Refactoring

Share this post

Monthly Digest — July 📌

refactoring.fm

Monthly Digest — July 📌

8000 subscribers, the job board, 2 great readings, and the 3 monthly articles.

Luca Rossi
Jul 29, 2021
7
Share this post

Monthly Digest — July 📌

refactoring.fm

Hi there! July is almost over and it's time for our monthly digest!

For all new people who joined recently, this is a special issue I write at the end of each month. I use it to give updates about Refactoring itself, recap the latest articles, and share some great resources.

Let's start! 👇

📈 8000 Subscribers

I am really happy to share there are now 8000 of us who read the newsletter every week 🥳

Thank you so much for trusting me every week with your time and attention 🙏

I also made changes to how people join Refactoring lately, the most notable one being I added the double opt-in email for confirmation. This should trade off some growth for better engagement, which is exactly what I am after.

🔥 Job Board

Last month I launched a dedicated job board for Refactoring subscribers, and I am really happy of the reception so far!

I received great feedback both from subscribers and companies, and more than 150 applications have already been submitted to jobs on the board.

It is still early days for this, so if you have any idea on how to make it better, please let me know! 📣

📚 Readings

Here are a couple of articles I really enjoyed this month:

How Instagram Co-founder Took Its Engineering Org from 0 to 300 People

This is the best engineering piece I read in the past few months. It is so full of insights about pretty much everything involving an engineering team. Among those:

  • Generalists vs Specialists

  • Promoting managers internally vs hiring from outside

  • The various growth stages of an engineering team.

Really recommended!

Coaching vs Mentoring

You often hear coaching and mentoring used interchangeably — I too have been guilty of this in the past.

This article does a great job at explaining the differences. It is really useful as it made me reflect on whether coaching and mentoring have a place in my personal and professional life. With respect of my team, do we mentor people enough? And do we coach them? And am I mentored and/or coached myself?

🌀 Refactoring Articles

Finally, here are the three new articles I wrote in July!

🔺 The Pyramid of Stakeholders

Keeping stakeholders in the loop is probably the single most important factor for any project’s success.

And it is often overlooked, as many people are more comfortable working head-down until results are supposedly delivered.

Or are they?

This article explores the relationship we have with the different kinds of stakeholders, dividing them into three major categories.

📜 An Agile Manifesto for 2021

Last week I spent some time reflecting on the original Agile Manifesto.

It was born to define a single set of principles for dev work — unifying the disciplines that existed at the time.

Now, after 20 years, are we really better off? It seems to me we are in a similar pre-manifesto era. People struggle at defining what Agile really means, while successful subcultures like DevOps, CD, or Lean, each cover only a few parts of the Agile scope.

So I went back to the original 12 principles and tried to reframe them in the light of today's learnings.

📖 How to Read Online

Many Refactoring subscribers asked me how I make sure I am able to publish a new article every week.

I use two simple processes. One for writing, which I have talked about in a previous post, and one for reading.

This article describes my reading routine, that I turned into a mini framework called "The Pirate Framework for Reading", or simply "Pirate Reading" 🏴‍☠️

⭐ Weekly Featured Jobs

Here are the remote engineering jobs featured this week! They are all from great companies and I personally review them one by one.

  1. 🆕 Sermo — the social network for doctors.

    • Senior Backend Engineer

    • Senior Frontend Engineer

  2. 🆕 Companion — transformative learning experiences for your dog.

    • Senior Backend Generalist

  3. Tidelift — a managed open source subscription, backed by maintainers.

    • Senior Software Engineer

  4. Everli — get groceries delivered to your home, from all supermarkets.

    • Backend Engineer (PHP, Laravel)

  5. River — a primary and behavioral health plan to deliver real peace of mind.

    • iOS Engineer

  6. Candor — the way top tech employees manage their RSUs.

    • Software Engineer, Infra/Backend/Full-stack

  7. Catawiki — the online marketplace with weekly auctions.

    • Senior Back-end Developer

  8. Pallet — infrastructure for modern hiring.

    • Full-Stack Software Engineer

  9. Secureframe — it helps companies to streamline their security compliance.

    • Full-Stack Software Engineer

  10. Solv — instantly book same-day appointments with great doctors.

    • Full-stack Technical Lead

  11. Hatch— better sleep for everyone.

    • VP, Mobile Engineering

  12. Gearflow — the marketplace for the construction equipment industry.

    • Full-stack Software Engineer

  13. Foster — Turn ideas into timeless writing with a community of experts.

    • Founding Lead Engineer

Browse many more open roles (or add your own) on the full board 👇

Check out all Refactoring Jobs


Hey, I am Luca 👋 thank you for reading this far!

Every week I read tens of articles and draw from my own experience to create a 10-minutes advice about some engineering leadership topic.

Subscribe below to receive a new essay every Thursday and put your own growth on autopilot!

Share this post

Monthly Digest — July 📌

refactoring.fm
Comments
TopNewCommunity

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Luca Rossi
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing