This fortnight on the blog we’ve got an interview with Developer to Manager founder Siddhant Goel about what he’s learned interviewing engineering managers about their initial promotions. Well worth checking out both the interview and devtomanager.com.
Tech
Understanding real-world concurrency bugs in Go
This paper was featured in a past edition of the newsletter, but if you skipped it because reading academic papers is boring, this summary will get you up to speed.
Where do you see Python in 10 years?
Worthy of inclusion for the America’s Cup recap in the midpoint alone. An interesting look forward to what might kill off Python. A worthy exercise for fans of any ecosystem to go through.
The Negotiability of “Severity” Levels
Severity levels as political construct. Interesting toolkit of questions to use in post mortems and the like in the back half of the post.
The Man Behind The Curtain
A compilation of classic video games where the source is available. Good learning resource for budding game developers.
6 buckets of prodsec
This is a lightweight and practical mental model for the various decisions a product security team need to make. Worth adopting.
Business & Management
Amazon’s Away Teams laid bare: How AWS’s hivemind of engineers develop and maintain their internal tech
Very interesting look at some of the more concrete management practices in use at AWS. There’s an interesting symmetry between the “away teams” used at Amazon and some new features coming in Heartbeat. Watch this space.
OPP (Other People’s Problems)
I feel seen. Nay, attacked. sBurning out on sticking my nose into other department’s problems before I’d fixed all my own is apparently not just a personal failing. This is a must read.
Direct Sales for Bootstrapped SaaS Startups
A solid how-to on doing direct sales as a bootstrapped founder. I’ll give it a whirl and report back.
💸 What does Unsplash cost in 2019?
It’s always so helpful when companies share concrete operational costs as it’s normally so hard to benchmark your own company.
How I run a company with ADHD
Part two of I feel seen/attacked this fortnight. Just ask my whatsapp crew about my focus while getting today’s newsletter written up.
Culture
What to Do When You’re a Country in Crisis - The New York Times
Book reviews are the O.G. rap beefs. Pull quote says it all: If you’ve ever been at a wedding or conference or on board a United connection from O’Hare, and been cornered by a man with Theories About It All, and you came away thinking, “That was a great experience,” have I got the book for you.
10 female fantasy writers to read after Game Of Thrones ends
Title says it all. Broaden your literary horizons friends.
Opportunity Cost
You ever really thought about the etymology of the word Hustle?
The Font Detectives
I can think of so many designer friends who would love to solve crimes with tediously specific font knowledge.
What Happened After My 13-Year-Old Son Joined the Alt-Right
In our family patience is tested by a toddler tipping over a bowl of porridge. This seems a lot worse than that and I do not know how these parents made it through.
Contractually Obligated Nautical Fact
Project Azorian: Stealing a Sunken Soviet Sub
I guess the problem with assuming shipwrecks will keep their secrets is that there was always the chance that someone would invent a giant claw to pick it up off the ocean floor.
Thanks for reading. You can find this issue online here.If you know anyone who might enjoy these emails, feel free to send them to hecate.co/newsletter