Leading Developers

Leading Developers focuses on practical tips and insights for development team leaders and engineering managers, covering challenges like delegation, managing bad days, leadership styles, team meetings, and transitioning roles. It emphasizes communication, personal growth, business orientation, effective team and project management, and self-improvement for leaders in software development.

Leadership Development Team Management Communication Strategies Personal Growth Project Management Engineering Best Practices Career Transitioning Self-Improvement Technical Skills Enhancement Business Acumen for Developers

The hottest Substack posts of Leading Developers

And their main takeaways

How I almost quit because of $75

113 implied HN points • 27 Feb 24
💼 Business Workplace Challenges Personal Growth Career decisions Company Culture Team Dynamics
  1. Throughout your career, there will be moments where you consider quitting. It's important to weigh the reasons behind your feelings and analyze your options before making a decision.
  2. Sometimes, finding new challenges and growth opportunities can be discovered outside of work. Exploring different avenues and testing your skills in various areas can provide valuable experiences.
  3. Building strong relationships with colleagues and having trust in your team and the direction of your company can be key factors in deciding to stay and overcome challenges at work.

3 steps for a FAST promotion to management

43 implied HN points • 19 Mar 24
💼 Business Career growth Management Promotion Leadership Professional development
  1. Be the go-to person for your manager by taking ownership of important tasks and being proactive in asking for responsibilities.
  2. Become visible outside your team by working on critical projects for the organization, actively participating in Slack channels, and producing helpful content.
  3. When seeking a promotion, be respectful but firm in asking for what you want, setting concrete goals, and taking proactive steps to achieve them.

You are hurting your team without even noticing

110 implied HN points • 06 Feb 24
  1. When people are promoted, they may start to think they are better than others, leading to inflated egos.
  2. Having a big ego can lead to trying to control everything, not accepting feedback, and getting emotionally attached to ideas.
  3. Low ego leadership involves listening, being humble, embracing negative feedback, and empowering the team through delegation.

How to make your team read your mind

201 implied HN points • 05 Dec 23
  1. Clearly communicate your expectations to your team to avoid frustration.
  2. Consider creating a Manager's ReadMe document to outline expectations and foster better communication.
  3. Encourage open communication with your team through regular 1:1s and feedback sessions.
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Becoming a sales-engineer

48 implied HN points • 20 Feb 24
💼 Business Sales Management Career development Customer Relations Product Development
  1. Acquiring new skills through new challenges can be exciting and lead to unexpected career paths.
  2. Transitioning from a technical role to sales doesn't mean losing technical skills - understanding the product deeply remains crucial.
  3. Sales engineering roles offer variety, immediate value, and potential for lucrative rewards, but require strong communication and collaboration skills.

Why managers have more bad days

110 implied HN points • 26 Dec 23
  1. Everyone has good and bad days, but as a manager, the intensity of the feelings can be higher.
  2. Managing comes with challenges like guilt, more interactions, and less time for personal tasks like coding.
  3. To cope with tough days, consider taking time off, prioritize self-care, and reassess your situation if the bad days persist.

Your team meetings don’t have to be boring

51 implied HN points • 02 Jan 24
  1. Team meetings are important for bonding and sharing information
  2. Creating a recurring team meeting may seem scary, but valuable insights can come from it
  3. Ideas for team meetings include project reviews, post-mortems, and sharing interesting projects

How a 3rd Party API Can Ruin Your Weekend

83 implied HN points • 21 Nov 23
  1. Carefully research any 3rd party API you depend upon
  2. Share the load with your team (even the annoying stuff)
  3. When you are not sure what'll work - go in multiple directions in parallel (even at the risk of wasting time)

DevOps/Platform teams are the hardest to manage

88 implied HN points • 07 Nov 23
  1. Managing DevOps or Platform teams is challenging due to fast-changing priorities
  2. Effective collaboration between customer-facing and developer-facing team leaders is crucial
  3. Connecting the team to the business and ensuring their efforts are recognized are essential tasks

How can developers become more business oriented

51 implied HN points • 19 Dec 23
  1. Developers should care about the business side and understand the problems they are solving.
  2. To become more business oriented, developers should seek insider experience in various industries related to their work.
  3. Getting practical knowledge and experience in the industry from the inside helps developers speak the same language, gain respect, understand clients better, identify pain points, and open new doors for themselves.

