One of the responsibilities I take very seriously is hiring talent. While I’m not part of HR, I do care deeply about the recruiting experience. For most candidates, their first real interaction with your company isn’t a conversation with a recruiter or a hiring manager—it’s the application process itself. That means the recruiting experience doesn’t start with the interview, it starts the moment someone clicks Apply.
Continue ReadingAn “open door policy” is a staple of leadership vocabulary. Most leaders say they have one. Most employees know the phrase. But in practice, the efficacy and impact of that policy are far more nuanced than the phrase suggests.
Over the years leading engineering organizations of different sizes, I’ve seen the open door policy work beautifully. I’ve also seen it fall flat. The difference isn’t about whether the door is literally open. It’s about trust, clarity, and intent.
Continue ReadingAfter more than a decade leading engineering teams and managing dozens of managers across multiple companies, I’ve learned that managing managers is fundamentally different from managing individual contributors. The leverage is enormous. A great manager can multiply the effectiveness of an entire team. A struggling manager can create cascading problems that take months to resolve.
Continue ReadingOver the years I’ve learned that when a team feels stuck because they are constantly busy but not moving fast the answer isn’t more effort but better focus.
I’ve seen talented engineers grind through backlog after backlog, push late nights, automate everything in sight and still, somehow, progress stalls. Features pile up waiting to ship. Bugs reappear. Morale dips. And everyone wonders: What’s going wrong?
Continue ReadingAs a Director of Software Engineering, one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is the distinction between output and outcomes. It’s not just a matter of semantics; it’s a mindset shift that defines the difference between being busy and being effective, between a high-velocity team and a high-impact team.
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