(Bluxome Labs : 11/17-11/17)
It has been my finding in small, medium, and large engineering orgs that any engineering leader faces challenges in primarily these three areas
- recruit and retain top-notch engineering talent
- engineer appropriate level of software quality
- ensure stewardship of engineering costs
I was brought in to consult, delivering an approach as well as methodology for measuring progress in those areas. Below is the generalized version of my deliverable.
30 Day Plan
- Establish presence and key relationships
- establish trust and rapport through get-to-knows with
- execs
- key business partners in ENGR, PROD, DSGN, etc., and
- impactful ICs
- understand engineers’ motivations
- establish trust and rapport through get-to-knows with
- Get familiar with the company
- become conversant around business
- get a better understand of company values/KPIs
- review product roadmap and identify engineering objectives
- identify/facilitate improvements for any engineering/product bottlenecks
- familiarize self with engineering processes
- get hands-on with codebase; implement features and/or fix bugs
- become conversant around business
- Recruit top-notch engineering talent
- formulate/revise current job reqs as necessary
- reach out to own network to populate open reqs
- incentivize engineers to recruit friends/former co-workers
- Retain top-notch engineering talent
- review/establish benchmarks around engineer productivity
- establish monthly Developer NPS
- encourage pairing
- engage engineers around
- SDLC processes, including TDD/testing and release management
- tools (scripts, shells, editors, aliases, etc.)
- Engineer appropriate level of software quality
- review/establish benchmarks around software quality
- examine engineering/product relationship for any potential improvement wins
- Ensure stewardship of engineering costs
- review engineering spend
- identify categories for re-allocation as appropriate
60 Day Plan
- Get feedback from C-Suite
- Recruit top-notch engineering talent
- internally-facing
- review anticipated engineering challenges of next 24 months
- review/assess Applicant Tracking System (e.g. JobScore)
- ensure that company is represented on GlassDoor
- present to executives a review of needs vs. current team resources
- externally-facing
- setup engineering blog (one-time)
- incentivize engineers to provide content for engineering blog (ongoing)
- post job reqs to Hacker News on the first of the month
- internally-facing
- Retain top-notch engineering talent
- internally-facing
- review/revise engineer productivity benchmarking
- establish engineering orgs values; establish any further training needs
- tie company initiatives back into engineering efforts
- establish
- catered team lunches (weekly)
- refactoring Reviews (monthly)
- lunchtime tech-talks (monthly)
- externally-facing
- strategize around engineering at company as a desirable place to work (as determined by positive reviews on GlassDoor)
- internally-facing
- Engineer appropriate level of software quality
- review/revise benchmarks around software quality
- inventory/assess/establish action items around
- performance, scalability, and stability of key user experiences
- testing strategy
- Ensure stewardship of engineering costs
- socialize generalized cost details among trusted advisors in my network for further ideation around cost reduction
90 Day Plan
- Recruit top-notch engineering talent
- internally-facing
- monitor GlassDoor for action items (monthly)
- externally-facing
- continue to post job reqs to Hacker News on the first of the month
- participate (and incentivize participation amongst engineers) in outreach towards 1) recruiting 2) promoting the company’s engineering culture and 3) professional development
- host a Meetup on engineering-relevant topic (quarterly)
- internally-facing
- Retain top-notch engineering talent
- internally-facing
- review results of Developer NPS; assess any action items
- establish
- 2-day Hackathons (semi-annual)
- team-building offsites (quarterly)
- leveling plan
- internally-facing
- Engineer appropriate level of software quality
- support culture of data-driven decision-making
- continually review overall tact as manifestation of company/engineering values
- Ensure stewardship of engineering costs
- ensure that any new initiatives involving ENGR meet key criteria for ROI
- review forthcoming scalability, security, reliability goals; organize initiatives accordingly
Results
- Delivered immediate-term vision and strategy towards high-performance engineering culture.