiring like crazy over the past year. In our conversation, Steve opens up about the lessons he’s learned about effective hiring and management - including those he learned the hard way. We talked about the hidden expenses of hiring, and ways that your startup can hire more effectively when you’re growing quickly.
Read MoreAccording to the Stack Overflow 2018 Developer Survey, nearly one in five developers say that they struggle with mood disorders, anxiety disorders, or both. Many times it’s precisely this environment that prevents developers from coming forward to share their story. Micah Weaver, CTO of donor management SaaS company Bloomerang, wants to fix that.
Read MoreSEP is different from many software development shops because their clients work directly with the software engineers themselves. This adds tons of value for the client, but it also makes every new hire more risky, as each software engineer Raman Ohri brings on will be responsible not just for helping clients level up their software practices, but also for representing the SEP name. Here’s how he avoids hiring the wrong candidate.
Read MoreRoger Deetz is the textbook definition of a software leader, but for years, he prided himself on not claiming that title. He was a creator, a builder - not a manager - but as Roger’s career progressed, he realized this narrative was both counterproductive and not an accurate representation of who he was. In this interview, Roger will share his journey, going from creator to leader.
Read More
