Jesse James Arnold’s Post

In my career, I rarely had issues with Engineers. Have I been lucky to work with such incredible people? Sure. However, I believe it’s more than that. As Mattia Tommasone said some days ago: ”𝗪𝗲'𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗯𝗶𝗴 𝗴𝗼𝗮𝗹: 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝘀𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲.” ✨ So, how did I build a conflict-free relationship with Engineers? 🤝 1. 𝗪𝗲'𝗿𝗲 𝗔𝗹𝗹 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺: Let's drop the idea of "Product vs. Engineers." We succeed and fail as one team. It's not just a saying; it's how we work. 2. 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗧𝗼𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁: Include Engineers in the early stages and share our strategy with them. Collaboration begins early and paves the way for shared success. 3. 𝗔𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: Engineers know code, and we know our product. Instead of telling them deadlines, let's agree on how long things will take. If that's not possible, break tasks into smaller parts. 4. 𝗥𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲: In our roles and tasks, don't forget we're working with other human beings. Building a strong, trusting partnership is a must. In the end, it's not just about avoiding conflicts but handling them gracefully. We're in this together! 🚀 What’s your secret to working well with Engineers? I’d like to hear your approach in the comments 👇 #ProductManagement #Engineers #Collaboration #Teamwork #ProductDevelopment #PMLife

Can you remember the thrill of writing your first code? That moment when those cryptic symbols breathed life into your machine and executed your precise commands? Relive that magic! As an engineering manager, I've often caught team members trying too hard to "prove themselves". This usually results in a downward spiral of productivity and job satisfaction. And here's the secret I share with them - forget about proving yourself. Instead, focus on why you fell in love with coding in the first place. We are in this profession because we were once fascinated by the power to create! We loved the puzzle solving, the challenge, and the joy of seeing our hard work come to life. Don't lose sight of that childhood magic. When you genuinely enjoy what you're working on, your productivity will skyrocket, your contributions will be more meaningful, and recognition will naturally follow. It all begins with rekindling your love for coding. If you got value from this, please follow me! I write daily about engineering management, team dynamics, and processes needed to build engaged and successful teams. #SoftwareEngineering #CareerAdvice #Motivation #Leadership ----------------------------------- Check out the full article at https://lnkd.in/gYJDv4wQ

Do your engineers and designers have a strong product understanding? 🔎 Here is a quick health check: can they articulate the product vision, top priorities, and the strategy to achieve the goal? If not, time to align! I wrote about this idea of turning your engineering team from mercenaries to missionaries in my newsletter, and it starts with this alignment. Check it out👇for how to start the process. If you need some thought partnership around building empowered teams, let’s connect! #EngineeringTeam #CultureShift #EmpoweredTeams #ProductOwnership

We know #ProductDevelopment isn’t just code and algorithms; it’s about the people behind the screens. Discover the power of saying ‘I don’t know,’ collaboration, and aligning with teams. Our engineering leaders, Jon Principe Jake Rainis Joaquin Alejo Gatti Jorge Castellanos Joey Egger Tim Davison Jonah Jolley Philip Gonzalez and Nat Ring dive into the fabric of successful projects and explore the importance of communication. https://lnkd.in/gufpmFPS

"Managing 10 engineers AND coding 50% of the time? An impossible task doomed to fail!" It's crucial to understand that a successful engineering manager's main responsibility is not just about coding effectiveness but more about leading a team effectively. First and foremost, an EM should focus on making their team "happy." That doesn't mean organizing weekly pizza parties. It means ensuring that the team believes in the vision of the company and understands how their work contributes to it. A happy team also requires prioritization, a sustainable work-life balance, clear career development paths, psychological safety, performance management, and effective processes. In short, being an engineering manager is about PEOPLE first and CODE second. Striking the right balance, setting up the job role appropriately, and understanding that “happy” teams result in productive teams is key to success—not just for the manager, but for the entire organization. If you got value from this, please follow me! I write daily about engineering management, team dynamics, and processes needed to build engaged and successful teams. #EngineeringManagement #Leadership #TeamDynamics #SoftwareDevelopment ----------------------------------- Check out the full article at https://lnkd.in/gJacdy9X

In December, I wrote a long article about focus in product teams and the cost of context switching. Sharing ideas on how to reduce said cost and increase focus for engineers to be truly productive. You can find it here: https://lnkd.in/gjiqK4Yw

Less than a year ago, I spoke about the key pillars I have come to believe are crucial to building high-performing engineering teams at the We're Developers World Congress. With an overall rating of 4.9 out of 5 and overwhelming responses, I’m specifically glad it resonated with a lot of people. In this post, I’m sharing the slides and the five key pillars that are crucial to building great engineering teams. 1️⃣ Create clarity: Clarity is king. Purpose fuels passion, plans guide action, and defined roles avoid chaos. 2️⃣ Hire strong talents: Don't settle for good; hunt for the best! Diversity of thought and skills is key. 3️⃣ Create synergy: Establish an environment where individual strengths come together to create something greater than the sum of its parts (i.e., 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 > 4). 4️⃣ Empower and relinquish control: Trust your team. Give them autonomy and ownership. Remove roadblocks and get out of the way! 5️⃣ Create a culture of continuous improvement: Foster a culture of feedback, experimentation, and growth. #highperformance #engineeringteams #softwareleads #talks

"Ship early and often." This is my favorite phrase to describe a winning engineering culture. Research (and the market) consistently shows that the best technology product companies are the ones who iterate fast -- who go through the loop of development (idea -> design -> code -> test -> launch -> learn) as fast as possible, and as a result, as many times as possible. Iteration speed is how teams win. Version 1 of a feature is almost never going to be good enough. How fast can you learn from it and ship Version 2? That’s the goal. Optimize your process for iteration speed. How? Break things into small pieces, and stay focused on as few things (as a team) as possible. 🛳 Ship early and often. 🚢

Eng/Product Leaders ❓❓❓ - what are your thoughts on "wasted effort"? A lot of time in our profession is spent trying to properly parallelize work, which is a huge challenge. One of the biggest *risks* is building the wrong thing. So we use Figmas, one pagers, flow charts, ERD's and WHATEVER besides code to prove a concept. It makes sense! non-code > code when we're talking pure cost. But this feels to me like there's a reasonable limit to the fear of "wasted effort". For instance, in a product engineering org, I also hear that we "shouldn't be afraid to throw code away"? What are your principles or heuristics or mental models for this problem? #engineering #productdevelopment #tech #figma #design #engineeringleadership

The foundation of any productive product discussion lies in breaking down the variables involved. "I don't like this design" — Why? Does the user flow feel confusing? Which step introduces friction? Where does it clash with users' mental models and usual workflow? Does the interaction feel unintuitive? What behavior were you expecting? What familiar patterns did you have in mind, and why those specifically? Does it not look nice? Is it due to the lack of spacing, slow speed, inadequate text size, inconsistent color scheme, element positions, or something else? "This feature has a higher priority." — Why? What criteria are you using to decide? How does this feature measure up against those criteria, and why? How do competing initiatives stack up? By breaking down a discussion into more specific variables, it can continue down a more actionable path. Getting better at this takes practice, and a good place to start is by asking yourself, "How can I be more specific, and how do I articulate it?" #productmanagement #discussions #communication