Damien Ryan

Now that the Microsoft AFO UK redundancy consultancy period has concluded, I can start to share details of where people are headed. Firstly there are people not actively job hunting for a software engineering role. - A decent number of people are taking the opportunity to go travelling for an extended period - A few folk are looking at changing career - e.g. starting a masters course, going into teaching, etc. - A bigger chunk have decided to take a couple of months off and begin job hunting in September. They'll have an easier time then, because they will have a stronger network.  - And finally let’s not forget the few that are still processing the shock; spare a thought for them. For the majority who are actively job-seeking though, early results are in. I'm thinking of it as like election night, there is excitement around those initial results, and we can start to form narratives, but they won't necessarily reflect the final picture. The job market dynamics will likely shift after the summer, interview process lengths vary by company size, and my guess is that those taking a relaxed approach may find themselves in different roles compared to the early movers. Nevertheless, here's the landscape so far: - Startups, with available funding, have moved the quickest  - Medium-sized companies are beginning to make offers. - Larger companies, with longer cycles, are interviewing, but not yet complete. Except Nvidia, who have hired a big bunch. Here are some specific destinations I've heard about within Engineering, with a very strong bias towards those "close" to me.  evroc (2) Oakdoor UNDO Squarepoint Capital Hymans Robertson Ciena Kraken NVIDIA (10+) Technical consultancy Microsoft (2) Update 5th Aug: NVIDIA (5 more, making 15 so far) Deliveroo (2) Cisco (1) Checkout.com (2) Cellular Origins (1) ---- Outside Engineering, I'm less in touch with where people are at, but I've noticed posts of people moving towards existing customers:  Award Consulting (2) weavix https://lnkd.in/egnSKVYd If you have more updates to add, please share in the comments!

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"I have a tendency to find fault. If something is out of place, it screams at me. When your tendency becomes your job and you are paid for it, it’s perfect, isn't it?" This was the response from a QA Engineer when I asked what they like about their work during a recent interview. We both burst out laughing. Somewhere, a group of Dev Engineers probably dropped their coffee, sensing a wave of bug reports. 😅 #QualityAssurance #DeveloperLife #TechHumor #InterviewTales #SoftwareTesting #Debugging #CodeQuality #QAEngineer #SoftwareDevelopment #WorkplaceHumor #FunFriday

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Having the ability to influence others as a software engineer is crucial. 👉 You might need to influence your Product Owner's idea of scope for a given feature because you know about potential technical trapdoors further down the line... 👉 You might want to convince someone on your team of a simple approach when they're itching to use a new and complicated technology... 👉 You might want to use your influence to drive a change in team culture. It's no good knowing the best solutions if you can't influence others to go along with you. A big part of influencing others is understanding the emotions and motivations of those around you. 🟢 That's why it's so important to lift your head up from your code and spend some time building relationships and getting to know your team. Influence isn't just a management thing.

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I just watched Daniel Terhorst-North's talk at Kotlin conf, having sadly missed it in person (nothing to do with being hungover on day two of the conference). Daniel is the originator of Behaviour-Driven Development and gave a talk titled 'The best programmer I know'. A few interesting takeaways: - You don't need a degree to be an exceptional programmer - Everyone is a kinesthetic learner. Some people might lean towards seeing or hearing things, but everyone learns through doing, so just start and iterate as you go. Lean into uncertainty. - Invest in the product - not the code - Watch your users and find out what frustrates them - TDD pays off. Daniel's team at BP won a software quality award for their trading system. Unlike other teams, they found zero bugs during six weeks of UAT, thanks to TDD. BP paid them to stay on for the UAT period, which they spent in the pub. If that's not an incentive to learn TDD, what is?" - Explore different languages, tools and paradigms to give you more options and help you solve specific problems throughout your career - Help others - teaching is the best way to learn - Overall takeaway for me is that soft skills are clearly equally as important as hard skills in software engineering Worth a watch. https://lnkd.in/e8bau4X9

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Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of delivering the Scrum.org Professional Scrum with Kanban course in collaboration with TheScrumMaster.co.uk. This course covers - how Kanban can complement Scrum - How we can bring life to Scrum events - How we can make data-guided decision The course provides actionable insights, and our learners agree! A big thanks to Nick Sullivan for sharing this fantastic review. The highlight of the review for me is "the improvement i can bring into my teams." This encapsulates what the training is all about—focusing on actionable learning and real-world application, not just certificates.

