Monthly Digest — July 📌
8000 subscribers, the job board, 2 great readings, and the 3 monthly articles.
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.
🆕 Sermo — the social network for doctors.
🆕 Companion — transformative learning experiences for your dog.
Tidelift — a managed open source subscription, backed by maintainers.
Everli — get groceries delivered to your home, from all supermarkets.
River — a primary and behavioral health plan to deliver real peace of mind.
Candor — the way top tech employees manage their RSUs.
Catawiki — the online marketplace with weekly auctions.
Pallet — infrastructure for modern hiring.
Secureframe — it helps companies to streamline their security compliance.
Solv — instantly book same-day appointments with great doctors.
Hatch— better sleep for everyone.
Gearflow — the marketplace for the construction equipment industry.
Foster — Turn ideas into timeless writing with a community of experts.
Browse many more open roles (or add your own) on the full board 👇
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.
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