014: The green dot trap
I'm guilty of this. I need to say that upfront. I've watched a thread start to spin and felt the gravitational pull to jump in, to fix it, to be seen handling it, to prove I'm on top of things. I've posted
Old School Burke
Leadership, Tech, and Ideas
Latest posts
013: Hostage to the Process
You've probably seen this EM: operates fine when policy is clear, but freezes in ambiguity. Asks permission for decisions in their scope. Seeks templates for situations requiring judgment. They're not bad people, they're just hostage to the process. And it costs more than what you think!
012: The MTTI Manifesto
Mean Time to Isolate
011: Calibrations Have a Context Collapse Problem
Note: The views and opinions expressed in this content are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the author’s employer. What is Context Collapse? Context collapse occurs when content intended for one audience is consumed by multiple audiences simultaneously
010: Don’t Panic: Unblock yourself first
Unblocking yourself is part of the learning journey. When you get stuck, resist the temptation to type “Help!” immediately and run. Try these steps first: Give your brain a chance to self-solve Dive into existing docs or knowledge bases Tinker, test, and experiment Reach out methodically, with
009: The Ladder of Autonomy
Understanding Task Relevant Maturity and Ladder of Autonomy
008: Complete Ownership During Incidents
There’s a constant temptation in our software engineering world to treat incidents as someone else’s problem. When your service experiences downtime because of an infra hiccup, it’s easy to say, “This is Infra's problem,” and then sit back. But if
007: Resourcefulness Is Earned
A Playbook for Mid-Level Engineers
006: Building better on-call routines for engineering teams
Mentions of on-call are usually met with grumbles.
Good reads: Mentorship
Advice on Technical Mentorship : If you're looking for practical advice on technical mentorship, John’s piece is a great resource. This article is a guide for those looking to offer technical mentorship, with practical tips on how to effectively support and guide mentees towards achieving their goals.
005: Purposeful Vulnerability
Differentiating between TMI and Vulnerability
Good reads: Rethinking On-Call
Rethinking On-Call: Compensation, Runbooks, and Sustainable Practices
Good reads: Observability and System Alerts
Featured Articles What Makes a Good Alert? by Dan Slimmon Dan delves into the essentials of what constitutes a good alert, emphasizing the importance of alerts being actionable and informative. This piece is a great starting point for anyone looking to refine their alerting strategy to minimize noise and maximize
Good reads: The Technical Documentation Culture
These are interesting reads for you and for your team to decide how and in what direction do you want to build your documentation culture. Technical Writing Courses for Engineers by Google Developers Kickstart your journey with Google's technical writing courses for engineers. It's your first
Good reads: The art of writing
(And impact of writing)