#41 - Intentional Technical Leadership

Hey my friend!

Happy Saturday! 🎉

Welcome to another issue of the Intentional Technical Leadership newsletter.

How's it going this week? I hope you've had a great week!

I know that the past few months have been tough for many of us, especially with many layoffs and job uncertainty.

In this week's newsletter, there's a valuable blog post focusing on how to handle those difficult situations if you or your team have been in the unfortunate position of job loss.

Also we dive into the negative impact of absentee and micromanaging bosses and how to deal with them.

I hope you enjoy the links - let's dive in!

🔖 Interesting Reading

Practical steps to take when you've been laid off

If you're paying any attention to the tech world then you'll know that there's been a lot of layoffs recently.

Google have just cut 12,000 jobs, Microsoft announced a reduction of 10,000 staff, and Meta reducing their teams by 13% - approximately 11,000 people. Even here at Netlify we've had some layoffs.

I've been through multiple rounds of redundancies in my career and it can be pretty brutal when you're not expecting it.

This blog post by Lena Reinhard is a great help if you've been put into the position of having to find a new job.

While it's never nice to think of losing your job, it's important to be prepared in case it should happen. Taking care of yourself and your mental health is your main priority, but it's also important to be proactive in case the worst happens.

Lena shares some excellent advice on how to ensure you're ready to find a new job and how to make the most of a bad situation.

Absentee And Micromanagers Make Equally Bad Bosses

Kim Scott, the author of Radical Candor and a CEO coach, has written a great article on different types of bad bosses.

In her blog post she talks about the two extremes of micromanagers and absentee managers and how they both have a negative impact on the people they manage.

One of the best ways to get the most out of your team is to give them autonomy and trust them to do their job. But you can do this by actively partnering with them rather than micromanaging their work.

This is another super useful article from Kim Scott.

📺 Worth Watching

Remote Engineering Management

I'm always interested to hear more about how other companies manage their engineering teams remotely.

I've been working in a remote-first way for the past 8 years but I'm always looking for ways to improve how we work.

This is a great conversation between Suzan Bond, an executive coach and ex-COO, and Alexandra Sunderland, a Senior Engineering Manager at Fellow.app.

They talk about the challenges of remote management and how communication is instrumental in the success of a remote team.

Whether you're an established or aspiring leader, you will gain practical tips to implement with your current or future team.

🌶️ Hot Take

Being good at interviewing != being good at the job | Madison Kanna

This is such a good hot take from Madison Kanna.

With all of the hoops that some companies make you jump through to interview for the role, it's always surprising to realise that some people in companies are actually not that good at their jobs.

Learning to pass the L33t Hacker interview for a role is not the same as being a good engineer or engineering manager.

I 100% agree with Madison on this and we need less gatekeeping interviews!

I hope you enjoyed this week's selection of intentional technical leadership articles.

Hit reply and let me know what you think.

Feel free to send me any interesting articles or podcasts you've found as I love hearing from my readers.

Have an amazing week and be excellent to each other!

Speak to you soon,
Marc

Senior Engineering Manager @ Netlify

👓 Read more of my technical leadership articles on my website.