Getting the most out of your Software Architects

69 implied HN points • 14 Nov 23
  1. Software Architects are experienced engineers who can save time and prevent mistakes.
  2. Collaborate well with Architects by doing your part promptly, consulting with them, and showing appreciation for their work.
  3. Take ownership of your project, push for help when needed, and don't waste Architects' time on trivial matters.

Why Team Leaders Give Up

126 implied HN points • 28 Aug 23
  1. Delegating work is crucial for team leaders to keep their sanity and enjoy their role.
  2. Delegating the day-to-day tasks and leading new projects can help team leaders maintain balance and efficiency.
  3. Sharing responsibilities with team members not only lightens the load but also promotes skill development and ownership within the team.

The 4 Words that Will Drive Any Developer Crazy

51 implied HN points • 28 Nov 23
  1. Be careful with phrases like 'I told you so' as they can drive developers crazy.
  2. Understand why people use such phrases: Validation of intelligence, desiring respect, and venting frustration.
  3. Instead of claiming credit or saying 'I told you so', focus on giving praise and encouragement.

5 Questions to Help You Deal with Fake Urgency

64 implied HN points • 31 Oct 23
  1. Question the necessity of deadlines and understand the impact on quality.
  2. Consider who is the ideal team size for a project and avoid overstaffing.
  3. Find the right balance between working hard and maintaining team well-being.

What does your manager want from you?

51 implied HN points • 04 Sep 23
  1. Don't be afraid to step off the edge - talk about your fears with your manager
  2. Look up from the dance floor - understand what's happening at the company level
  3. Manage your manager - be intentional about it, think of how they can help you and what you need from them

How I destroyed the company's DB

35 HN points • 26 Sep 23
  1. Mistakes in work are often part of a chain of failures. Cut the chain early.
  2. Hold people accountable for mistakes but focus on learning and improvement.
  3. Encourage action, problem-solving, and accountability in your team for success.

Feature flags are ruining your codebase

3 HN points • 05 Mar 24
🕹 Technology Software Development Testing Product Management
  1. Feature flags can make codebases more complex and harder to maintain, especially when used as an excuse to avoid making hard decisions like completely removing a feature.
  2. Having too many feature flags can lead to wasted time on dead code, increased testing burden, and making testing a substitute for fixing issues.
  3. Different types of feature flags, like release toggles, experiment toggles, and permission toggles, require specific management approaches to prevent the codebase from becoming unmanageable.

The Curse of Good Managers

32 implied HN points • 21 Aug 23
  1. Good managers may have hidden blind spots that they are unaware of.
  2. To get valuable feedback, try different angles like asking specific questions.
  3. Sharing your own difficulties can make others feel comfortable to share feedback.

The secret for effective code reviews

34 implied HN points • 07 Aug 23
  1. Code reviews are about people first, code second.
  2. There are different types of code reviewers like the perfectionists, gurus, skimmers, and ignorers.
  3. Team leaders should establish clear guidelines and facilitate efficient code review processes.

Improve your SQL skills X2 in 5 minutes

3 HN points • 13 Feb 24
🕹 Technology Data Management SQL Data Analysis Programming
  1. SQL skills are crucial for managers because they can help answer business questions, understand technical designs, and provide a huge return on effort invested.
  2. Don't stop with just learning joins in SQL. Advancing to using CTEs, window functions, and partitions can greatly enhance your ability to write complex queries.
  3. Window functions in SQL, such as ranking functions, aggregation functions, and positional functions, can help in advanced query writing by allowing calculations across sets of rows or returning a single value from a specific row within partitions.

Becoming an Engineering Manager - Is It For You?

3 HN points • 16 Jan 24
  1. Engineering managers need more than just coding skills for success.
  2. Transitioning to an engineering management role means less coding and more focus on leadership and decision-making.
  3. Effective engineering managers should be able to handle chaos, communicate well, and make decisive decisions.