Alex Ponomarev (Page 3)

7 Dec 2023 · 5 min read

Speaking Two Languages: Bridging Business and Engineering

When you work as a software developer at a small startup, you wear many hats and have many responsibilities. You don’t benefit from having clearly defined product requirements handed

6 Dec 2023 · 4 min read

Stay Sharp and Reduce Meetings with Async Communication

Time is extremely scarce. As an engineering manager, you constantly juggle meetings, one-on-ones, planning, reviews, communications, and a myriad of other things. Meetings end up being one of the biggest

5 Dec 2023 · 4 min read

Lost in Translation: Decoding New Engineering Team Members

Have you ever been in a situation where you manage someone but don’t know how to evaluate their performance? That’s one of the trickiest problems of being a

4 Dec 2023 · 5 min read

Why You May Want to Transition into Engineering Management

As a senior engineer, you likely feel fulfilled in your career. You can choose the projects, teams, and technologies you work on. Your expertise makes you valuable, with recruiters constantly

3 Dec 2023 · 4 min read

Flying Blind: My Misadventures in First-time Management

I was very anxious when I first stepped into an engineering management role to lead a small development team. After years of working as a full-stack software developer, I was

2 Dec 2023 · 4 min read

Stop Before You Bloat: Knowing When to Stop Scaling Your Engineering Team

Just yesterday, your development team was just a handful of eager engineers working long hours to build an MVP from duct tape and dreams. The sleepy startup became a hiring

1 Dec 2023 · 4 min read

The Boy Scout Rule for Better Code

You know that feeling when you’re out camping, and you take extra care to leave your little site nicer than how you found it? Picking up that candy wrapper

30 Nov 2023 · 6 min read

Debugging Dysfunction: Tuning Your Teams For Top Performance

Organizing development teams effectively is crucial for building complex systems, but there are several common pitfalls. I recently read Team Topologies by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais, which discusses patterns

29 Nov 2023 · 5 min read

Supercharging Your A-Team: Building Dream Teams Around Top Talent

You take a deep breath as you join the monthly board meeting, laptop and notes in hand. You’ve been dreading this day for weeks. Ever since you stumbled through

28 Nov 2023 · 4 min read

Use Iterative Prototyping To Fight Scope Creep

The new project has you bursting with eager excitement. Finally, a chance to flex your creative muscles and design iteratively. No more rigid processes limiting the engineering skills you pursue.

27 Nov 2023 · 4 min read

Coding Puzzles Alienate Senior Engineers

Finding strong senior engineers is hard. When you finally get an experienced developer in for an interview, you want to evaluate them effectively. It’s tempting to default to leaning

27 Nov 2023 · 5 min read

Dodging the Technical Debt Trap

Technical debt. The phrase makes most engineers groan. It brings up memories of messy legacy code, shortcuts that came back to bite you, and that giant rewrite that never seems

25 Nov 2023 · 4 min read

Surfing the Technical Debt Wave Without Wiping Out

Your team just rolled out a release of an application you’re building. It’s time to sit back, relax, and enjoy the feedback flowing in. One thing preventing you

24 Nov 2023 · 5 min read

Dear Developers: Managers Aren’t Actually Your Enemies

As a software developer, you may often feel like engineering managers are blocking you with bureaucracy and pointless work rather than helping you do your job. I get it — I’

23 Nov 2023 · 4 min read

The Delicate Balance: Promoting Accountability Without Suffocating Talent

In the early days, managing this team was easy. You dreamed about ways to take the product to the next level. Your team’s passion and talent made your job

22 Nov 2023 · 5 min read

Dealing With Power Dynamics and Work Politics as an Engineering Manager

There’s this rush of excitement when you land that engineering manager promotion. After dedicating night after night towards this goal, your hard work finally pays dividends. But as the

21 Nov 2023 · 5 min read

Progress Reporting that Doesn’t Feel Tedious

Imagine a situation. You’re an engineering manager leading a capable development team. You feel you have well-planned the project with clear milestones. However, some things are not going smoothly.

20 Nov 2023 · 4 min read

Time Tracking: Friend or Foe of Engineering Productivity?

Imagine you’re an engineering manager at a tech startup overseeing a fully remote team of developers. Features are being delivered behind schedule, littered with bugs. Your developers are taking