- Tags:: #📝CuratedNotes , [[Engineering Management]] Although there is [[📜 No Silver Bullet—Essence and Accident in Software Engineering]], I generally believe that... ## The role This is what I think: [[✍️ Déjame sin trabajo, por favor]]. tl;dr: - [[An EM needs to be technical]]. ^07a8f0 - North star metric: "time I spend in VSCode", as a proxy metric for "we no longer need an engineering manager", so I can either enjoy creating with my own two hands or focusing on bigger strategy problems. ^8a363d - I don't want to be a manager and I will look for ways to make myself redundant and not needed. I would love to live in a world in which we need no manager roles and I suspect these could be [[📖 Bullshit Jobs|bullshit jobs]]. The reality is that I haven't found a company in which the role is not needed (but have found ways to be less needed over time). ## People - [[SWE hiring best practices]] - [[✍️ Sin machirulos hay paraiso. Una charla heterofriendly sobre management]] ## Process - People hate it, but a good work process is key ([[Process allergy]]). I've seen waaaay more problems caused by chaos and misalignment that by overfocusing on a goal. - Single Queue of Work (a queue for operative work, a queue for retro actions... that doesn't work). - A single topic per sprint. - Retrospective: - Prepare beforehand and discuss: - Delivered value. - Team metrics. - Checklists: - "Sentinel" checklist. ## Product - No complex system born being complex: it evolved from a simple system. - Build half a product, not a half-assed product (ReWork). - ["Make it work, make it right, make it fast"](https://wiki.c2.com/?MakeItWorkMakeItRightMakeItFast). - [Stop Obsessing Over Development Velocity, Focus on Impact - Itamar Gilad](https://itamargilad.com/velocity-vs-impact/) (with [[Cal Newport]] seal of approval on its podcast: [[Ep. 238 — the Joys of the Reading Life]]). ## Tech - Have very good reasons to hack a framework. - Have very very good reasons to build vs. buy if it's not your core business . ## Other ### Decision making - [[One-way vs two-way doors]]