Blog
Posts about life, engineering management, the web industry, and things that I've been up to
2022
Developer satisfaction surveys
20 February 2022
In response to a nudge that it'd be good to have more written about this, I'm sharing some thoughts on developer productivity surveys, and what we've been doing at Farewill.
25 January 2022
When it comes to career advice, a common recommendation is you’ll need to work on your leadership to become more senior. In previous times “leadership skills” may have been code for “become a manager”, but nowadays even in hands-on/individual contributor roles leadership skills are becoming increasingly sought after.
2 January 2022
Another pandemic-tactic yearly round-up! I like to look back at the end of the year and write myself a reflection on how I’d found it. This is the 2021 edition.
2021
Advice for my younger developer self
17 June 2021
Earlier today I saw a tweet from Jo Franchetti, asking what advice you'd give your junior developer self. It's a classic question and one that's ripe for a blog post, so here's my take.
Leadership through a personal crisis
11 April 2021
One of the hardest things about being in a leadership position is understanding that you’re so visible, and your actions or behaviour - whether intentional or not - can send ripples through a large sphere of influence. In this post I want to give some tips about how to handle times when you’re not in a good place, balancing taking care of yourself with your leadership responsibilities.
21 January 2021
When it comes to looking after ourselves, sometimes we need to make sure we're practicing self care at the appropriate level.
3 January 2021
I’ve written some form of annual summary most years since 2011, and every year I read them back. They act as a reminder of the good and bad, and help me see the threads in my life. 2020’s a tough one to write, and has turned out to be a bit of a monster post.
2020
Areas to think about when introducing a progression framework
21 November 2020
After being involved in creating a couple of progression frameworks I've compiled key lessons I've learnt, tips, and questions to ask yourself when creating or updating your own.
Starting a new manager relationship
28 October 2020
Starting a new management relationship can be a turbulent time on both sides, and we want to do our best to minimise disruption as much as possible. In this post I'll talk through some steps to help smooth over the process.
Questions to ask on a new job search
3 October 2020
During my search for a new role, I kept a list of questions to use during the process. In case they're useful to me in the future (or anyone else for that matter!), I wanted to write a post with the key ones.