This week we finished the final main chapter, Chapter 6. We decided not to discuss Chapter 7 as it’s more of a reference.
Section 6.7 — Creating Special Roles, Like SRE to TPMs
- SRE = site reliability engineer
- TPM = technical program manager
- A challenge of brittle organization: “You’ll find that no one is able to fill the role very capably.” This is the balance of not wearing too many hats and wearing too few hats. Houston had seen this but not recognized it; usually people step up to fill the gaps. Jamie said you can share experience and workload (generalists) to make it less brittle.
- Geoff felt like his current Agile process coach role felt like “Roles too ‘trivial’ to value” and “Roles too ‘trivial’ to promote.”
- The idea of having a role model for these special roles was compelling to Geoff. The person can get coaching, see a baseline to compare their behavior to the model, etc. He wondered how feasible this is likely to be. LinkedIn and Twitter can be a resource to find mentors. Jameson recommended having multiple mentors, as you want to blend several best practices. Eventually people will disappoint you, and you’ll outgrow them. Be careful how you pick your heroes.
Section 6.8 — Designing an Interview Loop
- On “candidate debriefs,” Geoff wished that both interviewers and candidates could give honest feedback about this. If I don’t get the job, I want to know why. If I don’t take the job, I want them to know why.
- Geoff loved the idea of rubrics for interviews. It would require some rigor to spell this out. He’s done this before for computer labs, and it takes work to break everything down. However, the clarity you get for both parties is powerful.
- “Don’t hire for potential.” Geoff said, “Eh, I get this.” However, you’re hiring not only for the needs you have now, but for the needs you have in the future as well. Ignoring this will have you miss out on people that could soar. For example, Houston was hired at Lirio for potential. We all like to work with people who want to grow.
- We talked about the issue with the Knoxville dev market: Companies want experience from day one instead of training people up. People usually leave because they’re not getting paid well. There’s always work to do where people can learn.