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blooberr

I was once asked what my philosophy was by a more senior manager. Didn't give him a good answer.

The interaction lead me to think about what I was doing as a manager. Over time I've been working on developing and explaining my own style.

Today I try to balance across 3 things: people, business, and technology.

I wrote about it here if you're curious: https://www.mrbluebear.com/triforce-of-engineering-managemen...

Is there anything out there close to what you're describing?
Anything specific you want to accomplish for maximum team impact?

For example, are there metrics you're trying to hit, or are you trying to ship as many projects on time?

how have you used it?

Ask HN: Upgrading Rails

I'm really curious how everyone determines when is the right time to upgrade Rails versions.How do you determine when is the right time to pull the trigger for a major upgrade? Like 2.3 -> 3.x? Or more recently, potentially to 5.x?What is the process that you follow?

( Read More... | 2 comments | 3 points | on HN )
Wish I had taken better care of my eyes.
Re:Ask HN: Why don't you blog? on Monday March 07, 2016 @02:51PM (#11241132)
I have many articles written on software management. They document my journey as a new engineering manager. I also write down what my other friends deal with as managers/tech leads. It's amazing to see what everyone has to think about and how events could possibly unfold behind every decision.

They're all sitting on my laptop, but I worry about keeping topics separate from our employers. I want to keep things classy.

If you've got suggestions how to approach this, let me know.

Re:Ask HN: What do do in Palo Alto on Saturday evenings? on Monday January 11, 2016 @05:29PM (#10884090)
If you like wine, I highly recommend going here with a small group: http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-wine-room-palo-alto
Re:Ask HN: 2 page or 1 page resume? on Sunday January 03, 2016 @03:47PM (#10832284)
I've looked over hundreds of resumes and it's never hurt the candidate for submitting 1 or 2 pages.

If it takes the applicant 2 pages to convince me they're worth the time to talk to, then that's fine.

Re:Ask HN: How can i track API error rate on Tuesday December 08, 2015 @01:00PM (#10698092)
Re:Ask HN: Hacking or management? on Wednesday November 11, 2015 @01:47PM (#10548382)
Right now, I think it's best you stay and try to turn things around. I don't think I can give you more concrete advice just based on your description so far.

I lead a team of engineers too - email me (in my profile) if you want to chat in person or Skype. I'd be more than happy to listen and discuss your situation.

Re:Ask HN: What should I learn next? on Friday October 02, 2015 @02:03PM (#10320173)
How about taking a look at Rust?

Might be a good alternative to learning C/C++.

Re:The MUD Connector on Wednesday August 26, 2015 @12:20PM (#10123997)
spent way too much time on medievia
Re:Ask HN: Are you happy with your project management tool? on Wednesday July 29, 2015 @01:35PM (#9970198)
I've been using self-hosted Redmine for over 4 years.

https://www.digitalocean.com/features/one-click-apps/redmine...

also betrayal at krondor
space empires 3! my favorite indie 4x game
Do you have to physically be in the office?

Would it work if you were in the library or a coffee shop 5 minutes away?

Re:Ask HN: How do you stay in shape? on Friday July 10, 2015 @12:49PM (#9865101)
Two things that really helped:

1) I signed up for gym classes with a limited (13) number of sessions per month.

This forces me to go 13 times a month. If I don't go, I'll be wasting money and psychologically I don't like knowing that I just threw away money. That's worked for me better than signing up for unlimited and never end up going since I would mentally think, "oh I could go tomorrow I've got infinite gym sessions."

2) I stopped eating out every day and cooked for myself. I learned how to butcher a whole chicken to save on money.

I've lost about 15% of my weight over 14 months. My clothes are all baggy now but that's a different set of problems.

Re:Ask HN: Who is hiring? (July 2015) on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @02:10PM (#9813931)
Akuda San Jose, CA - close to Caltrain | ONSITE

We are focused on speed. In a split second, we collect tens of thousands of documents and images and analyze them in real time for business intelligence. With our system, we deliver unique insights for our customers.

We're also serious about giving our engineers ownership over projects. If you're interested in creating visualizations on petabytes of data to managing hundreds of virtual machines, send us an email at: [email protected] and tell us a little about yourself.

Here's what we're looking for full time:

* Frontend Engineer - Rails / D3 / Angular / Gulp

* Infrastructure DevOps Engineer - experience with cluster monitoring / genuinely interested in force-multiplying engineers / interest in Go and Docker always appreciated

For part time:

* Graphic Designer

What problems have you ran into managing software projects? Seems like what you're doing is good enough. You described your workflow already.

I've never managed to get agile/scrum/waterfall working when followed to the letter.

Always easier to start as an individual. I managed to retrain myself over the years from being a cowboy coder.

Since I'm one of the lead developers, I just started practicing what I preached. Every new system I build has unit tests, and every time I integrate with a legacy system or another system someone works on, I write tests for it.

I also work with that engineer to see if they need to add tests on their end.

Anytime something written in the cowboy days in production breaks, I check if I should write a test. (Normally I need to.)

This way it spread "virally" from me.

For mass adoption among the team, try to get your test workflow down so it's easy to explain and pickup.

Re:Ask HN: What project management tool do you love? on Tuesday May 05, 2015 @04:49PM (#9494871)
Redmine is good enough for me. You can get a droplet on digital ocean all ready to go too.
What were some of the struggles you've had? What have you come up with so far for others?

I made the transition a few years ago to management. What worked best for me was simply listening to everyone. I try minimize any objections or comments until I've had a chance understand all the issues.

Previously I'd fire off whatever comes to the top of my head and I can't provide good judgement or advice if I do that.

Re:Ask HN: My SaaS is stuck at $10K MRR, now what? on Monday April 27, 2015 @12:19PM (#9447235)
What's your site? You can send me a link to it (email in profile)
Re:Ask HN: How do you log application events? on Monday April 27, 2015 @11:22AM (#9446857)
Fluentd + Elasticsearch.

Very easy to setup.

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