CTO Insights - Issue #127
CTO Insights - Issue #127
Software Engineering and Technical Leadership
Welcome to CTO Insights #127!
The newsletter is based on top Software Engineering and Technical Leadership content from the past week, it is free and made for your weekly reading.
This week’s favorite - Being Right Doesn’t Matter.
Do you want to help? Share CTO Insights with your community and friends in tech, through social media, slack, teams, or any other channel you use.
Featured
An Infrastructure for Hiring IT Consultants
Adeva is a platform that connects companies with the world's top IT consultants.
Whether you are focusing on improving operational effectiveness or scaling your engineering initiatives, Adeva will help you achieve your goals.
Get access to product and tech consultants experienced working with businesses of all sizes, from startups to Fortune 500 companies.
Architecture
Demand and ETR Forecasting at Airports
The article by Uber Engineering presents a software architecture called the Airport Forecasting Platform (AFP) that uses machine learning and statistical models to forecast demand and estimate ride times for passengers at airports.
Since airports currently hold a significant portion of Uber’s supply, this article focuses on this part of the business.
The system resulted in improved wait times and more efficient driver utilization, making it an interesting read for those interested in software architecture and data-driven decision-making.
Scalability
How to Drive Big Developer Productivity Improvements
The article provides practical advice on setting meaningful goals, identifying signals and metrics, and promoting a culture of transparency and continuous improvement.
Check it out as it contains details on improving key productivity indicators for engineering teams -
Code review time
Error rates
Build and deployment frequency
Leadership
Being Right Doesn’t Matter
The article discusses the importance of effective persuasion in leadership, even when one is confident in their correctness. The author argues that being right is not enough and that leaders must also be effective in persuading others of their ideas to achieve success.
If you’re right, you have a duty to be effective in persuading others that you’re right. There’s no partial credit for “I was right, but nobody listened to me.”
Running Your Engineering Onboarding Program.
Want to improve your engineer onboarding game?
This article discusses the importance of onboarding programs for new engineers and provides practical advice on how to create effective onboarding programs.
The author focuses on outcomes such as increased productivity, faster integration into the team, and improved employee retention. The author then provides a framework for creating effective onboarding programs, emphasizing the importance of personalized and structured training, mentorship, and team integration.
Culture
The Ambiguous Zone
What do you prefer -
Do you simply follow requirements without questioning or validating them?
or
Do you go off on your own, building things based on your personal interests or preferences without considering the needs of the users or the business?
Be honest when you answer the question, and then read the article if you want to become better and truly create more valuable work.
Other
How Discord Stores Trillions of Messages
Around five years ago, Discord posted a blog titled “How we store billions of messages”.
This one has a similar title but is far from the same post. It’s much more exciting and insightful.
I won’t spoil the fun and I’ll leave all the exciting code snippets and diagrams for you to enjoy inside.
Vim Best Practices For IDE Users
This is the best guide you can possibly read if you don’t have the time or patience to read the full Vim User Manual.
What if I told you that modern IDEs can emulate most of the Vim features you love, even some advanced ones?
There are over 10.000 words in this one and 90 tips that will help you master Vim the quickest. So, don’t forget your favorite beverage, and have fun reading.
Managing Expectations for Infrastructure Projects
The article presents a framework for managing technology projects through their lifecycle, from inception to retirement. It highlights the importance of understanding the lifecycle of technology and how to effectively manage projects at each stage.
Going through four stages of the technology lifecycle: Initiation, Development, Maintenance, and Retirement, it provides a detailed overview of the goals, challenges, and best practices for effective project management for each of them.
A must-read.
Closing Notes
Thanks for making it this far! 🙏
I hope you enjoyed this week’s issue. Use the thumbs up/down buttons to rate and don’t forget to share the newsletter with fellows.