When I first started leading software development teams, I was extremely naive about what it meant to be a manager. My father was a small businessman and lead his company and its employees with an unmistakable authority and command-and-control style. I was naturally influenced by this approach early in my career and applied it to … Continue reading Advice for the New Engineering Manager
Author: Brad Ledford
Evolving Storytelling in Product Development
Imagine you've observed a problem that many people around you experience. Like how, for instance, meaningful home automation is still extremely hard for the everyday home owner to achieve. So, being a smart product manager / programmer / entrepreneur / hacker / designer / innovation-generating-machine, you set out to solve this problem once and for all! … Continue reading Evolving Storytelling in Product Development
Saying Goodbye to Bob
Bob Montgomery was a coworker, friend, and cherished family member to so many of us. But for me, he was also a mentor. He and Janie were responsible for the success of my internship at AMD in the Summer and Fall of 1998 and, as a result, much of my career in software that followed. I don't … Continue reading Saying Goodbye to Bob
Go Forth and Deploy
For many of us in software of a certain age, making changes to and releasing software has traditionally been a perilous activity. Customers had to be hand-held, release sequences carefully orchestrated, and contingencies planned in case of failure. And so, the best releases were done by the best release engineers (remember that title?)--typically release engineers … Continue reading Go Forth and Deploy
Working Alone
When was the last time you worked by yourself for any serious length of time? As one of the perks at my current employer, engineering and product teams are encouraged to work from home on Tuesdays. For me it's the best way to re-energize after the "collaboration fatigue" of a typical week. Yet, alone, there … Continue reading Working Alone
Breaking Down Git Activity of the Swift Programming Language
A Review of Activity on the Swift Github Repo The following is a review of the Swift Programming Language recently open sourced by Apple using the gitstats utility and the freely available Github Activity charts. The Vitals Generated: 2015–12–14 21:34:08 (in 225 seconds)Report Period: 2010–07–17 16:50:59 to 2015–12–14 21:12:49Age: 1,978 days, 1,438 active days (72.70%)Total … Continue reading Breaking Down Git Activity of the Swift Programming Language
Evolution of the Zappos Product Page
We’ve come a long way in how we present products to our customers since the early days of the Internet. Let’s dust off WayBackMachine.org and see what’s changed… Then Zappos Product Page — Circa 2003We’ll focus on Zappos.com circa March 2003 (or thereabouts). One of the things that stands out to me is how, arguably, e-commerce product page … Continue reading Evolution of the Zappos Product Page
