My Blog

Because of my own personal reaction (usually shock and worry) every time I see a female engineering leader go through a reduction in scope, a non-promotion-releated role change, or an outright departure, and because of my own desire to make it easier to support each other with changes and growth, I shared this information with my organization recently when I made the decision to move from a Director of Engineering to a Staff individual [...]

The real story here is spending time with the revered and adored Ms. Avery - my youngest son's third-grade teacher several years ago, who made a career change into software engineering a few years ago. She and Chris contacted me about speaking about my experiences in the industry and currently at GitHub, and I jumped at the chance! We had a great time discussing how I got started in tech, how I switched from [...]

I remember my first office job. I don't remember my boss's name anymore, but I remember his face distinctly. I remember his loud, booming voice, especially when he was upset about something, which wasn't infrequent. I remember him slamming his office door which was across and diagonal from my cubicle, and then immediately opening it to storm outside, then coming back many minutes later smelling like smoke. I was a young girl, fresh out [...]

I love when I get to talk about my work, and recording this episode was such a great time. Check out Pausing Feature Development to Focus on Tech Debt and DX, and hear more about how GitHub made time to focus on engineering fundamentals.

Check out this LeadDev module, 5 investments for a sustainable, high-performing team, going live next week, 20 Sep 2022. Meet short term hiring goals or invest in building a sustainable, high-performing team? These are the questions that plague every hiring manager’s mind. Learn how to build a healthy, self-sustaining ecosystem within your team that produces high-performing results with these five guidelines. Come learn my well-worn strategies around how to focus on team performance, build relationships [...]

Before coding anything, make sure you've involved a decision maker, the person doing the work, someone with context, someone with fresh perspective, and whoever is going to be maintaining it. These are the five essential roles for planning a technical project. One person can cover all of these things with one exception: you can't have context and fresh perspective at the same time, so at a minimum you need two people involved. I've been [...]

When it comes to negotiating, there's an easy and instant way, where you just go for it and see what happens. In another sense, really, the easiest thing to do is nothing, and rely solely on outside forces and chance.   Or, you can take additional steps that will increase the likelihood of your desired outcome. With enough practice, these steps can also seem easy and instant. These four steps can help you negotiate [...]

I'm often working with executives to come up with timelines and priorities, and I'm often working with older children to help them understand what I need to know in order to help them make a decision or complete something, and--I promise I'm not making a correlation between executives and children here--through this I've learned how valuable it is to understand and communicate the impact something will have. Often it is challenging enough for [...]

I have a canned response I have used for years when someone talks to me about a challenge they're having, and I'm in some sort of "position of power" relative to them in terms of some role I have (boss at work, director, organization president, mother, etc). "Are you venting, looking for advice, or hoping for some intervention?" This framing helps me understand if they have any specific but as of yet unstated expectations [...]

It's promotion and review season where I work, and going through this cycle I was reminded of a theme I frequently see come up: Focused effort vs broad involvement Sometimes we create situations for ourselves and our own growth when we are doing many things at once. Sometimes we feel like we have to, or things will fall apart and reflect badly on us. At the same time, those who focus and drive delivery on [...]

Once upon a time, there was a book. I didn’t realize I’d had it, or had taken a look. I’m not sure who wrote it, some was surely by me. And more parts I’d copied from others’ beliefs. Its pages were full of rules and expectations. I’d come to rely on it in many situations. Until I started to notice a worrying bit, that my own joy and happiness were affected by it. See [...]

I was a guest on the Engineering Enablement podcast's inaugural episode, talking about how we have been transforming GitHub's Developer Experience (DX). Have a listen or catch the transcript there.

Sometimes we want answers and solutions RIGHT NOW. The rewards are high, the learning is quick, the resolution is fast. And sometimes, the best thing for us is to figure those out by ourselves.

I had a chance to be a panelist for a networking event hosted by Power to Fly for GitHub, and it was such a fantastic time! Hear my thoughts on how we work and how to balance it well here (starting at 35:28 and again at 49:47 if you want to skip right to me). It requires registration, which is worth it to participate in or support underrepresented talent in technology.

Here are some common reasons that fuel guilt and prevent taking time off … and some related questions I consider to help me loosen up those fear-inducing beliefs: People are relying on me, and if I don't deliver, my customers or users or co-workers will be disappointed or worse, leave. Q: Could I find a creative ways to make it easy to step away? Could I adjust expectations or propose a compromise? Do I [...]

We're heading into another promotion cycle, and I've gathered my thoughts about getting promoted in tech, and added a love letter to my early-in-role engineer and new-mom self at the end.

I've been continuing on this journey to figure out a better way to calendar. That previous post is full of insights and learnings. Here's my current, more streamlined system.

The five main expectations of an engineering team (and for the individuals on the team) are Plan, Work, Communicate, Grow, and Give.