Another team merged with my team this week, and now I have nine engineers on my team. It’s close to the limit of what I can support, and I do worry about the burden on me. But I am still very excited. When we had two teams, these nine engineers, who work on the same system, had to find times outside the regular meetings to talk (this issue is more pronounced because we all work remotely and there is less chance of serendipitous chats). It eventually became too hard for us to stay aligned on critical changes or ongoing outages. Now, with everyone on the same team and sharing the same team ceremonies, these engineers will have plenty of opportunities to coordinate and make decisions.
While I am happy about this change, I also consider how I could have convinced the leadership better. This merger happened as the merged team’s manager decided to step down as a manager, allowing us to reevaluate. But I saw this coordination problem before and brought it up with the leadership a few times. I failed to convince them then. What would have made my case stronger?
Software Engineering ⚙️
Stabilize, Modularize, Modernize: Scaling Slack’s Mobile Codebases
Slack published a three-part series on their journey to improve their mobile codebases (both iOS and Android). I liked this first part because it describes how to recognize the problem, sell the idea to the leadership, and create a concrete plan to execute.
Should UX be part of the Scrum Team?
Developers get blocked all the time: unclear requirements, broken APIs, missing designs, etc. This article opened my mind to the idea that, maybe, we should venture outside our comfort zones and unblock ourselves.
OnCallogy Sessions
My team spends a significant amount of time on oncall but does not discuss how we can make our oncall experiences better. This article is a call to action to spend time together to make improvements.
Storybook Performance: Vite vs Webpack
I wouldn’t have guessed that the cold start time for Vite was more than double Webpack’s since Vite is so famous for its performance.
People ❤️
The Google Incentive Mismatch: Problems with Promotion-Oriented Cultures
When a promotion committee starts making promotion decisions, engineers start focusing on the work that will make their promo packets stronger. That’s why everyone wants to lead something at large companies, often at the customers’ expense.
Why We’re Creating Language to Hide from Tech’s Censorship Systems
Both human and algorithmic moderation affects how we express ourselves on platforms. We may leave for another platform or change our behaviors to fit in. It’s a digital version of the panopticon.
Business 💰
SafeGraph is under fire for selling abortion data. Its CEO says more changes are coming.
I find this article notable on two levels: first, this is yet another example of companies getting pulled into politics. Second, privacy and transparency are often put at odds against each other.
youngk.im 