For folks looking for their next role, we're hiring a manager for the team I'm attached to (Senior Manager, Platform Engineering - Secure Supply Chain). It's a big problem space with a large impact on all of Twilio engineering. Role is remote, but based in US or Canada.

https://jobs.twilio.com/careers/job/1099552427321?domain=twilio.com&hl=en

#getFediHired #hiring

Reading “Thinking in Systems”

“Purposes are deduced from behavior, not from rhetoric or stated goals”

We often get stuck on what is said and forget to look at results. If the results never match what is said then you need to realize maybe what is said is meant to mislead. It could also be lack of skills but that is not much better.

In my experience, most engineering misalignment comes down to interpretation of requirements. Someone says, “We should support Y.” That can mean different things depending on context.

The easy move is to make a reasonable assumption and start building, because asking clarifying questions feels slower, especially in async teams where you might be waiting for a reply. But I’ve found that taking the time to align first is usually cheaper than the rework that follows a wrong assumption.

I wrote about why this keeps happening and why senior engineers modeling clarification publicly makes more difference than we think: https://sleepingpotato.com/asking-questions-takes-less-time-than-doing-the-wrong-thing/

#software