Tech Lead Journal

“The People Playbook: First, be clear about your goals and communicate with massive clarity to your team what you’re trying to accomplish. Second, be brilliant at the basics." Andrew Bartlow is the co-founder of the People Leader Accelerator and the co-author of “Scaling for Success”. In this episode, Andrew discusses the common challenges faced by high-growth organizations and offers strateg...

“Why are some software developers average and some others great? After a few years, I noticed that creativity is an important aspect of problem-solving and software development.” Wouter Groeneveld is a software engineer, computer science education researcher, and the author of “The Creative Programmer”. In this episode, Wouter dives deep into what makes good engineers truly exceptional: creativity...

“If we want to deliver better results, we need to change the system and our way of working." Gil Broza is an Agile leadership expert and the author of the latest book “Deliver Better Results”. In this episode, Gil discusses ways to level up our value delivery system to deliver better results. We first delve into the fundamental concept of systems thinking and cause-effect relationships, which...

“A lot of developers tie their self-worth to their code. Being able to let go of your ego and understanding the feedback is based on the code, and it has nothing to do with anything about me. It’s just the code.” Adrienne Tacke is a software engineer, keynote speaker, and the author of the upcoming book “Looks Good To Me”. In this episode, we discuss code reviews and why it is an essential part of...

“Every organization has a mission, a vision, and a set of values. As a leader, your number one task is to live those values and talk about them at every opportunity with your team to create alignment." Today's clip is from Tech Lead Journal episode 115 with Manoj Awasthi, the CTO at JULO and previously the SVP of Engineering at Tokopedia. In this clip, Manoj described the role of a senior...

“An effective developer is an effective software tester. As a developer, it’s your responsibility to make sure what you do works. And automated testing is such an easy and cheap way of doing it." Today's clip is from Tech Lead Journal episode 139 with Mauricio Aniche, the author of “Effective Software Testing”. In this clip, Mauricio explained how to become a more effective software devel...

“The three core dimensions of developer experience are feedback loops, cognitive load, and flow state." Today's clip is from Tech Lead Journal episode 134 with Margaret-Anne (Peggy) Storey and Abi Noda, the coauthors of the ACM paper “DevEx: What Actually Drives Productivity”. In this clip, they shared their view on the well-known SPACE and DORA metrics, and pointed out the danger of misu...

“Developer experience is an approach to thinking about engineering excellence and maximizing engineering performance by increasing the capacity and performance of the individuals and the team as a whole." Today's clip is from Tech Lead Journal episode 112 with Abi Noda, the CEO & co-founder of DX. In this clip, Abi shared what developer experience is, why it is becoming an industry tr...

“A good API doesn’t expose the internal data models or internal logic too much. And the more your clients are not under your control, the less you want to do that." Today's clip is from Tech Lead Journal episode 125 with Daniel Luebke, a software architect and the co-author of “Patterns for API Design”. In this clip, we discussed some API design patterns and best practices taken from his...

“A team has to be able to go fast if they have to. But they should always choose to go at a steady pace, most of the time. In the long run, what we emphasize is for each team to find their own space and pace." Balazs Barna is the Head of US Engineering at Wise. In this episode, we delved into his insights on building sustainable engineering from scaling up Wise. Balazs started by touching on...

“In a world that runs on software, when we develop and deploy software, we are part of a larger system where our failures are no longer about us, they are also about other people." Today's clip is from Tech Lead Journal episode 122 with Kevlin Henney, a consultant, writer, and speaker on software development and has written and edited several popular books. In this clip, Kevlin brought up...

“Everything in software architecture is a trade-off, and the why is more important than how." Today's clip is from Tech Lead Journal episode 120 with Neal Ford, a Director and software architect at ThoughtWorks. In this clip, we discussed the definition of software architecture and how it relates to software design. Neal then described the two important laws of software architecture relat...

“Platforms harmonize and standardize without restricting. By standardizing, they actually enable and allow people to do more things." Gregor Hohpe is back again for the second episode with his latest book “Platform Strategy”. In this episode, Gregor discussed in-depth about building platforms with a proper platform strategy. He began by describing what a platform is from a few different persp...

“The five thieves of time are: too much work in progress, conflicting priorities, unplanned work, unknown dependencies, and neglected work." Dominica DeGrandis is the author of “Making Work Visible”. In this episode, we discussed how we can optimize our workflow and reclaim control of our work and time. Dominica unveiled the concept of the five thieves of time that rob us of our productivity,...

“Product driven means you understand what your customers’ problems are, but you don’t let yourself get held back by what your customers are saying. You’re not building your product for a customer that you’re already working with. You’re building a product for a customer that you haven’t yet met." Ben Foster is the co-founder of Prodify and the co-author of “Build What Matters”. In this episod...

“Lean is not about how we organize work, but how we think about it. It’s not a production system; it’s an education system." Catherine Chabiron is a Lean expert and the co-author of “Learning to Scale at Theodo Group”. In this episode, Catherine and Fabrice–the co-founder and CTO of Theodo–shared their lessons learned from implementing Lean at a fast-growing scale-up company. Catherine and Fa...

“Architecture touches on the software, the business, and the team organization. Modernization updates something that has some outdated thinking, e.g. technologies, ideas, business models." Nick Tune is a principal consultant and the author of “Architecture Modernization”. In this episode, we discussed how organizations can successfully go through an architecture modernization journey. Nick be...

“We need to change our ways of working to give importance to the work quality that we deliver, ensure we keep raising our bar, and pass it on to the next generation of developers." Srihari Sridharan is a software architect and the author of “Craft Your Code”. In this episode, we discussed software craftsmanship and how to become better software engineers. Srihari first began by sharing the re...

“Leading change is high stakes, but we don’t spend a great deal of time focusing on conversation and creating space to engage in real conversation." Marsha Acker is the author of “Build Your Model for Leading Change” and the host of “Defining Moments of Leadership” podcast. In this episode, we discussed building our own model for leadership and leading change. Marsha first started by sharing...

“A CTO gives the business the technology it needs to drive success by delivering a roadmap to grow and scale at a level and speed where technology never holds up their growth." Alan Williamson is the author of “Think Like a CTO”. In this episode, we discussed in-depth how to become a great CTO. Alan first described what a CTO role is, how the role differs at different company stages, and the...

“A lot of the traditional wisdom said the best teams are the ones that stay stable or the same; you need long-lived stable teams. The fact is, team change is inevitable. So let’s get better at it." Heidi Helfand is the author of “Dynamic Reteaming”. In this episode, we discussed dynamic reteaming concept, or team changes in simple words. Heidi explained how her experience working in various s...

“BDD is about helping you collaborate with the different parties involved in software delivery to understand what’s actually required of your system, why you need to deliver it, and then find the best possible way to automate your requirements." John Smart and Jan Molak are the co-authors of “BDD in Action: Second Edition”. In this episode, we discussed in-depth behavior-driven development (B...

“Collaborative modeling is getting the relevant people into a room to solve a problem or get on the same page about what it is you’re solving and getting some directions for that solution." Evelyn and Gien are the co-authors of “Collaborative Software Design: How to Facilitate Domain Modeling Decisions”. In this episode, we discussed collaborative software design and why we need it in softwar...

“Do not start a job search by looking for jobs. Start a job search by understanding at a deeper level who you are, what you value, how you like to work, and what are you solving for." Andre Martin is an organizational psychologist and the author of “Wrong Fit, Right Fit”. In this episode, he shared the importance of finding the right fit company for us in our work. Andre used the analogy of w...

“Lifestyle engineering is about taking the idea we have within us to create a different reality in our own lives. It’s amazing what’s possible when you get in the driver’s seat and engineer your lifestyle." Zachary White is a career coach for engineering leadership and the host of the Happy Engineer Podcast. In this episode, Zach shared how engineers can become happier in their work and life...