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Yesterday we: Deployed a couple UI/UX polish features at 11 am Deployed upgrades to Frigade and PostHog at 2 pm Deployed onboarding revamp at 5 pm Deployed document import at 7 pm Deployed a hotfix (for onboarding) at 1 am yesterday (well... this morning) We ❤️ moving fast but the Joggr team is ready for the weekend so we can relax... and switch to working on open-source projects 😂 #movefastdontbreakthings #deployments #weekend #nodejs #javascript #opensource #codingonabeach

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If you don't know, there is this thing called Testing Manifesto, introduced by Karen & Samantha from the book A coach's guide to Agile Testing. This is quite fascinating because it embraces the Quality Engineering mindset shift. At Qaraton, we believe in a better way of practice testing and building quality mindset in teams and organizations. It starts with what we values in our work. Hence, Qaraton 💚 Testing Manifesto. #Qaraton #TestingManifesto #QualityEnginnering

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Context is key - insightful presentation by Nigel Thurlow 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇬🇧 and Dave Snowden - and an official introduction to Hexis https://lnkd.in/ebFbDeHY #lean #agile #leansixsigma #transformation #boundedapplicability #theflowsystem

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Not read the latest edition of the BA Digest magazine yet? Then check out this link including an espresso-sized summary of three of the articles in the magazine. https://lnkd.in/eZU97VgE #BusinessAnalysis #BACommunity #BADigest

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Agile is dead - it’s like that one joke everyone has heard a million times. Some say it's overused and rapidly losing its hook factor. Others say it needs to evolve... Tune in to the latest episode of The Delivery Space podcast, where we unpack this topic with our special guests, Christiaan Verwijs and Johannes Schartau, and ask ourselves why now might be the worst time to abandon Agile. We cover:  📌 Is Agile Dead? - Tackling the question head-on and exploring whether Agile is truly obsolete or simply evolving. 📌 Why Didn’t It Work for Us? - Many organisations claim Agile didn't work for them. It may not be for everyone, but deeper reflection can help us surface and drive behaviours and practices to achieve agility, even in small measures, to give teams confidence and empower them to pursue business goals. 📌 Evidence-Based Success - Christiaan refers to data-driven evidence showing that Agile teams tend to outperform in several key metrics, from customer satisfaction to team morale. 📌 The Real Role of Agile Coaches - Johannes sheds light on the often misunderstood role of Agile coaches and why they are crucial for genuine transformation. There is a critical difference between truly effective Agile practices and coaching and those that merely create a false sense of progress by focusing most on the happy clappy team happiness stuff and less on understanding the purpose of the practices. 🌟About Our Guests🌟 Johannes is an Agile Coach, international speaker, complexity and integral thinker, Liberating Structures user, and Zombie Scrum fighter! Christiaan enjoys igniting positive change in teams and organisations. It is his strong belief that people should be empowered to drive change themselves, rather than being told by management or consultants how to change. His mission is to liberate the world from ineffective and demotivating workplaces by helping organisations find better ways to tap into the creativity, intelligence, and wisdom of people. Together they are the co-authors of the "Zombie Scrum Survival Guide" along with Barry Overeem. 🎧 Listen now using the link in the comments and let us know what you think! #Agile #Scrum #BusinessTransformation #Leadership #TheDeliverySpacePodcast

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There has been a marked reduction on the number of testing roles out there over the last couple of years, but this isn't because less software is being written. 🟣 Does that mean that Shift-Left is actually working, with development teams testing their software sufficiently before releasing it? We can hope, but I doubt it. 🟣 Does this mean that more issues are being caught through CI/CD? I am sure there is some truth to this; automated testing is more likely to catch obvious regression than manual testing because it is less prone to human error - as long as it is properly maintained. 🟣 I think what it does mean is that organisations now feel more confident in their development processes. And yet bugs still make it through to production... This is where Quality Assurance is just as important as it always was, maybe even more so given the complexity of so much software these days. 🟢 If you have got your development and release processes nailed, then it's time to make the small changes likely to have the biggest impact on the quality of your releases. It is time to focus on your requirements. 🟢 If your processes use documented requirements then implement SMART, INVEST, 7-point checks, 5-Whys etc. 🟢 If you follow agile ways of working then introduce regular reviews of backlog items, only starting development when everyone is agreement on what the task requires. 3-Amigos is a great technique to follow. 🟢 Using a hybrid approach? Then pick the bits from above that work for you, just don't do anything for the sake of it. Everything should add value. I say it a lot, but Software Quality is everyone's responsibility. Get buy-in from BAs, Project Managers, Product Owners and End Users and you might just see those production bug numbers come down even further. The image? Nothing to do with my post. One of the bunches of grapes we have on our grape vine this year. Fingers crossed we'll have a reasonable harvest.

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If anyone in my network is aware of some great discussion on the balance of BDD and TDD, I'd love to be pointed in that direction. Looking forward to learning more about the proper balance of such.

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How important is domain/industry knowledge within QA? Lots of companies see it as a big bonus when they’re hiring, with some even having it as mandatory - but do they really need it? Or are they just assuming it’ll bring them more value + less time spent on mentoring and getting someone up to scratch in those specific areas. There’s certain industries that I can see the argument for, whether that’s a specific financial platform, or companies that have to adhere to specific regulations (as an example) - but does the new ideas and skills that someone can bring in from a completely different industry, potentially outweigh that? Also, are these skills that difficult that no one pick them up - everyone has to start somewhere, right? Like anything, there’s pros/cons and this is just a generic overview - but being narrow minded and not considering an ‘outsiders view’ maybe isn’t always the best option.

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Has anybody used or created a framework for assessing observability maturity across teams? I found a post from Honeycomb that was posted recently, but it’s quite leighweight and a work in progress. I’m interested in understanding how to quantify how far along on their observability journey teams are. The output would help identify those that need greater levels of support etc. Let me know 🙏🏼 #observability #monitoring #softwareengineering

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I've always advocated for software engineer involvement in projects from inception. I often get pushback from the business, though... We don't know what we are building yet, so we don't need software engineer involvement... 😱 Reasons for early involvement: 🟢 The sooner your engineers know something, the sooner they can start to consider the art of the possible… 🟢 They can help steer the conversation and provide feedback on complexity, potential performance issues and pitfalls as early as possible… 🟢 They start forming solutions during conversations and start to piece together the puzzle... 🤔 We'll need a new database for that... what might that look like? 🤔 There's some refactoring to do if we want to build on xyz. 🤔 We'll have to speak to the API team... But there's more: 🟢 Software engineers tend to be smart people, great problem solvers, and can contribute ideas and solutions to the problem space. 🟢 Engineers feel a greater sense of ownership... this can only be good for the project. 🟢 The success of software development projects hinges on getting your software engineers to fully understand the project's WHY. All too often, we are given a solution to implement rather than a problem to solve... There's a huge difference.

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The secrets of how experienced engineering leaders accelerating growth of new Tech Leads... 𝘔𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘴𝘦𝘵 + 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 + 𝘚𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 + 𝘍𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 = 𝗦𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘀𝗲𝘁 Individual focus → 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 I love Andy Grove's definition 𝘓𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘫𝘶𝘥𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘱𝘶𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦. Although I prefer to use the term 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀. It's possible for a team to product a lot of output but not much value! 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱? A team scoped Tech Lead can have many flavours. Is team leadership included? What about line management? What about delivery? Clarity is key 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 Engineer → Tech Lead is a tricky transition. Holding more frequent 1:1's initially Seek feedback from team Stay close 𝗙𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 We all make mistakes when taking on new responsibilities  Provide both reenforcing and corrective feedback Observations + Impact = Actionable feedback Learn from mistakes Celebrate the wins P.S How do you support new Tech Leads?

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Customers are leaving after 6 months... How do we solve it? By adding new features of course!!! Why not start by trying to understand why customers are actually leaving after 6 months and iterate on that? I saw once a real case of this. The product had potential, good enough to drive customers in, but existing features were half baked and not good enough in reality (and this was pretty obvious after using the product for a couple of months). This was driving customers out ~6 months after... but instead of fixing those half baked features, the mindset was to add new (sometimes crazy) features... And by the way, all this, plus the rush on those new features ended piling some extra tech debt, making tech teams slow, and adding to the problem that eventually ended killing the product. Do one thing... do it really well is a good mantra for these cases.

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Quick calculation on why your SAFe system is f'd up and what's a cheaper & better alternative... BU with 200 people divided in large teams across complex products running SAFe. Include 2 SAFe coaches, 2 Release Train Engineers (RTEs), 4 Scrum Masters, and 4 Product Managers. You might think I'm exaggerating or joking, but those are real numbers from past customers (averaged). What's that in cost? Average salaries in US: SAFe coach - $140K RTE - $145K Scrum Master - $112K PM - $125K That's a total of $1.5 million per year. Are you getting $1.5MM in value out of this (at least)? Are the apps so much better? Do they create this (at least) in savings / profit? I bet they don't. The Alternative: Get rid of SAFe. Noone in the fast moving tech companies is using that. None of the big tech do. Instead, get rid of the bloat & save $1.5mm. Break the structure down into small autonomous teams. Give growing product teams experienced PMs. Give new product ideas solo PMs. I'd get 5 solo PM for product discovery to build to MVP with nocode and AI. Then spend the rest on experienced PMs & skill gaps in design, ai, engineering, cloud. In the 200 person example above, you have roughly 15% bloat which is 30 people. Get leaner: - Bust the RTE/STE Bottleneck - Merge & Flatten Architecture - Reclaim Product Ownership - Kiss Extra Roles Goodbye You'll be faster and achieve more with 170 people: - 20 fullstack teams - shared data science, security, infrastructure - overall portfolio management & taxonomy Simplifying here in the example. But you should too. Simplify. #safe #productmanagement #waste

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I've been leading software engineering teams for a bit now, and I've got to say it, Agile (as in Scrum or Kanban) is officially dead to me. I'll never touch it again. Aspects of Agile (as in the manifesto) make sense and should be followed. But I've seen too many engineering managers use scrum as a way to micro-manage their teams, too many product managers use Agile as a way to write (or not bother writing) the most abstract and impossible-to-understand definitions of what they want the product to do, and so much time wasted trying to follow a methodology for the methodology's sake. There are some good tools out there, and some of the side-effects of scrum (like product-agility, using data/feedback to drive the product forward, not wasting time writing docs as a "deliverable", and most importantly, team-to-customer connection and transparency) are beneficial. There must be a better way... stay tuned...

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