Suhail Patel

In case you missed it while prepping for Flag Day 🇺🇸 Happy State of Engineering Management Report Day happened this week! The annual thought leadership piece from Jellyfish has dropped. Hear from Engineering leaders, managers and frontline ICs .... we cover a range of topics that matter to great R&D leaders. Key Points: 1️⃣ Engineers are now strategic partners! 🙌 2️⃣ Burnout continues to be a challenge 😱 3️⃣ The talent shortage is spiking back up. 4️⃣ Many teams have embraced #AI 🧠 5️⃣ Others have legit concerns about AI ⁉ If #developerproductivity #genAI #engineeringexcellence are important to you .... have a read! (link in the Comments)

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If you want to become a great software engineer... you might need to start doing your housework Lots of good thoughts in this talk bringing many ideas I couldn’t articulate front and center Technical Debt is not a cause but the effect of Technical Neglect. You can’t focus on everything, to focus is to attend to one thing exclusively. And therefore neglect / not attend to something else. In much the same way that when we cook to eat we make a mess that needs cleaning, so to does the act of building require tidying up 🧹. Working in a code base is not free unless your Middle Eastern mom/wife bless her soul is cleaning up after you. Software is not kick-able and our mind attends to hard kick-able 🦵 things better than ideas. Neglect is the absence of something happening, you only notice it when it’s debt kicks you Maintenance is a requirement for physical things that wear and tear, our interaction with code with our limited attention causes us to changes things without attending to other things, that is the wear and tear of software Prioritizings new requirements over technical work is a bit of an oxymoron, what are new requirements made of pixie dust? It’s all technical work. Fixing bugs isn’t maintenance, you don’t fix bugs you find them they were already there. Tidying up is. In software we use metaphors, because we don't have matter. metaphors is our matter, but metaphors by definition is similar not exact. Legacy tells you where you spend your time on. If you’re a having a design meeting, the system you built has veto on your decisions References the book your Code is a Crime scene When we're writing new code we have skill issues, we don't know how it should look like, we write what the tutorial looks like, so we incurs some debt, that's fine, we're borrowing, the problem is if we neglect. So why do we neglect, well in analogy to tech debt it would be the equivalent of not having a payment plan. The problem is unmanaged technical debt we could have a payment plan, but that's the managed technical debt, we may have an unmanaged technical debt problem, parts that are not in the payment plan The reason why software engineering has a tech debt neglect problem is because it's composed of people who don't like to do their housework.

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Want to watch me build an app in 30 minutes at SXSW London? 👀 Only joking… sort of. The way we code and build apps is changing FAST, and I think its super important that engineers are keeping up with the most up to date workflows and tools. Tools like Copilot and Cursor are making development faster, smarter, and more accessible than ever. At SXSW London, I want to show you how to harness these tools for your own projects. My hands-on talk will explore the AI transforming app development and what it means for the future of our industry. But I need your vote to make it happen. ➡️ Sign up for a SXSW voting account and hit the heart on my session page here: https://lnkd.in/eRmSSUnu

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If you’re an engineering leader, this report about the current state of tech has some great insights. It’s super fascinating to see what the current common themes are.

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I've been deep-diving token naming conventions as I'm starting to re-architect our shipwright design system. I'm going to be spending some time working on this for Intermode - Software Consultancy for Logistics & Supply Chain. That being said, it's crazy how everyone approaches tokens differently. I know Romina Kavcic and some others are working on a standard ( Thank you! ). Now I'm starting with Figma variables, which I know are not tokens but I want to make sure that we have a good representation in our design tool for our team. I'll be documenting this effort here as I build things! Attached is another rough exploration to help set the vision. #design #designsystems

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Just a reminder, that my course of the foundations of messaging, Practical Messaging, is running next at NDC London in 2025. - Day 1: Messaging Patterns. We will cover the fundamentals of using messages for interoperability in distributed systems - Day 2: Conversation Patterns. How to compose the building blocks of Day 1 into Event Driven Architectures. Takeaways: how to write messaging code; how to compose event driven architectures See the link in the comments.

