Insights for Building Stronger, Smarter Dev Teams

The Hidden Cost of Managing by Vibes

January 29, 2026

Intro Managing engineers based on "gut feel" creates invisible risks like bias, misallocated talent, and strategic drift. To lead effectively, you must stop relying solely on instinct and recognize that data disciplines judgment. This guide covers the hidden costs of intuitionbased management, which metrics actually matter, and how to instrument your team without creating bureaucracy. 1. Stop Trusting Your Gut Blindly Most engineering leaders ascend because they had great technical instincts. It is natural to assume those instincts translate p…

Assess Impact, Not Activity

January 29, 2026

Intro Managers without development experience often struggle to evaluate engineers, falling back on weak proxies like activity counts or confidence "vibes." To do this correctly, you must stop guessing and start measuring performance as impact, not activity. This guide covers how to build a career ladder, collect forensic evidence from artifacts, and run calibration sessions that remove bias. 1. Define Performance as Impact If you are not a developer, the easiest mistake is to grade the visible surface area of work: number of PRs, Slack respon…

Metrics ≠ Surveillance: Measure Systems, Not People

January 29, 2026

Intro Most engineers resist metrics not because they fear accountability, but because they fear judgment without context. To build trust, you must prove that surveillance controls people, while measurement improves systems. This guide covers how to write a "metrics charter," choose DORA signals over activity counts, and create safety through transparency. 1. Define the Boundary "Surveillance" isn't about collecting data; it's about shifting the power dynamic so people optimize for not getting in trouble. Research shows that monitoring without …

Measure Outcomes, Not Activity

January 24, 2026

Intro Most attempts to measure developer productivity degenerate into surveillance because they track "activity" clicks and time online rather than actual work outcomes. To get valid performance data without destroying trust, you must track outcomes for coaching, not activity for surveillance. This guide covers how to monitor work artifacts PRs, tickets, restrict individual data to private 1:1s, and use metrics to support fair performance reviews. 1. Track Artifacts, Not Exhaust 2. Apply the "StarCraft" Test 3. Build a Privacy Firewall 4. Use I…

Stop the Theater: How to Fix Broken Status Updates

January 24, 2026

Intro Most teams suffer from "watermelon reporting" projects that look green on the outside until the moment they crack open to reveal they are red on the inside. To fix this, you must stop treating updates as a social performance and start treating status as a contract, not a mood ring. This guide covers how to: Define objective RedAmberGreen triggers Replace activity narration with decision deltas Ensure that "yellow" triggers support rather than blame 1. Kill the Watermelon Green/Yellow/Red systems fail in a predictable way: they become…

The Ethical PIP: A Passable Contract

January 21, 2026

Most employees view Performance Improvement Plans PIPs as bureaucratic theater designed to justify a predecided firing. To run an ethical process, you must treat the PIP as a passable contract one with clear gaps, real support, and a legitimate path to success. This guide covers how to: Diagnose the root cause Write scorable success criteria Manage the process without lying about the potential outcomes 1. Diagnose the Root Cause First A PIP should be your second act, not your first. Before you draft legal documents, you must decide what yo…

The 'Brilliant Jerk' Is a Math Problem

January 13, 2026

Intro You’ve got a strong engineer who ships, but working with them hurts. Treat collaboration like performance, not personality. This post gives you a script, the evidence to bring, and the escalation path if it doesn’t change. TL;DR: Don’t soften the feedback. Make it precise, tie it to delivery, and set a bar they can hit. Treat collaboration like performance, not personality Bring 3–6 concrete incidents, not a vibe Use SBI/SBII to keep it out of debate mode Convert “be nicer” into rules for reviews and decisions If it doesn’t change, e…

Silence is Rational: How to Fix Broken Retrospectives

January 13, 2026

Intro When a retrospective goes quiet, your team isn't disengaged; they are performing a calculation where speaking up costs more than staying silent. To get the truth, you must accept that silence is rational behavior and focus entirely on lowering the "tax" on honesty. This guide covers how to: Diagnose the fear Fix the room dynamics Use writefirst mechanics to ship visible improvements 1. Diagnose the Silence Quiet looks the same on the surface, but the cause is always different. You cannot fix the room until you know which enemy you ar…

Managers without development experience - How do you effectively assess performance of software engineers?

November 14, 2025

TL;DR Assessing engineers without a development background isn’t about guessing who’s “smart” or counting tickets; it’s about combining results, activity signals, and peer insight into a coherent picture. When you treat outcomes as the anchor and use activity metrics and feedback as leading indicators not scores you can evaluate engineers fairly without pretending to be a senior developer. Put outcomes first: what changed for customers, systems, and the business because of this engineer’s work. Treat activity stats tasks, story points, pull…

1 on 1s with Engineering Managers - what do you typically discuss?

November 9, 2025

TL;DR: The 1on1 that Actually Works Wellrun 1on1s aren’t status updates; they’re the most reliable place for truth, coaching, and momentum. Treat them as a steady system clear purpose, shared ownership, predictable cadence, psychological safety, light prep, evidencebased feedback, growth, and followthrough and they become quiet multipliers for performance and trust. Purpose, not status: Use the hour for alignment, feedback, growth, and team/process health. Keep task review in standups/tools. Shared ownership: Engineer leads the agenda; mana…

What do you ask your manager in 1 on 1s?

