Rands in Repose

So much great and timeless stuff was written in the 2000's, it's great and should be part of everyone's read list. Another one that's still pretty timeless is https://randsinrepose.com/

I highly recommend "Managing Humans" by Michael Lopp. https://randsinrepose.com/ I read it several years into my management path and cringed when reading a few of the anecdotes realising I'd made the same mistakes. The Rands' Leadership Slack is also a wealth of knowledge and advice.

I recommend "Managing Humans" by Michael Lopp aka "Rands". https://randsinrepose.com/ It's a bit tongue in cheek rather than "management theory" but no less worthwhile for it.

Nice read. I can also strongly recommend Rands (Michael Lopp) who has a great blog https://randsinrepose.com/ and wrote "Managing Humans" - an amazing book on the subject

Great, insightful book and a fun read. Highly recommend The blog is great too! http://randsinrepose.com

As a developer, I'd love to see more managers read and try to follow the advice that makes sense for their company/position from Michael Lopp, aka Rands: http://randsinrepose.com From my perspective, it's a how-to guide for managing information workers, keeping them happy, and keeping yourself sane.

I've been collecting a list of things to read about managing humans over the past decade, and finally made the move to engineering manager in 2018. Here's my list: https://github.com/skyzyx/managing-humans/blob/master/README.md In short, I would recommend subscribing to http://randsinrepose.com and https://blog.knowyourcompany.com and reading (and understanding) every single post. Even if you want to tweak things and go your own way, these are successful engineering leaders that you will want to learn from. Managing humans is a very different job from managing code or managing machines.

If you're looking to expand on this I can highly recommend rands[1] as a great source of a wide range of engineering topics. Good stuff not just for managers but anyone involved in the well-running of a team(which is everyone!). [1] http://randsinrepose.com/

Subscribe to Rands' blog, read through his archives, and get on his Slack. http://randsinrepose.com/ https://rands-leadership.slack.com/?redir=%2Fmessages%2Fgeneral%2F

I hope financial growth is not the only thing that drives your career, because if it is you won't really get nourishment out if it. And a happy career is a good career. That said, if you are really considering a management role -- not because it pays better, but mainly because the job excites you and you love the challenge to keep both your engineers and your boss happy -- Michael Lopp's blog [0] and book "Managing Humans" [1] are certainly some things which you want to read. I personally also love Meri Williams' blog, which also contains all her talks on managing geeks. In my personal opinion both are the kind of people you would like to have to run your team(s), and their insights on how to properly manage people are invaluable. [0] http://randsinrepose.com/ [1] http://www.managinghumans.com/ [2] http://blog.geekmanager.co.uk/

This guy writes an amazing blog. I've been following him for years; http://randsinrepose.com/

Being Geek by Michael Lopp Rands does a great job at giving a broad range of career advice for software engineers. I also recommend his blog: http://randsinrepose.com/

Rands. At the very least, his blog: http://randsinrepose.com. But, his book - Managing Humans - is great as well: http://www.managinghumans.com.

Great article, and as indicated in his blog's comments, very similar to Rands in Repose (http://www.randsinrepose.com) whose writings in this space are similar. I can't stress enough how useful 1:1s are for my own team (I believe Google follows the Andy Grove model mentioned in "High Output Management", another great book). It's easy for engineers to under-communicate those somewhat-important-but-not-really issues with their tech lead / manager, and getting it out on the table during 1:1s is crucial to keeping said issues from getting out of hand.

That's just one method. There are numerous successful blogs that post much more rarely, much weightier posts. E.g.: http://www.stevepavlina.com http://www.randsinrepose.com To name but two. 4000 words might be a bit hard to digest for a blog post, but there's a happy medium in 1000-2000 words which you don't need to publish every day (or even several times a week, as Rands has shown), so long as it's worth reading. Daniel

Rands in Repose is great. https://randsinrepose.com/

Hi there, I'm quite new to engineering management as well, with approximately one year of experience. I've had some great mentors, as well as a reading list passed down to me. I'll highlight those I found as having the most impact for me. At the top of the list is "Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager" by Michael Lopp[1], which was recommended to me by a manager who helped me get my start in engineering management. This book touches on a lot of the nuances in dealing with people and, as an introvert, I found this really helpful. The same author blogs under "Rands in Repose[2]" which has much of the content from the aforementioned book available for free. While in the people category you'll also get a lot of recommendations for "Drive!" by Daniel Pink[2], which is a book about intrinsic motivators (autonomy, mastery, purpose) and how they are more important and effective than extrinsic motivators (e.g. money), particularly for knowledge workers. My personal advice, however, is to watch his TED talk[3] which is a great summary of basically the entire book. In this same category I could also recommend "The Great Jackass Fallacy" by Harry Levinson[5]. Now on the wall between people management and engineering/project management is "Slack" by Tom DeMarco[6], which is about how organizations and managers tend to run their staff at 100% capacity. As the book points out, however, this is a good way to not only burn people out, but it also…

The fact of the matter is that a lot of technical people who are geniuses technically do not have the qualities necessary to be good managers. Good managing requires ability to communicate up, down, and across the corporate hierarchy and the political minefield that comes with it. Good managers will balance out good technical people in terms of skillset, and help their team to do their job, while also coaching them in the areas where they are weak (and if the manager is weak technically, then obviously technical coaching is not in scope). Good managers will filter what reaches inside their team from the outside and protect their team from crap while captaining the ship forward. They know their weaknesses and also know that good leadership requires hiring people who are smarter than you are, and then helping to facilitate the magic that can happen when good people get together. Having managers who are strong both technically and in a business sense is rare. There are only so many Elon Musks in the world. But when you work with one, your work becomes very enjoyable. At the end of the day, team members don't have visibility as to what managers do every day. This blog is great for understanding this stuff: http://randsinrepose.com http://www.randsinrepose.com/cat_management.html

