#30 - Intentional Technical Leadership

Hey my friend!

Happy Saturday! 🎉

Welcome to another issue of the Intentional Technical Leadership newsletter.

How are you all doing?

I've had a tough week with a lot of things going on. I'm glad it's the weekend and I can finally relax a little!

If you're like me, you've probably doom-scrolled through Twitter and seen that the tech industry is having a hard time right now. A lot of people are losing their jobs, and the new leadership at Twitter is making some questionable decisions.

It got me thinking about leading a team through difficult times. I've lost my job a few times whilst working in the games industry due to companies reducing headcount, and I've seen a lot of people struggle with the uncertainty of their future.

If you're a manager and you or your team aren't feeling great, take a look at the first article below. It's a great read on how to be a good manager during terrible times.

🔖 Interesting Reading

Managering in Terrible Times - Lara Hogan

This is another insightful article by Lara Hogan on being the best manager you can be during difficult times.

Creating a supportive and safe environment is the most important thing you can do for your team. It's also important to be honest with them about what's going on.

Being as open and transparent as you can will really help.

Your 1:1 meetings are going to be key to understand how your team is feeling and what they need from you. Hopefully you've already built up some rapport with them, so they'll feel secure in talking to you about their feelings. It's also fine to tell them that they don't have to share anything if they're not comfortable doing so.

I really find articles like this helpful, especially as I sometimes struggle with these things myself.

Scaling Your Engineering Org Checklist

I found this interesting checklist via a tweet from Eiso Kant.

It's a useful list of ideas for engineering leaders who are looking to scale their teams and skills whilst helping to build great teams and engineering cultures.

It shares some ideas for what you need to be thinking about at each team size, from small teams of 5-20 engineers up to engineering organisations with 250+ engineers.

Each tip has some resources you can use to learn more so click through and learn how you can scale better teams.

🌶️ Hot Take

Interview your future manager - Lily Konings

At the end of an interview, most interviewers ask the classic question of "do you have any questions for me?"

This tweet shares a great idea to flip this question around and ask the interviewer some probing questions about their management style and the company's culture.

While you can't always get a good sense of the company's culture from the interview process, you can get a sense of the manager's style and how they will treat you as an employee.

Take a read of this Twitter thread and take notes on some of the questions that Lily Konings suggests.

I hope you enjoyed this week's selection of intentional technical leadership articles.

Hit reply and let me know what you think.

Feel free to send me any interesting articles or podcasts you've found as I love hearing from my readers.

Have an amazing week and be excellent to each other!

Speak to you soon,
Marc

Senior Engineering Manager @ Netlify