Author, public speaker, and coach for managers and leaders across the tech industry.
Blog Posts
On Better Meetings
As an engineering director, my week is filled with meetings: one-on-ones with my direct reports, skip-level one-on-ones with theirs. Meetings to make decisions, meetings to share information, meetings to teambuild. I have meetings to provide mentorship, or feedback on a presentation, or to get coaching. read more
Work at different management levels
I remember working as a developer at a company and complaining that I had no idea what the bosses did all day. It felt like while we engineers were working hard and shipping stuff, managers just talked to a lot of people all the time, or sat in their offices behind closed doors, and I had no idea what their work looked like.1 read more
Questions for our first 1:1
In the last few years, I’ve had the pleasure of kicking off lots of new reporting relationships with both engineers and engineering managers. Over time, I’ve learned that getting some particular data during an initial 1:1 can be really helpful, as I can refer back to the answers as I need to give a person feedback, recognize them, and find creative ways to support them. Most of these I’ve stolen from some really amazing Etsy coworkers. read more
Coding a book
I’ve done a lot of writing in the past few years, all on a Mac, and mostly in Sublime Text. I publish this site using Jekyll + GitHub Pages, so it’s easy for me to write blog posts and whatever with Markdown files. But when it comes to writing books, the options get a little interesting; there’s not much out there that feels as safe as an author might want to feel when writing. read more
2014 and 2015
I was inspired by Beerops’ post reflecting on 2015 to do my own reflection on the past year. Like for Katherine, 2015 was a hell of a year for me. I’ve not done a lot of year-long reflection previously, so I’m eager to frame this post as a comparison of 2014 and 2015, and some thoughts on what 2016 might bring. read more
Transitioning to meta-management
Cate Huston’s post The Hardest, Shortest, Lesson Becoming a Manager recently resonated with me. She writes about the shift from day-to-day engineering to day-to-day management of engineers, and focuses on the reasons why it’s probably a smart idea to step away from coding as a manager. read more
Finding support as a new senior (woman) leader
As a female Senior Engineering Manager at a tech company, I’m in a weird spot. There are lots of women role models ahead of me who I look up to, and who I’m fortunate enough to call mentors. There are a bunch of women who I mentor, too, and many more women just entering the industry. read more
Support women-authored tech books
Looking for a gift for the designer or developer in your life? How about supporting women authors while you're at it? Here is a non-comprehensive list of great women in tech-authored books. Most have print and digital versions available, and I listed the prices that I could find at the time of this writing. read more
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