Tag Archives: leadership

Engineering Management – no problem

Posted on May 24, 2024 by Tim Golisch

One of my daughters has been talking with me about a not-so-good manager in charge of her. The manager seems to have experience managing, but not managing engineers. Allow me to explain how managing engineers is different. Think about this: … Continue reading →

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Mentoring, do you really mean it?

Posted on April 21, 2023 by Tim Golisch

*** Disclaimer: This isn’t about my current employer. It is about all companies everywhere. *** I’ve worked at several places that say they encourage mentoring and demonstrate it by having an “open door policy” for upper management. In my experience, … Continue reading →

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Successful Interns

Posted on September 16, 2022 by Tim Golisch

Full disclosure: I did an internship while I was in college. I’m grateful for it, and feel obliged to pay it forward. That being said, I have some insight into what worked, what didn’t and why. Most of the places … Continue reading →

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Boss, spying on you?

Posted on April 8, 2022 by Tim Golisch

Regardless of your corporate culture, regardless of your productivity and regardless of your reputation, your boss might want to keep tabs on you. The common stuff is “are you at work during work hours?”, “are you doing actual work while … Continue reading →

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Why its lonely at the top, for developers

Posted on January 7, 2022 by Tim Golisch

When I worked for Sequoia Net (Auburn Hills, MI) we had a really good/clear career path for technical folks: Junior dev -> mid-level dev -> senior dev -> (next step is to choose between) Project Director = 25% technical and … Continue reading →

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MLM scheme for better software development teams

Posted on November 5, 2021 by Tim Golisch

I know it sounds like I’m being cute here by calling this a MLM (multi-level-marketing = pyramid scheme), but please bear with me for a moment. This started out as a metaphor, but I think it is much more than … Continue reading →

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1 on 1, Constructive you-know-what

Posted on September 24, 2021 by Tim Golisch

Let me start by saying that some people don’t receive constructive criticism well, and some people really don’t deliver constructive criticism well. When you get those two together, you won’t get a good outcome. I don’t think there is something … Continue reading →

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People. Management Training.

Posted on September 10, 2021 by Tim Golisch

I recently had some people-management training. Good stuff. The training video showed a cartoon manager who was demonstrating some quirky behaviors that new managers sometimes do. For example, one challenge which (I think) is common among most new managers, is … Continue reading →

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The “what”, the “how”, the win

Posted on July 2, 2021 by Tim Golisch

Take a look at any team who is successful. For example, if you see five (+/-) guys who are kicking an epic amount of kiester, with only five people, you are fortunate. This is a veritable gold-mine. There is a … Continue reading →

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Learning curve, gut-check

Posted on March 26, 2021 by Tim Golisch

I’d like to reflect on a meeting that I had, a few weeks ago. Our new task is to take-over an existing project. As you might expect, we’ve found some tech debt and some awkward business rules (no big surprise, … Continue reading →

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