The Finger Is Not the Moon
The finger is not the moon. A guide for engineering leaders on recognizing when your ceremonies, OKRs, and 1:1s have become performance instead of practice.
Read articleEngineering leadership, without the management sludge
Actionable guides and mental models for engineering leaders who believe management can be people-first, humane, and a real enabler.
The finger is not the moon. A guide for engineering leaders on recognizing when your ceremonies, OKRs, and 1:1s have become performance instead of practice.
Read articleWhen your engineering team grows past 15-20, what breaks first isn't documentation. It's that you were the routing layer and nobody knew it.
Read articleWhy refusing to estimate doesn't solve your team's coordination problems - and what to do instead. For engineering leaders who are tired of broken planning.
Read articleStart Here
Managers
Start here if you already manage people or just moved out of the IC track. These posts focus on one-on-ones, feedback, accountability, and building healthier team habits.
Start with
The 5 Common Mistakes Of New Engineering Managers
4 follow-up reads, plus topic paths and grouped recommendations.
Tech Leads
This path is for people leading through architecture, delivery, coordination, and influence. The emphasis is execution, alignment, and helping a team move without brute force.
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The Constraint You Won't Find on a Jira Board
4 follow-up reads, plus topic paths and grouped recommendations.
ICs
This path is for engineers who want stronger communication, sharper career judgment, and a better read on how the role is changing around them.
Start with
Verification Debt Is Your Next Headache
4 follow-up reads, plus topic paths and grouped recommendations.
Topics
Judgment, resilience, motivation, self-awareness, and the habits that make leadership sustainable.
Coaching, one-on-ones, feedback, mentoring, and the everyday work of helping people grow.
Trust, conflict, onboarding, retrospectives, meetings, and the patterns that shape team dynamics.
Featured read
How to Build a High Performing TeamPrioritization, process, estimation, metrics, reliability, and getting real work shipped without chaos.
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The Constraint You Won't Find on a Jira BoardManagement, communication, accountability, politics, and how to move work through larger systems.
Featured read
Don’t Fear PowerHiring, seniority, technical judgment, and what long-term growth looks like in engineering.
Featured read
An Intro To Career FrameworksCollections
Series
A short series of retrospective formats you can actually run with a team when you want better discussion, clearer signals, and follow-through.
For managers, scrum masters, and tech leads who want better team reflection without ritual for ritual’s sake.
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The Start Stop Continue RetrospectiveSeries
A practical sequence on the recurring laws and constraints that shape engineering work, from coding and architecture to testing and performance.
For senior ICs, tech leads, and engineering managers who want sharper judgment when systems and teams get complicated.
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56 Laws of Software EngineeringCollection
The manager basics that matter most early: one-on-ones, feedback, motivation, coaching, and the habits that make people management credible.
For new and growing engineering managers who want a durable foundation instead of scattered advice.
Includes 3 reusable download s.
Collection
A focused bundle on throughput, estimation, reliability, and the system-level choices that make delivery calmer and more predictable.
For leads and managers responsible for helping teams ship without drowning in coordination and operational drag.
Your Jira board shows process bottlenecks. It won't show you the approval chains, implicit rules, and leadership behaviors killing your team's throughput.
Read articleMost engineering managers coach too much, not too little, and they often do it for themselves, not their reports. Here's when managing is the more generous act.
Read articleMost software engineering teams swing between chaos and bureaucracy. Here's a framework to find the edge where scaling actually happens.
Read articleAI agents generate 98% more PRs but reviews take 91% longer. The work didn't disappear — it moved. A synthesis of eight perspectives on where it actually went.
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