Brendan Shea

If you're the kind of person who's excited about all the recent S3 feature announcements (bucket policy unlocks via temporary root sessions, up to millions of buckets per account, pagination and region filtering for ListBuckets, conditional writes, ListCallerAccessGrants API) and you're attending re:Invent, then you should come to our storage track session, STG306 Advanced security patterns on Amazon S3. Learn how to use all the exciting new stuff securely in the most interactive format available at re:Invent!

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If you want a lesson on inspiring loyalty in those who work for you, and garnering deep respect from the people who work with you, spend thirty minutes with Alexis Chitwood, MBA, PSM1, for whom phrases like "put people over process" go way beyond the words! "We follow the principle of people over process, putting people first the same way that we put our creators first. There’s a large sense of community and support at Raptive enforcing that idea that we can achieve more when we work together, and those lessons will stay with me forever." https://lnkd.in/eCYG_mw6

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It should come as no surprise that the most amorphous role in all of software development is that of the engineering manager. Being accountable for their team’s success, EMs tend to adapt to what is lacking on their team, whether that’s a novice tech lead or absent product manager. This variability can make it difficult for leadership to both support and hold managers accountable. It also leads to circumstances where a team’s deficiencies are difficult to discern because the EM has (over) compensated for missing core functions. In my last essay, I wrote about the responsibilities which I believe should be directly attributable to the engineering manager role, and there’s plenty! Can EMs also take on some of the tech lead and PM responsibilities? Sure, but in my experience this is a disservice to the team and organization in the long run and also really unfair to the engineering manager. My goal is to wrap up the tech lead, EM, PM trifecta with a post on how great PMs are truly indispensable especially in the circumstances where they seem most absent (internal product, e.g. platform development). Beyond that, I’m curious what folks would be interested in reading about? Some ideas I’ve been percolating on: 1. Why you shouldn’t wait to ship a service catalog for your organization 2. The specific challenges associated with building internal products 3. 10X Engineer or 10X Liability? How some ICs create the dangerous illusion of unsustainable capacity. 4. Essential “off the shelf” capabilities and management technologies that every engineering organizations needs on Day One (focusing on the rapid evolution that’s occurred here in the past 5 years or so). 5. Next level scrum - what does agile actually look and feel like when it’s done exceptionally well. And if you disagree with my assessment of what engineering managers should focus on, I’d love to hear from you.

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Get the inside scoop on optimizing EHR investments with insights from Christina Berg. Learn how streamlined workflows can significantly enhance both clinician satisfaction and IT efficiency. Let’s push healthcare towards better functionality and care! 🩺🌐 For more insights and discussion, check out the full story: https://ow.ly/UAun30sC1bU #ImprivataEmpowers #EHRsuccess

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This product was practically built for me. I’ve been waiting for something like it for years, long after I gave up writing on paper almost entirely. Heck, if it wasn’t for having kids, I probably could have gone the last the past decade with the challenge of not writing anything down on paper. Which makes it all the more frustrating at the price point it’s released. This isn’t targeted for grade school students, college students, or young professionals. It’s targeted at prosumers which share the same space as an iPad Air, and the market is already dominated by prosumers who want that product. For those who can’t afford the iPad, Amazon releases tablet computers in the $100 range. I know Remarkable is a much smaller company, and can’t compete on price with Amazon, or volume like Apple. But waiting so long for something I can’t justify the purchase price just hurts. At half the price it would have been a no brainer. It checks practically every box.

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Time to be fair.... In past posts, I have been less than complimentary of the DLC regulations that now make it more difficult to implement SMS into an application. I understand that all sorts of organizations use (and misuse) SMS millions (billions?) of times daily. I get that the new regulations make an attempt to reduce, as much as possible, SMS Spam. All in all, it just seemed like another example of hand-cuffing the good guys while trying to put some limits on the bad actors. My experience at the time was with #Twilio... and I tried to make it very clear that my frustration wasn't necessarily with them - they were doing the best they could to handle an avalanche of organizations trying to comply with new rules that everyone was stumbling their way through. I've been using Twilio for years and can't complain AT ALL about the platform performance for my particular small-scale needs. It was the nearly impossible approval process that really soured me. After nearly a year of living without application-based SMS (email only), I decided to revisit. The application was already all wired up for the feature - it was just dormant. This time around I was able to get up and running in 3 days... 99% of which was the DLC approval - which happened today. Kudos #Twilio for suffering through the tough days and making SMS once again something that can be done with very little pain. #twilio #sms #dlcapproval

