Unpacking Conway's Law
I've been thinking a lot recently about organizational structure and design[1]. Eventually, I'm reminded and inevitably return to Conway's Law: Any organization that designs a system (defined broadly)...
Work
Piles of Past Work Notes
Lists of accomplishments at work are a useful exercise, both for performance reviews in the moment, but also for posterity[1] years after the fact. Through a variety of employers, roles, and even note-taking apps,...
Interviewing for Signals
I've been helping out with interviews for my employers since my first gig out of college, some 15 years ago. In that timeframe, the process to get a job as a software engineer...
The Meaning from Work Can Make Early Retirement Tricky
In my own research to better understand personal finances and create financial models to solve for my own needs, I came across the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) movement within Reddit. As far as I...
Separating Title, Responsibility, and Capability
A crucial part of being a people manager is making hiring decisions, and an overlooked part of that responsibility is to make a judgment on not only whether someone passes the hiring bar, but which...
Thematic Meeting Days
During my time at Square, I got to observe Jack Dorsey as he figured out how to scale himself out to first one, then two fairly large enterprises. His pennant for media attention in those...