QFM039: Engineering Leadership Reading List October 2024
Everything that I found interesting about engineering leadership during October 2024
In this month’s Engineering Leadership Reading List, we explore the interplay of growth, innovation, and the shifting dynamics of tech culture. We begin with Founder Mode, Hackers, and Being Bored by Tech, a critique of Silicon Valley’s idolisation of founders and its impact on genuine technological progress, resonating with Paul Graham and the Cult of the Founder, which examines how founder-centric narratives may inadvertently stifle innovation. Together, these articles question the prioritisation of rapid scaling and hype over substantive leadership and technology advancement.
We move on to team dynamics in Splitting Engineering Teams into Defense and Offense, where structuring small teams for focused, uninterrupted work balances immediate customer needs with long-term project goals. This approach parallels insights from The Efficiency Paradox: When Lean Operations Lead to Lean Innovation, which suggests that while operational efficiency can be advantageous, an excessive focus on lean processes can unintentionally curtail innovation.
A practical approach to leadership is highlighted in The Ultimate Guide to Onboarding Software Engineers (2024), which…