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With the power of #o1preview, I’ve effectively become an entire cross-functional Product Engineering team for a small hobby website. This experience feels remarkably like being a Full Stack Product Manager, orchestrating every layer of development with the help of this AI-driven model. So far, phenofuse.io has: • Image generation, authentication, and generation rate limits • Promoted content functionality • Mobile responsiveness • Scalability and performance optimization • Unit tests and monitoring • SSL implementation and security best practices • Over 4,000 lines of code All of this was accomplished with under $50 spent with OpenAI — less than half the cost of a single billable hour for most software consultants. While a skilled software team could execute this work much faster, their cost could easily exceed 100x more. Let’s break it down: • 1 PM, 1 Designer, and 2 Senior Full Stack Engineers • Each billed at $100/hour, for one week (40 hours each = 160 total hours) • 160 hours × $100/hour = $16,000 I’ve additionally been experimenting with innovative techniques. In order to move beyond a simple local vs prod environment, I request CLI commands from #o1preview to extract my cloud resource definitions and dynamically convert them into #infrastructureascode, enabling me to quickly spin up a separate cloud-hosted non-production environment.

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I've been talking about organizational leadership lately. I've got quite a bit of technical experience, which informs how I lead. Curious, are there technical topics you wish people were talking about? Drop 'em in the comments ⬇ #discussion #content #software #testing #development #product #ai #qa #analysis

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Meta needed a survey to tell them what every team should already know… Delays are problematic. Phase gates are problematic. Large queues are problematic. Large batch sizes are problematic. This *should* be 101 stuff in our industry, but it isn’t. Most teams do pull requests out of blind obedience to “best practices” without seeing them for what they are. The way to reduce cycle time isn’t to nag people to review pull requests, it’s to eliminate the pull requests. And no, you can’t do that alone, you need practices in place that ensure you review code in real time and invest in people so they have a better sense of the target intrinsically. It’s not a quick fix. Meta sought a quick fix and decided to effectively tell people stuck in traffic to drive faster. That’s not how context switching works. It’s not how queuing theory works. It gets worse though. Meta did this and now this article was written lauding it and plenty of people in the comments wishing that they too could introduce auto-nag tooling as a quick fix for their cycle time problems. There is no instant pudding.

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Leaders, ask not what your reports can do for you but what you can do for your reports. Maximize your impact by fostering environments where people can do their best work. Great post from John Cutler about shifting a reactive perspective and getting clarity on how to respond when things seem too complex. #Leadership #ProductDevelopment #PeopleFirst #Empathy

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𝗜𝘀 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗔𝗴𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗔𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗻 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀? 𝗡𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗴𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝘆 𝗔𝗿𝗲𝗮 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗝𝗶𝗺 𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘀𝗺𝗶𝘁𝗵'𝘀 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗺! ⚖️ Ever wonder how to ensure your Agile team reaches decisions everyone feels comfortable with? Traditional voting often paints a black and white picture, neglecting valuable nuances.  Jim Highsmith's Decision Spectrum offers a powerful alternative! This week's blog post dives deep into this framework: https://lnkd.in/gk99XbYi Discover how the Decision Spectrum helps you: • Uncover the spectrum of opinions within your team • Navigate disagreements constructively while fostering buy-in • Make faster and more informed decisions in your Agile environment Move beyond simple "yes" or "no" and embrace a more collaborative approach to decision-making! #Agile #leadership #decisionmaking #collaboration #HighsmithDecisionSpectrum #communication