November 9, 2025

TL;DR Make 1:1s Count A 1:1 isn’t a status check it’s your most valuable space for clarity, trust, and better decisions. Purpose: Use 1:1s to exchange context, surface risks early, and align your work with what truly matters. It’s not about reporting tasks, but shaping priorities and decisions together. Focus: Bring questions that change what happens next what decisions could shift the plan, what risks need attention, and what feedback would sharpen your impact. Leave with insights, not updates. Leverage lenses use these to frame your q…

Turning Struggle into Structure: How to Set the Right PIP Goals for Junior Engineers

October 29, 2025

Turning Struggle into Structure: How to Set the Right PIP Goals for Junior Engineers Here’s a situation no manager wants to face a junior engineer, about two years in, is falling short. Not disastrously. But deadlines slip. Reviews feel surfacelevel. Communication gets vague. You start wondering: Are they in the wrong role? Did I miss a coaching window? Can this still be turned around? That’s where a Performance Improvement Plan PIP comes in. Not as punishment. Not as paperwork. But as a structured reset a way to draw a line, define expectati…

How to Structure 1:1s With Staff Engineers: Moving Beyond Updates to Shared Impact

October 29, 2025

They didn’t need task updates. They didn’t want motivational fluff. And they certainly weren’t looking for micromanagement. The first time I sat down for a 1:1 with a Staff Engineer, I realized I was having a very different kind of conversation. I asked about blockers; they asked about technical vision. I offered feedback; they asked about organizational tradeoffs. I came in ready to discuss sprint outcomes; they wanted to talk about how our system design aligned with longterm product direction. That moment forced a shift: if I wanted to earn t…

How do I write a great performance review for my team when I'm a new manager and don't have much history with them?

October 27, 2025

You’ve just stepped into management and your first real test has arrived: writing performance reviews for a team you hardly know. The task feels loaded with risk and expectation. Yet done well, it’s your chance to build trust, define your standards, and signal what kind of leader you’ll be. This guide draws on research from Gallup, Google, and CIPD plus case studies from real engineering teams to show how new managers can deliver fair, credible, and motivating reviews without the benefit of long history. What a Performance Review Actually Is…

How Often Should You Check Engineering Metrics and Does DORA Actually Help?

October 14, 2025

In the sprint review, someone asks the real question: “How often should we check our engineering metrics and do DORA metrics actually help?” You flip between deploy frequency, lead time, incidents, and customer feedback, but the picture stays fuzzy. The highperforming teams don’t worship DORA or toss it out; they set a clear cadence weekly beats quarterly, pair DORA with outcome signals quality, user impact, dev experience, and use that lightweight scorecard to trigger specific actions. That’s how metrics move from trivia to timely decisions. …

What KPIs Are You Tracking for Engineering and Product Development?

October 5, 2025

You know that awful moment when someone asks how your product is doing and you’re hunting for numbers that actually matter? We’ve all felt it lost in dashboards stuffed with vanity stats while the real story stays hidden. The reality: most teams track far too much that doesn’t move the needle and overlook the few metrics that truly guide decisions. This guide trims the clutter so you can pinpoint, roll out, and actually use KPIs that show if your product is winning or slipping and, even more importantly, what to do next. Why KPIs matter in e…

How to Provide Valuable Feedback to Software Engineers — And When 360° Tools Help (or Hurt)

September 22, 2025

The goal isn’t more feedback — it’s better feedback that changes behavior. In software teams, that means feedback that is timely, specific to real work, and safe enough to act on — without turning review cycles into performance theater. Make Feedback Concrete Structure, Not Personal Judgment Start with a crisp, repeatable frame: Situation → Behavior → Impact SBI. “In Tuesday’s postmortem situation, test data was skipped behavior, which added 40 minutes to recovery impact.” The SBI model from the Center for Creative Leadership is intenti…

How Do I Find More Time to Dev as an Engineering Manager?

September 9, 2025

Time is an important resource, and research has shown that modern work culture is draining it faster than ever. According to the review by Harvard Business, executives today spend an average of 23 hours per week in meetings, compared to less than 10 hours in the 1960s Harvard Businesshttps://hbr.org/2017/07/stopthemeetingmadness. For engineering managers, that number often stretches to 35+ hours weekly, leaving little space for handson development. The cost isn’t just lost hours—it’s lost focus. Studies from the University of California, Irvine…

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Intro Managing engineers based on "gut feel" creates invisible risks like bias, misallocated talent, and strategic drift. To lead effectively, you must stop relying solely on instinct and recognize that data disciplines judgment. This guide covers the hidden costs of intuitionbased management, which metrics actually matter, and how to instrument your team without creating bureaucracy. 1. Stop Trusting Your Gut Blindly Most engineering leaders ascend because they had great technical instincts. It is natural to assume those instincts translate p…