It’s 2017, and that means I’ve been in various engineering management and technical lead roles for about 6 years. That’s long enough to learn something about management, but short enough to remember clearly all the mistakes I made early on.
Tag Archives: leadership
Some of my favourite programming books
I was recently asked by some colleagues about my favourite books on programming. And not just books on coding, but on improving their understanding of successful teams.
Elasticsearch Meetup at Percolate
Last night Percolate hosted the San Francisco Elasticsearch Meetup.
I acted as host, and it was a great night, with excellent speakers and presentations.
Ekanite at the San Francisco Go Meetup
I gave a presentation on Ekanite — the syslog server with built-in search — tonight at the San Francisco Go Meetup. It was an enjoyable evening, and I had a chance to discuss why I built Ekanite, how it works, and where it might go in the future.
Be a Conviction Engineer
I’m a conviction engineer.
To me it’s the only way to be an effective engineer, software developer, and technical leader. You’ve simply got to truly believe in the value of what you do, and you’ve got to believe in doing it the right way.
rqlite at the San Francisco Go Meetup
I made a presentation on rqlite tonight at the San Francisco Go Meetup. It was an enjoyable evening, and I had a chance to discuss why I built rqlite, how it works, and where it might go in the future.
Gresham’s law and Slack
“Bad money drives out good.”
When is the last time you spoke with your fellow developer? I mean actually spoke? Or was it just over Slack?
I like really Slack, Flowdock, Hipchat and the like. I couldn’t do my job without them. But as with Gresham’s law, bad communication is driving out good.
Continue reading Gresham’s law and Slack
Running services is fun
While running services is hard, it’s also fun. It confronts you with a whole set of engineering challenges because you’re building — and running — large scale systems.
So after 18 great months working on the InfluxDB source, I’m returning to Services and have started a new role with Percolate, as Director of Engineering on their Data Platform team.
InfluxDB and the Raft consensus protocol
Leadership without Management
I came across another great video about software engineering management, this time by Bryan Cantrill. It’s a really great talk, and discussed in-depth — with plenty of humour thrown in — the importance of Mission to high-performing software developers.