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I'm pretty sure the engineer you just hired feels like a fraud - it's probably your fault. I've just published a new post on the Unblocked blog that looks at how we can shift our onboarding processes from "checklists" and "tasks" to approaches that better support developers when they have questions. The post includes a number of recommendations, and a look at how Unblocked can help. What do you think? Have you found other onboarding practices that have worked for your team? Check it out here:

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In 2024 I've helped more Software Engineers from FANG (is it MANA now?) companies move onto their next challenge than I've done before. Awesome. It always feels great to help people get their new job. I think this is for 4 reasons. 1. These companies have gone through restructuring at a rate they have never been through before. Even if Engineers are still in place, they are concerned about long term job stability. 2. RSU's locked Engineers in on high annual total earnings that no one could compete with. With share prices adjusting to market pressure, Engineers have more options. 3. These businesses are now no longer at the cutting edge of tech, consolidating and focusing on core product lines and killing off new or risky product development they are not the centres of innovation they once were. 4. We had remote working and now there is a big return to the office. This works for some. Not all. If you are in the market for hiring the top tier of Engineering talent (not that this is defined by someone working at Apple/Amazon etc) now is a great time to go to market. If you're looking for a new role, although the market is slower than it was in 2021/2022. There are some great businesses looking to hire, especially so since the start of 2024. Get in touch if you'd like to learn more. Happy jobsearching everyone.

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*Bracing myself for the response I might get for asking this* Software Engineers: Would you ever consider working on an EQUITY ONLY basis (ie no salary, just owning a portion of the business, the value of which would increase as it progresses and scales)? Assuming: - The product is really interesting and so is the work - The product is in the "tech for good" space and would be a really positive contribution to parts of society - Seed funding is confirmed to be coming with several backers keen & they will able to offer a salary in the near future - The product is super early stage, you would be writing the software from the ground up, but the concept, design and business model once funding is received are all solid I know that there will be many who would never consider this under any circumstances and I totally get why, but just curious to hear if any of you would if it was for a product you believed in enough? And would you look at it on a full-time basis or a part-time basis? It's something I got asked about and so I thought I would throw it out to Linkedin to see what you all think rather than assuming that I know the answer on your behalf. #startup #founder #softwareengineer

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One of the early newsletters from Frontend At Scale really resonated with me, especially on the topic of specialising versus being a generalist. It’s a question I’ve encountered often: should you focus on frontend, backend, or aim to be a full-stack developer? Maxi Ferreira’s advice is straightforward and aligns with my own experience: start by going deep. In the early stages of your career, it’s crucial to focus on developing your technical expertise, whether it's mastering JavaScript, CSS, or another core skill. As you gain confidence and experience, it’s time to broaden your horizons. Start exploring different technologies, even at a high level, to expand your technical breadth. This isn’t career advice, but it’s a path that has worked well for me. I’ve spent the majority of my career focused on building web applications with JavaScript frameworks, going deep into frontend development. Nowadays, I find myself shifting gears—integrating with different services, diving into cloud, deployment, and security. It’s challenging, but the process of acquiring new skills is incredibly rewarding. Do let me know what you think, and here’s the link to the original newsletter 👉 https://lnkd.in/gZZz_r4R I hope you find it as insightful as I did. Thanks again, Max, for sharing your knowledge and perspective.

