#231 – March 02, 2025
Ways to stay tech-savvy while adding value as an engineering manager
Hands-On
7 minutes by Chaitali Narla
Ways to stay tech-savvy while adding value as an engineering manager. Many engineering managers worry about losing touch with tech. And it's a real problem. At its mildest, it could confuse or stress the team because the manager might commit to the wrong projects or timelines. At its worst, it could make the manager's skills obsolete.
The only developer tool that explains both how your codebase works and why.
sponsored by Unblocked
Unblocked connects the context across your team’s code, discussions, and docs to instantly answer questions about your application. Now everyone can get their work done – without having to dig for answers or interrupt their teammates. Teams like Drata say they save an hour or more a day per engineer with Unblocked.
How to handle difficult employees
9 minutes by Claire Lew
5 archetypes from Claire's experience with the manual on how to deal with them. The key is not to let that conscientiousness paralyze you from making necessary changes. Your team is watching and waiting for your leadership.
What makes entrepreneurs entrepreneurial?
4 minutes by Murat
Entrepreneurs use effectual reasoning, the polar opposite of causal reasoning taught in business schools. Causal reasoning starts with a goal and finds the best way to achieve it. Effectual reasoning starts with available resources and lets goals emerge along the way. Entrepreneurs are explorers, not generals. Instead of following fixed plans, they experiment and adapt to seize whatever opportunities the world throws at them.
Substitutes & Strategy
10 minutes by Roger Martin
The article discusses five different types of strategic contexts for product/service substitution and their implications for business growth. These contexts include: moving from unpaid to paid tasks, infrastructure-gated substitutions, cost-gated substitutions, incumbent-led substitutions, and new entrant substitutions of incumbent products.
High Ownership, High Urgency
10 minutes by Dan Na
Two key traits of exceptional coworkers: ownership and urgency. Dan defines ownership as taking ultimate accountability within one's control, regardless of circumstances. Urgency is described not as meeting external deadlines, but as an internal drive for excellence and continuous improvement. The article emphasizes that these traits, while powerful drivers of impact, need to be balanced to avoid burnout by focusing on what one can control.
AI isn’t magic, and it isn’t here to save you
sponsored by Test Double
AI won’t fix your tech debt. It won’t clean up your messy codebase. And it definitely won’t turn a broken process into a well-oiled machine. At best, AI is a turbocharged pairing partner—helping you ship faster and automate grunt work. At worst? It’s a hyper confident intern, making up nonsense at scale. If your fundamentals are shaky, AI won’t save you. It’ll just expose the cracks.
And a highlight from the last issue: