Software and online-services companies can quickly become billion-dollar giants, but the recipe for sustaining growth in technology companies remains elusive.

What is the most discriminating question for this problem?

Today, Firebase has a large team with hundreds of engineers. Before the Google acquisition, however, we had a small team of just 24 exceptional people that I firmly believe was among the strongest of its kind in the world. A big part of that success was the way we interviewed software engineers. I’m sharing our approach below so that other teams can compare methods and learn from what we did in the early days of Firebase.

A few weeks ago I watched a talk by Keith Rabois called, How to Operate. Keith is a venture capitalist with Khosla Ventures, the former COO of Square, and a member of the PayPal Mafia. The talk was…

Thank you, Microsoft, for the good times and the bad, in sickness and in health. Our marriage of 25 years together has been an interesting one since that day I first arrived in Redmond on October 17, 1994.

“The best career tip: Start writing. Publicly. No one will notice at first. Which is good. You’ll build the habit. You’ll find your voice. You’ll build a platform slowly, brick by brick. Over 5-10 years, you’ll build an asset very few have. The opportunities will shock you.”

Managing teams has taught me a lot about my own behaviors and motivations. For example, I overworked for a long time. This left me continually teetering on the brink of burnout, and I had no energy left to absorb the typical sorts of organizational changes that happen at any company. Despite doing good work, I handled change poorly, and I picked up the reputation for being difficult to manage. I’d like to say that I learned from my mistakes directly, but the honest version is that I came to understand this dynamic mostly through working with folks struggling from the same issue.

Presentation from E-nnovation 2011: http://e-nnovation.pl/

A curated and opinionated list of resources for Chief Technology Officers, with the emphasis on startups - GitHub - kuchin/awesome-cto: A curated and opinionated list of resources for Chief Technol...

As a Director of Engineering, I have monthly 1:1s with all of my direct reports. A 1:1 (one-on-one) is a recurring meeting with no set agenda between a manager and one of their reports. The internet …

Buffer’s cofounder and CEO shared his experience with burnout, taking a break from the company, and what he learned about self-care in the process.

15 language-agnostic, actionable tips on REST API design.

My Inspirations Now as a Director of Engineering at Docker, I’ve been doing some type of engineering leadership for the last decade. I have learned from the best over the years, and many resources have shaped who I am and philosophies for how I lead....

I’ve been programming since 1999. This year I’ve officially coded for 20+ years. I’ve started with Basic but soon jumped into Pascal and C…

Here is my list of heuristics and rules of thumb for software development that I have found useful over the years:   Development 1. Start small, then extend. Whether creating a new system, or …

Before joining Wave four years ago, I spoke to a former employee about his experience. He said something that has stayed in my memory ever since: “Wave is really good at execution, so by working at Wave, you’ll learn how to execute very well.” Now that I’ve been here a while, I thought it would be good to write down what really good execution actually looks like in practice and the counterintuitive lessons I’ve learned along the way.

A collection of inspiring resources related to engineering management and tech leadership - GitHub - charlax/engineering-management: A collection of inspiring resources related to engineering manag...

Learn more about Sqreen's application security platform that helps teams protect applications, increase visibility and secure code.

Advanced Tutorial series covering Google Sheets functions and tools.

Learn how to design large-scale systems. Prep for the system design interview. Includes Anki flashcards. - GitHub - donnemartin/system-design-primer: Learn how to design large-scale systems. Prep ...

These are the best business books for entrepreneurs, creatives and professionals in 2022. Share your pick for the best business books here.