I spent most of my time meeting my new colleagues last week and reading documents to understand where we are and how we got here. I am still learning about the team, but I have seen some shared themes. They don’t look easy to tackle, but I appreciate that many agree that those problems need to be solved.
I am looking forward to more conversations this week.
Software Engineering ⚙️
Understanding the EAV data model and when to use it
My team’s database uses an unusual Entity-Attribute-Value (EAV) structure to express different types of items that our sellers sell. It’s my first time running into such a structure, so I read up on it. Now I know the pros and cons, I have a few follow-up questions for the team.
Announcing TypeScript 4.5 Beta
This release improves how Typescript works with an ECMAScript module.
People ❤️
Square Defangs Difficult Decisions with this System — Here’s How
Like Netflix’s Freedom-and-Responsibility, Square has its own set of shortcuts to make decisions. SPADE, which stands for Setting, People, Alternatives, Decision, and Explain, is one. It is essentially a checklist for critical questions, such as “what decision needs to be made,” “who is responsible,” and “who is the approver.” A lot of our internal docs follow this structure.
Direction + Alignment + Commitment (DAC) = Leadership
I learned about this concept from an internal training video. DAC stands for the key ingredients for successful collaboration:
- Direction: what is the goal?
- Alignment: how are we going to get there?
- Commitment: are we prioritizing this work?
This concept isn’t as prevalent as SPADE inside Square, but I like that this idea reminds me of how to drive a collaborative project.
Good People, Big Dreams
Square, too, relies on individual teams to onboard newcomers as Netflix does. As I think about onboarding new people to my team, I need to prioritize relationship-building as much as skill training. Lemonade has built a strong cohort program that will help the newcomers gell.
There’s Another Gender Pay Gap: Stock Options
This article is another reminder of why we should share our compensation numbers with our colleagues. Information asymmetry has real consequences.
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