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Some people gaslight themselves (and others) into requiring the London Underground of 'software development' processes to then never release anything, or something the market doesn't want. My company has literally 0 process, and I challenge anyone to make a better product than us in <6 months using these "agile" frameworks. You'll be in your third round of RFP's, seeking board approval by then. Don't believe me? Check the app, and get back to me: https://us.idyllic.app/ Before using the classic consulting line: "but how does it scale?" -- Yes, we scaled the app to over 10k-20k DAU in that time as well comfortably 😂. The app is ready for the next million users. How is writing those user stories going? #tech #startup #product #ai #agile

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Trying to hire a junior to mid-level engineer in Scotland with great benefits and remote working is hard... https://lnkd.in/eQNHVqGR Not because the role isn't attractive (you'd be working on exciting large-scale system infrastructure challenges writing code with Golang - 1,000's of Kubernetes clusters, 10,000s of cloud VMs) or because the team are all crazy (they're thought leaders in their field including multiple upstream Kubernetes contributors from 3 continents!)... you got me... maybe there's a little crazy - but only the good kind! No... my challenge is whether this AI-generated image to go with my LinkedIn post makes any sense! I never have much luck with images containing generated text. Even using prompts like "spell check any text" or as is the case with this one "do not include any text" doesn't seem to work. Not to mention, I know what a Scottish Terrier is... but that "thing" in the bottom right looks more like an angry, tartan-wearing Capybara. Comment below for your biggest concerns with this image... or if you're a junior/mid-level, talented software engineer based in Scotland - maybe just skip over the image and apply online - https://lnkd.in/eQNHVqGR

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My children My wife My work That's the order of my priorities. Understand your order to understand your work life balance. My work is very important to me, I am a passionate geek, and consider myself very lucky to lead many fantastic Software Engineers. It provides a home and food for my wife and kids. It helps give me a purpose. As a result, it comes third in a very long list. 3rd is high. My wife is fantastic, I love her dearly. My kids come first. She would say exactly the same thing. How's that for managing stakeholder expectations? 😁 If I am challenged with a decision of time, I go down the priority order: Ah I have a work social or meeting at 7pm. I also have a rare opportunity to take my wife out for a date. That meeting is getting rearranged, without apology. My wife is more important. Keep this strict and be honest about your order, for example work is really important in my life and comes above most things, that's just me, just not above my family. That's the line, I will not cross. What's your line?

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A couple of recent improvements to Konquest for us to shout about. Our flexible yet accessible calculation engine is already our pride and joy, but we just keep making it better. Firstly, we recently added support for bi-monthly and semi-annual schemes, ideal for those kicker schemes where you want to close out the year strong and have consultants make up for a shaky start to the year. https://lnkd.in/emeMvYUP Then today, we have just shipped support for schemes which are calculated into any number of weeks from (and back from) a specified start date. Want to run three week schemes starting on the 2nd Wednesday of the year - now you can with Konquest 🦍 https://lnkd.in/eeC_KM9G We're currently hard at work on the next set of enhancements, this time looking at ways you can penalise blank months and missed thresholds in a variety of different ways. Feel your current commission structure is not getting the best out of your teams? There's never been a better time to speak to us. #commissionaccomplished

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Where do most of the good Software Engineers apply for jobs? The answer is usually... nowhere Great Engineers are often passive, responding occasionally to messages that really pique their interest, or sometimes reaching out to companies that have great employer branding If you haven't got great employer branding, and you don't work with an external recruitment partner or have an internal talent person doing outbound reach out, really you are settling for who is active and who happens to see your job posting If it was me building my founding engineering team, I would want to know that nearly every Software Engineer that may be relevant to my team (right tech background, worked in the environments I like, location/salary aligned) has been reached out to and knows about what I'm building The value that we can add as recruitment agencies (if a market specialist in what you're recruiting for), we can get your message out to hundreds of relevant Software Engineers in a day Then... We're good at presenting opportunities. Often I'll speak to an Engineer about a role, and they say oh I did see them online but I didn't think it looked that interesting... But we can get them interested in you Maybe you can hire a better-quality Engineer than you ever expected 🤔

