Notes and Thoughts: The Untapped Potential

Recent Posts

• Support Engineer

  Posted on:May 16, 2024 |  at 3 min read

  The support engineer is a temporary role assigned to an engineer every week. The idea is that this person will spend a portion of their time monitoring the team services proactively to ensure the product runs smoothly (keep the lights on) and handle unexpected requests, such as answering client queries, patching security vulnerabilities, leading incidents, etc.

• Graph Club

  Posted on:May 6, 2024 |  at 4 min read

  Graph Club is a weekly or bi-weekly meeting where the team reviews the system’s observability. During this meeting, the team will look into the service SLIs, review alerts, incidents and investigate anomalies that happened over the past weeks.

• Lead by Delegating

  Posted on:April 19, 2024 |  at 5 min read

  The goal of a software engineer is to solve problems cost-efficiently. Most of the time, the solution involves writing some code and delegating the work to a machine. Being an effective manager means learning to delegate work to people to create a more engaged and efficient team.

• Effective 1:1s

  Posted on:April 2, 2024 |  at 7 min read

  The 1:1 meeting is an opportunity to support your direct reports and enable their potential. It is the time of the week when both give up on their time to be together. Using this time effectively can positively impact their performance.

• The Art of Feedback

  Posted on:March 15, 2024 |  at 8 min read

  Feedback is one of the most powerful tools for building synergies and continuously improving your team's performance. If you are practising active management, you should consistently give and ask for feedback.

• SMART Goals

  Posted on:March 3, 2024 |  at 4 min read

  Setting clear and measurable goals for your direct reports is a great way to coach, set expectations, and track their progress. It contributes to their development and team success.

• Performance Improvement Plan

  Posted on:February 10, 2024 |  at 5 min read

  A performance improvement plan (PIP) is a formal process to help low performers meet their role's expectations. It shouldn't be seen as a punishment or a disciplinary action but rather as a tool to improve their performance and address their issues.

• Performance Reviews

  Posted on:February 4, 2024 |  at 5 min read

  The performance review cycle is a sensitive period where people expect a salary raise or a promotion. It's not a wrong way to see it this way, but it is much more than that. It is an opportunity to get feedback and understand where people are on their journey.

• Getting your first job as a Software Engineer

  Posted on:January 24, 2024 |  at 9 min read

  After spending years at the university or months in a boot camp learning critical thinking, coding and the fundamentals of computer engineering, this is a question that every software engineer needs to answer if they want to pursue a career in the field.