#234 – March 23, 2025
How senior engineers can gain respect and influence without formal authority
Influence Without Authority
7 minutes by Gustavo de Lima
In this article Gustavo discusses how senior engineers can gain respect and influence without formal authority. He emphasizes that trust is the foundation, which must be earned through consistent actions: treating others respectfully, leading by example, making sound decisions, admitting failures, keeping commitments, listening before speaking, taking responsibility, and communicating clearly. Once trust is established, influence can be gained by building relationships, using data for persuasion, telling compelling stories, finding champions for your ideas, being persistent, and making adoption of your ideas as frictionless as possible.
AI developer tools are solving the wrong problem
sponsored by Unblocked
The biggest challenge in software development isn’t writing code. It’s having enough context to know what code to write. What you need is a way to find answers without having to search across a dozen tools or interrupt teammates.
Why you should get buy-in throughout a project
6 minutes by Wes Kao
In this post Wes explains why leaders often appear surprised by risks they previously acknowledged. She highlights that mentioning potential issues once isn't sufficient - you need to continuously reinforce key information throughout a project's lifecycle. Using a product manager example, Kao demonstrates how buy-in isn't a one-time event but requires consistent communication at the beginning, middle, and end of projects. The article recommends regularly reminding stakeholders about strategy, trade-offs, and expected outcomes to maintain alignment and prevent surprise reactions when anticipated risks materialize.
The Anatomy of a Non-Apology
9 minutes by Claire Lew
Claire explains how "non-apologies" damage trust and team dynamics. She identifies common non-apology patterns that shift blame or minimize issues, and presents a five-step framework for genuine apologies. The article also offers practical advice for handling complex apologetic situations and emphasizes that authentic accountability strengthens rather than diminishes leadership.
Being an Engineering Manager at Flo
9 minutes by Anton Zaides, Nihan Bircan, Eugene Sergueev
This article offers insights from Engineering Managers at Flo, a women's health unicorn app, highlighting their engineering structure organized around six outcome-focused "Streams" rather than traditional silos. It details how Flo improved experimentation efficiency and implemented platformization that reduced new subscription package creation from two weeks to five minutes. It also covers Flo's engineering efficiency metrics and their challenges of balancing rapid growth with building sustainable solutions while maintaining a high hiring bar.
How I've run major projects
19 minutes by Ben Kuhn
In this playbook for effective project management Ben dives deep into key principles for coordinating complex technical projects, especially in crisis situations. Ben emphasizes maintaining focus by dedicating significant time, creating detailed success plans, overcommunicating with team members, breaking large projects into manageable subprojects with dedicated leaders, and maintaining enjoyment despite pressure. The appendix includes practical tools for designated responsible individuals, including weekly meeting structures, documentation practices, roadmap creation, task assignment, communication norms, and regular retrospectives.
Tests are dead. Meticulous AI is here.
sponsored by Meticulous
Meticulous automatically creates and maintains an exhaustive e2e UI test suite that covers every corner of your application – with no developer intervention required whatsoever. Dropbox, Lattice, Bilt Rewards and hundreds of organisations rely on Meticulous for their frontend testing. It is built from the Chromium level up with a deterministic scheduling engine – making it the only testing tool that eliminates flakes.
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