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A while back when I talked about StandIn, I was asked how we move fast safely at Monzo. Recently my team shipped a major optimisation on ledger, that saves half a million of running cost every year. I thought this is another great example showing how we do things at Monzo. Ledger is the heart and soul of a bank. It is the source of truth for everyone's money, not just for all our 10 million users, but for Monzo's own money as well. I can easily imagine how in other "traditional" banks, a change this magnitude on ledger would require 18 levels of approval and countless other red tapes. So how did we do it? 1) We do not treat ledger any differently when it comes to engineering practices. Here at Monzo, we've gone to great lengths to make sure we are able to treat ledger development exactly the same as any other types of development. This is done not by being less careful on ledger, but rather, by being more careful on *all* other tech changes: such that every single change deployed at Monzo, regardless of the system it touches, is of a quality that we are confident to apply onto our most critical infrastructure. And if anything goes wrong, we are confident we will know immediately and all sorts of automatic control would kick in to minimise the blast radius. It took a long time and a lot of intentional and sometimes painful efforts to get here. But today, we enjoy the freedom of not carrying extra mental and operational burden while working on ledger. We deploy ledger continuously same as all other services. This year so far we've deployed ledger in production *196* times already! 2) Engineering led risk assessments Every change at Monzo goes through a risk assessment. You might think, "aha! there is your red tape!" Not really. The crucial thing is the risk assessment has to be engineering-led (of course with the due diligence from first and second line!), instead of a tick box exercise. This means for low risk changes, we've automated as much of the process as possible, to the point that engineers barely feel it; for major tech changes such as this ledger optimisation, we carried out multiple rounds of thorough, robust engineering led risk analysis, and put in multiple engineering controls to make sure every corner case is considered, every deviation is caught and dealt with as quickly as possible. The actual "paper work" part of the process is insignificant -- probably took just about half a day in total. === I've always said to my team that engineering excellence is a key competitive advantage, and is what's going to continue to power the Monzo magic as we scale further. I'm extremely proud of what we've achieved so far, but the job is not done until we make money work for everyone. Onwards and upwards :) This is great work from the finance infrastructure team at Monzo: Joost van Oorschot ‎Sonia Dalal 🆖 Nicholas Ng Basma Taha Nada Meabed

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It's official! The London Observability Engineering Meetup is back for an exciting talk about scaling and managing SLOs at a global scale! 🌏 Join us on Thursday, July 11th, where Alex, Senior Site Reliability Engineer at Google, will present the evolution of Service Level Objectives (SLOs) for the GCE Compute API over the past eight years. He'll start with the initial 30 SLOs, move through a phase with around a thousand, and end with millions of per-customer SLOs. He'll share anecdotes, techniques for handling low-QPS (continuous over discrete metrics), and strategies for aggregating data to enhance leadership visibility. He'll also give practical tips for running and improving this system in production. #observability #engineering #devops #sre

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We’ve spent the last couple of weeks filtering down over 90 applications for our software engineering roles so here’s some of the good practice I’ve seen: 👉take the time to create a good quality application. When there are so many candidates looking, it is much better use your time doing fewer applications well than spamming lots of roles in the hope that something sticks. 👉 if they are asking for x-years experience in something (or another key criteria) make sure it’s easy to see that you have it (or clearly explain why you think you have the equivalent in your cover letter). When there are so many candidates there isn’t time to deconstruct all the experience in someone’s cv in case they fit. 👉 write a cover letter explaining why you want the role and how you fit (or could grow to fit). Every cover letter I read gave me more depth into the candidate and helped me understand what they would bring to the role. 👉 use the layout to highlight the key skills you bring - it really doesn’t matter if it’s 1 page or 2 pages and whether you have columns or any other fancy bits - just make it easy for me to scan read. 👉the more you can quantify (with numbers) what you’ve done or the value you’ve delivered, the better. The numbers don’t have to be big - they just give me an idea of the size and scale of what you’ve been involved in. And finally, I know it’s tough getting a rejection but please don’t take it personally. I’ve seen some amazing applications come through, but they’ve just not been right for what we need. #jobapplications #careers #cvtips

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