Samuel Kearns

Really excited to share I'll be delivering a talk "Starting from nothing" at StaffPlus in New York on September 4th 2024. Staff engineers make for an excellent advance party, someone you give a problem like “build a new product” and know they’ll turn that ask into an actionable plan, eventually releasing something great. Sounds great, right? Well, not exactly. You may be the first to scope out the project, but you’ll need to build a team to help you deliver on it. Once you have a team you’ll need a vision that can excite and inspire them, as it’s unlikely you’ll deliver the quality of outcome within the timelines needed without one. Complicating things, it’s probably a poor choice for you to take an ‘official’ leadership position within a team: you’ll need to steer, support and drive the team all from within. I've spent years being this person, helping lead company initiatives at GoCardless and then at incident.io, the most recent example being our On-call product. This talk will share some of the tough lessons learned I've learned along the way. Whether you're tackling your first big project or leading your tenth, you'll leave with strategies that might save you some sleep. Look forward to seeing you there! LeadDev

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#DigitalNomad trend is booming in 2024 with 18.1M Americans, up 147% since 2019. 11% of US workers are nomads, driven by travel and new cultures. Younger gens lead, but 14% are 55+. 46% earn $75K+. Most use AI at work. Few orgs have policies, but interest remains high. For more digital nomad stories, follow ➡️ @nerdontour

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💡 Working Smarter is a new podcast from Dropbox about how AI is changing the way we work and get stuff done—not in the future, but today. 🤖 On our first episode, hear robotics expert Kate Darling talk about how to think about our relationship with our machines. Click to listen below!

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Anyone have a recommendation for a language that: 1. compiles to native code 2. functional with pattern matching (like to the Haskell degree) 3. But just a little less as crazy as Haskell (don't feel like monad-gonad business) I'm having withdrawal symptons from Haskell.

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You're eager to get promoted as a junior SWE–I’ve been there. To rise through the ranks, you'll need to lead projects that unlock meaningful value for your customers. Luckily, I've walked this road many times over the past 3 years at Wayfair. These 6 steps comprise my battle-tested formula for success: 1. Establish credibility as a competent engineer. Your manager will be taking a risk by investing the team's resources to complete your project. Their reputation is at stake as much as yours, so give them every reason to believe your leadership abilities are worth taking a risk on. 2. Find a problem worth solving, then sell it. Look for high-impact issues your team can feasibly address. Choose one, ideate a few potential solutions, then write a data-driven document that enumerates these options and emphasizes WHY the problem is worth solving. You’ll need everyone’s buy-in, so craft a compelling narrative that drives conversations and facilitates alignment. 3. Eliminate ambiguity as early as you can. The more unknowns there are, the higher the risk of failure. Clarify that ambiguity early and often using these 3 strategies: a. Consult with subject matter experts on your team about the problem and its potential solutions. b. Build small proofs-of-concept to demonstrate feasibility of higher risk components. c. Proactively communicate roadblocks, so others can help you push past them. 4. Document your chosen solution. To ensure your team is building toward the same north star vision, author artifacts like technical specifications and scrum tickets that clearly define: a. The thing you're trying to build, and b. The steps required to build it. Add visual elements like recorded demos, UX mocks, or system diagrams to help others quickly grasp the desired end-state. Crystalize your understanding of the solution and spread that knowledge throughout the team. 5. Drive execution and lead by example. Parallelize tickets when possible and sequence blockers accordingly. Ruthlessly deprioritize features that aren’t essential to the initial release. Put instruments in place to measure the success of the project and quantify business impact. Set a high standard for code quality by leading the implementation efforts yourself. Review code written by other engineers to ensure it satisfies the requirements. 6. Identify key learnings for next time. Congratulations on delivering your project! Take advantage of this valuable learning opportunity to reflect on what worked and what didn't. Organize a time for your team to go through this process together, and extract action items for individuals to follow up on. Remember, failure is in the eye of the beholder. Either you win or you learn. P.S. I'm still perfecting the art of project leadership too, you're not alone. Which steps of this formula do you need to focus on this week? Comment below so we can all learn from each other!👇 #softwareengineering #leadership

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