Reflecting on a tumultuous but ultimately successful year. Here’s what I’ve learned, re-learned, or cemented in my “2015 things (software engineering) leaders should know”: On Measurement Measure everything, as early as possible. Collecting data is cheap. You will not know you need it until after you need it. Do not build anything (teams, features, processes) without […]
Category Archives: Work
Where are the Developers?
The amazing recruiting team at Vend have hired a few awesome software developers to add to our already incredible team. But it is hard work. Really, really bloody hard. So hard that I sometimes wonder what we’re doing wrong. Are we looking for the right people? Are we sending the right messages to attract those people? I’ve been thinking […]
Trust
Here’s the thing: the problems you need to solve as a technical manager are by definition non-technical. You need to create an environment in which the engineering team can execute to their potential, and otherwise get out of the way. The last thing you need is technical authority
Using TeamCity and PowerShell to Deploy Automated Builds to Windows Azure
We’re building an ASP.NET MVC3 website that runs in Windows Azure, using the fabulous TeamCity as our build server. So far we have been just building and running the site locally on the build server, but we wanted to extend our build process into the cloud.
Developers: Keith Patton talks Windows Phone 7
I’m not kidding when I say that Keith Patton from Marker is one of the top Windows Phone 7 developers in New Zealand. He’s behind a couple of the most popular apps in the New Zealand marketplace, and one of the top games worldwide.