transition time
We usually ignore transition time. If your focus needs to transition, make space for that.
Author: Lincoln
predicting leadership
What would you say is the single best predictor for success for an engineering leader? They prioritize listening to the voices with more direct context and they are actively building their understanding of the problem set.
executive bullies
How does an executive bully operate in the workplace? Knowing the signs can help clarify your decisions and make the experience less traumatic.
myself again
Leadership skills are the water I swim in and it took a couple years in the corporate wilderness to remember that.
victory laps
Moments worthy of victory laps come from stories which have a beginning, middle, and end. If you’re not actively communicating these stories to a team, eventually startup-era victory laps fade into memory.
2021 fiction
A catalog of media I consumed in 2021, with a sentence or two about each.
deferred conflict
I’m the kind of person that waits to see what the third person decides before I open up on the first attacker. I’m being physically assaulted and I still try to deflect or defer, to see where things go, before I hit the gas.
least evil
A few months ago, an old friend called me the “least evil person” they know. I keep thinking about it.
context proximity
The most egregious error I see leaders make frequently is to assume they have more context than the folks doing the work.
first love
When I was in middle school, I fell in love with a boy. I’m pretty sure he liked me back. It’s a simple narrative, but it took me most of my life to understand it.
porter deux
10% of all commits on the decade-old project are now mine from this past month. So, things are moving briskly.
the fight
As the power of the Web grew, we allowed that power to become concentrated in the hands of a very few. And unregulated power invariably corrupts, and corruption kills dreams.
here again
I swear to God that all I’ve ever wanted was / A little bit of everything, all of the time
nitro porter
A week ago I forked a decade-old open source project and Nitro Porter was born.
spilled puzzles
If you’re half-done with a jigsaw puzzle and flip the table it’s on, what happens?
interviewing humans
Many folks approach interviewing like an infinite avocado cart and they aren’t quite sure how to find a ripe one. Maybe if you have more people squeeze it you’ll figure it out?
fallen leaves
Leaves from the vine / Falling so slow
Like fragile tiny shells / Drifting in the foam
Little soldier boy / Come marching home
Brave soldier boy / Comes marching home
search products
This is a brief technical review of open source search index products currently available, summarizing what I learned about them in a couple days of research.
startup power
If you don’t invest in engineering leadership early you’re burning your salary budget. Once it’s time for process, you need someone who empowers your engineers and helps them operate safely rather than imposing rules that grind your releases to a halt.
two leaders
How do I say this politely? If you’re the kind of leader who “puts the group before the individual” that usually just means you’re a bad leader and everyone knows it.