Tag: management
How to Protect Job During Layoffs – Tips for Engineers and Developers
Layoffs slowed down in 2024, but it is still a painful topic in the tech job market. Things are tough, it is essential to maximize your chances of protecting your job and avoiding being laid off. This article discusses how engineers and managers can protect their jobs during layoffs and how to proactively prepare yourself…
Pay Transparency – Benefits and Dangers
Pay transparency (or salary transparency) is a policy that makes information about salaries and benefits available to any employee or even to general public. It is a quite controversial approach, so in this article I sumarise existing practices and share personal experience regarding pay benefits and dangers it brings. Pay transparency in context of this…
Founder Meaning and Qualities
The meaning of being a founder is to be the one who starts the organization (country, startup, movement, etc.). They come up with the initial goal, they look for funding and people who are going to implement their vision. Founders can change goals over time, hire CEO / CTO / CFO or do all the…
What is Founder Mode
Founder mode is when you approach problems as if you are the startup founder. It means that you show an extreme level of care, ownership, and motivation to solve problems in a most efficient and effective way. Another important aspect of founder mode is that you always keep the business side of things in mind.…
Boy Scout Rule – Continuous Improvement and Engineering
One of the most important qualities that I look for into in people is if they care about our common interests. Care is about continuous improvement that resists degradation, or, how tech folks and boy scouts call it, boy scout rule. It can be a contractor that goes the extra mile when renovating my house.…
Outputs and Outcomes Mindset
Output and outcome terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but it is essential to understand their difference. The difference matters in planning, management, or software engineering activities. One of the recent tendencies on the market is that teams are focusing more on outcomes, so there are many questions on what it actually means, to have an…
Tough Times in Tech – How to Deal and Survive
This article is not a historical analysis. This article discusses how to deal and survive during tough times in tech industry, how to motivate yourself and your team. Both managers and individual contributors can find it useful. Folks from the tech industry remember epidemic times a bit differently than others. There was shock, unrest, and…
Efficiency and Effectiveness Difference
There is a difference between efficiency and effectiveness. This is a very common question that pops up from time to time during planning, executing, retrospective analysis, and everyday life. In short, efficiency is about doing things right to achieve the goal (emphasis on execution), and the effectiveness is about doing the right things to achieve…
How to Be a Good Manager
Managing is extremely difficult. Looking back, being an individual contributor has certain benefits. As a contributor, you are responsible only for your own actions, you are almost not involved in politics, and the work scope is focused and specific. Sometimes I do miss those days, but the complexity of management makes it enough fun and…
How to Track Employees
Micromanagement is less effective than aligning company and employee interests via proper goal setting. The fact that you, as a manager, are not able to set goals and understand your coworkers does not mean that they have to suffer. Nobody stops you from tracking your workers, but be ready that they will slack and leave…