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Walking—it’s one of the 1st steps humanity took toward survival and dominance. Last week, during our leadership team’s 12-mile walkathon, we reflected on that journey while diving into AI, tech breakthroughs, and health hacks. 1000's of years ago, as the cerebral cortex evolved, humans developed the ability to think, innovate, and rise to the top of the food chain. Now, we stand at the brink of another leap—one powered not just by biology, but by AI and robotics. Imagine a future where our minds are augmented by machines, with human potential expanded beyond imagination. 🤯 As we walked and talked, we explored how AI and innovation will reshape how we live, think, and thrive. The journey ahead isn’t just about walking—it’s about advancing into a future where human intelligence blends seamlessly with technology. So, what’s next? 20+ miles and bolder ideas? The path ahead is limitless, and we’re ready to walk straight into it ❤️ 🚀 Anuradha Pazhanithayappan Georgia Grammatikakis Clarice Hughes GENOJ MATHEW Chad Fischer Sathish Moorthyrajan Rajiv Garg Kumara Guru Karuppusamy Deepak Mishra Venugopal Vinjamoori Thank you Anuradha Pazhanithayappan for organizing the spot for us! #AI #Innovation #Leadership #HealthHacks #TechEvolution #FutureOfWork #CerebralCortex #HumanPotential #WalkingForward

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"The core art of Operations Management is observing the messy, human chaos of business and applying order to it." The Operator's handbook is a great guide to the various operations disciplines like #businessoperations or #bizops, #revenueoperations or #revops, #financialops or #finops,#legalops, #marketingops, #peopleops and #productoperations / #productops that have emerged as a result of shift from hardware to software-based value creation (see my previous post too --> https://lnkd.in/gwNWwkNh?). Great introduction, though I find it lacking as it did not include factory operations, supply chain, store operations that rely far more on offline-online interfaces. For any operator out there, process, analytics, metrics, cadence, solutioning and execution are the key concepts to apply.

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A new quick Cypress blog post about my "should read" assertion https://lnkd.in/eUC3ryaS

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Book 106 of 2024. Means of Control by Byron Tau. A very compelling overview of how much of your data is available to both corporations and governments. When you don’t pay for the service, you are the product.

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My biggest takeaway from #ELCAnnual2024 last week was that trust and psychological safety are the foundation of everything we do. Whether I was listening to a talk on improving team velocity, product-engineering alignment, measuring performance, leading through change, or collaboration — trust was at the core. Without trust, your team will struggle to work through conflict.  Without trust, your team will become disengaged and stop delivering to its highest potential. Without trust, interactions will feel adversarial rather than collaborative. Here are 3 ways to build trust in your team: 1. Communicate the “why” behind decisions, rather than focusing on the “what”. 2. Start collaborating early in the process, asking for input and ideas on how to approach a project. Don’t show up with the solution and throw it over the wall to your team. 3. Address tension and conflicts directly. Working through conflicts builds trust because it shows you care about the relationship. What are your favorite ways to build trust on your teams? Check out all of the great resources from ELC: https://lnkd.in/gdZRuz-a

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🚫 “𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗲” 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗠𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗲𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀, 𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗠𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 🚫 In today’s product development world, the “stay in your lane” mentality is holding teams back. When product, design, and engineering operate in silos, collaboration suffers, innovation stalls, and teams become disconnected from the mission. My latest article explores how the 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗼 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹—a unified approach where product managers, designers, and engineers work in continuous collaboration—creates “missionaries” who are deeply invested in the product’s success. 🔑 𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀: 1. Why the product trio approach fosters purpose-driven, cross-functional alignment. 2. The limitations of dual-track Agile and how it can lead to disengaged, task-focused “mercenaries.” 3. How real-time collaboration (supported by a Flex Engineer role) maintains focus while boosting agility. 4. The importance of shared goals, real-time feedback, and celebrating cross-functional wins. By replacing outdated handoffs with a collaborative “𝘀𝘆𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝗱𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲,” teams can build products that truly resonate with users. 🌟 👉 Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/eDjPaybt #ProductManagement #ProductLeadership #Innovation #Collaboration #ProductTrio #Engineering #Design #BusinessAgility #CEOs #CTOs #ProductDevelopment

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My favorite book of 2024? No Rules Rules from Reed Hastings A lot is right in the book: focusing on talent density, embracing radical candor and transparency. And beyond the description of Netflix culture, the book makes you reflect on your management and working style. https://lnkd.in/ebtziKMu

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There are two kinds of failure. 1. "We're failing now and need to change strategies to succeed" 2. "This is a failure; let's not do this again" If you talk about failure, make sure your listeners understand which kind you mean! And, recall how powerful that first kind of failure is! It has given us basically anything worth having or inventing. If your children haven't given you the gift of asking to watch this clip 235,826 times already, I invite you to take the lesson straight from the sages: https://lnkd.in/gAyN3E9b

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