Matt Andrews is an engineering manager based in Birmingham, UK. He also enjoys riding bikes, brewing craft beer, writing and making things.
Redundancy came for me at the end of 2024, which I guess means I should be proud: I can cross one of the clichés of working in the software industry off my list. Layoffs and cutbacks are common in these post-ZIRP times, and in some ways it was a relief to finally feel the shoe drop. This article is about my experience with the process—and the aftermath—and some thoughts and reflections now that…
I’m fashionably late with this lookback at 2024, but I hope you’ll forgive me – my mind’s been occupied with other priorities until this week.
I wrote last year about things I learned as an engineering manager in 2022. It’s been another twelve months of ups, downs and sideways, so here’s a couple more things that I learned this year about leading people in tech.
The past two years of my engineering management career have been both fulfilling and challenging, particularly in the first half of the period as I rebuilt my self-confidence after a difficult previous role, and sought to define what my role actually was in the absence of solid documentation. I made plenty of mistakes in that first stage, and spent 2022 trying to double down on the things that…
I’m fortunate to have worked with, been inspired by and be aware of a whole bunch of incredible women. While I’m firmly in agreement with Rachel Coldicutt about how women “shouldn’t need a special day to get public visibility”, I’d also like to highlight (in no particular order, and almost certainly missing some people I’ve forgotten) a selection of those women who I’m inspired by, grouped by…
I’ve experienced being a minority twice in my life.
We left London in 2015 because getting on the housing ladder seemed impossible. Our landlord in our small 1-bedroom flat in zone 3 offered us “first refusal” on the place he was kicking us out of to sell – £370k. We refused.
I’ve been running a regular music meetup event for over two years now, across two cities (London and Birmingham). While it’s a small event and a bit specialist/niche, I’ve learned a thing or two while running it and thought I’d share some learnings here.
Note: this blog entry is for the #harkive project, an annual popular music research project that asks people to tell the tale of How, Where and Why they listen to music on a single day each year. You can find more about that project on the official site.
For just under two years now I've been a "Digital Guerrilla", working as part of a team of six in Birmingham, created by the BBC to "pilot and prototype new storytelling ideas", and help the broadcaster to "engage with its audiences and to deliver unforgettable content". I'm leaving this month for a new role, but wanted to share some learnings from being embedded inside a huge organisation and…