To add a few that span outside entrepreneurship, but are of course very valuable to entrepreneurs: Inspired: How To Create Products Customers Love (http://www.amazon.com/Inspired-Create-Products-Customers-Love/dp/09816… - The best if not only required reading for product management Peopleware (http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Teams-Second/dp/0… - Great read on managing and understanding people as it relates to organizations Managing Humans (http://www.amazon.com/Managing-Humans-Humorous-Software-Engineering/dp… - Obviously on management, you can read much on this http://randsinrepose.com/, though the book does a great job of consolidating it

Here's another idea: Since your friend is coming out in 9 months anyway and there's so much risk involved in trying to sneak in a programming book, he should probably spend his time developing another equally useful skill: writing well. As many other successful programmers have noted (Spolsky, Yegge) and demonstrated, effective communication, especially through writing, is a very useful and necessary skill for a programmer. So, maybe you should send him just some good books on writing well. In general books, I can think of Strunk and White, On Writing (by Stephen King). But some examples of good writing about programming could also help: The Best Software Writing (edited by Spolsky) Joel on Software (the best articles from his blog) Steve Yegge's blog posts (others might disagree but I think he is an excellent writer). Paul Graham's essays raganwald's old blog - http://weblog.raganwald.com/ James Hague's blog - http://prog21.dadgum.com/ Rands in Repose - http://randsinrepose.com/

Shortly before I started managing engineers I read "Managing Humans" (I'd already been following http://www.randsinrepose.com/) and found it helpful. One of the best resources I found was (luckily) my own boss. Find others in a similar (or higher) position and talk with them regularly, openly, and candidly about any challenges you're facing. I wish I had better advice, but what you'll find is that being a good manager/team lead is at least as hard as your old job (and probably harder). Continuing to do your old job alongside it, while probably a good idea for your own job satisfaction/sanity, will only make it harder. Random bits of advice I find helpful: * Your primary job is to shield your direct reports from management BS (false priorities, unrealistic deadlines, company drama); while this is less of a problem at a small startup, don't ignore it. Your secondary job is to make your direct reports look good; promote what they're doing and make sure what they're doing is aligned with the company's goals. * Schedule 1:1 meetings. See Rands' advice on how to structure and run them, but basically keep them short, informal, and regular. Start with a softball and use it as a time for your direct reports to warn you about any upcoming problems that may be bubbling. Avoid the temptation for status reports, one larger team meeting instead, etc. Sit down with each individual direct report and get to know them better. * Set clear goals and priorities for everyone. *…

> if they don't and want to work, great. Interesting thought, I had never considered cancelling if they don’t have anything. Thanks for that. My thought was always, “I want to give everyone that time no matter what, and if they don’t have anything, then I go to a list of questions I have for every 1-1 if we have time. Stuff like, “how are you feeling with {$latest_company_happenings}?” or “how do you think the team is doing?” or “are you interested in the work these days, or burnt out?” or ask them about some problem I’m trying to solve for the team and how they’d approach it. Ala: https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-update-the-vent-and-the-disaste…

https://randsinrepose.com/guides/usb/usb-guide.html this is 100% Claude-generated,and without citations I'd be very careful at trusting it. wonder why whoever prompted this in existence would not include actual references and sources of information. disclaimer: me -> everyday CC user, so trust me, this thing loves to spit nonsense.

Mind throwing some links my way? I love me some Scott Forstall anecdotes. Here, I'll start: - https://randsinrepose.com/archives/innovation-is-a-fight/ - https://youtu.be/IiuVggWNqSA - https://amazon.com/dp/B07D435DFQ

Just get going. Quoting https://randsinrepose.com/archives/your-writing/ : * Less than 1% of your writing will be life-changing. * 3% will be trivial to write. * 4% will strongly resonate with others in a way you didn’t expect. * 5% will be quite good. * 15% probably should’ve never been published. * 26% will elicit a reaction you did not expect. Positive or negative. * 28% will become vastly better because you chose to edit. * 30% will start as one piece but finish as another. * 40% will be good solid writing. * 45% will do much worse than you expect when published. * 60% of your writing will never be finished. Be ok with that. * 100% of your writing is worth your time.

Just a friendly suggestion to read: https://madebyjamie.com/003-the-builders-high/ https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-builders-high/?ref=madebyjamie.… Or a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpdQOGNO2rY Have a great day

There is also a dynamic aspect to that: the original team who started the startup has battle scars, they used to take risk, but now they have a natural incentive to be more conservative, preserve the way things were done. Rands has a great article on that topic well worth reading: https://randsinrepose.com/archives/stables-and-volatiles/ It matches my experience with startups experiencing challenges as they grow.

I once heard a distinguished professor answer that question with "I have read at least half of them at least two-thirds of the way through." On the other hand, he had books that were nearly falling apart from re-reading. Eco on libraries reminds me of a piece by Michael "Rands" Lopp from 2006: "The cliche about hardware stores and people over thirty is this: it’s a toy store. We go there to buy crap that looks cool, but that we don’t really need. Wrong. My Dad was not wandering Orchard Supply looking for crap; my Dad was looking for ideas. That’s what a great tool does: it inspires you to build." (http://randsinrepose.com/forums/)

I like some of the reddits. /r/programming is pretty good, though with significant overlap with HN. Slacks are fantastic, if you can find focused ones with good moderation. For example, the Rands leadership slack is, bar none, the best place to go for engineering management advice: https://randsinrepose.com/welcome-to-rands-leadership-slack/ I presume the same is true of focused discords, though I haven't really found any of those that stand out.

Check out the classic Rands article “The Update, the Vent, and the Disaster”, written from the manager’s POV: https://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-update-the-vent-and-the-disaste…