Forem: Jelle Smeets

A manager's perspective on getting that promotion

Jelle Smeets — Fri, 03 Feb 2023 20:13:43 +0000

In my career, I've been on both sides of the fence regarding promotions. I started as a part-time student developer, and after 4 promotions in 7 years, I ended up as an engineering manager. Along the way, I helped several other people. And as a manager, I am in a position to get people that promotion. But how do you get that promotion? In this post, I will share my perspective on how I got my promotions, and how I see them as a manager.

Expectation management

Even though there are no scientific studies done to prove it, managers cannot read minds. Over the years I have seen several colleagues get demotivated because they did not get their desired promotion. What surprised me in most cases was that they never mentioned to their managers they wanted a promotion. They expected to get a promotion based on years at the company, or because someone else got it.

The first step in getting that promotion is to say it out loud. In your next one-on-one meeting, bring up that you want to go for a promotion. Make it clear this is your goal for the short-mid term. You don't expect the promotion now, you are willing to do work to make sure you get there.

Important note: Don't make the mistake to demand a promotion. This is about signaling your goals and making clear to your manager that you want to work towards them.

Create your personal promotion document, and include all the steps in this blog post. This will be your report on your own promotion. I found it effective to do things written instead of verbally.

Requirements

But what does your promotion look like? A completely different role? Your role but just with added responsibilities? The second step in getting a promotion is getting the requirements clear. In general this can go two ways:

1) The role is well-defined with requirements and competencies.

2) The role is not defined and it is unclear what skills it requires.

Well-defined role

If your role is well-defined this is great! This will save you some work. Download the document, and list out every skill, behavior, competence, etc. you see. You will need this for the next step.

Unclear role

Don't worry if the role is unclear. This creates a great opportunity to do some proactive work. Look up roles online, and see if they have any requirements, skills, competencies, etc. listed. You can create your own requirement document for this role. What does the role look like in your eyes?

If you have gathered enough information, put everything in a document and show it to your manager. This is what role X looks like in my opinion. Do you agree? Do you have some remarks?

Try to not make the mistake to make this about yourself. Sure it's good to know if you have these skills. But the main goal of this step is to have a clear picture of what the role looks like. And your manager is on the same page.

Self-reflection is the most important skill you need

Self-reflection

This might be the most important step of the promotion process. With your requirement document, we are going to take a look at ourselves. Are there some skills/competencies/etc we already have, and some we need to learn?

Be brutally honest with yourself. If you lack a specific skill, this is the time to work on it. Don't see it as a form of weakness. See it as a way to improve yourself to become a better version.

This is the perfect moment to cooperate with your manager. For example, you want to be a senior engineer, which requires leading projects. You have almost no experience with leading projects. In your next one-on-one, you can ask your manager to help you find smaller projects where you can gain experience with leading.

For every requirement you have the skill level, add examples. In an ideal world, anyone should be able to take a look at your promotion document and judge it. Does the skill require leadership? Include examples of projects where you took the lead. Make it as watertight as you can.

While this step is the most important one. This step can also be the hardest. I've known some developers who were great technically but lacked serious soft skills. Every review cycle they grew angrier and angrier for not getting that promotion. But they did not see that in every project they lead, doing all the work yourself and ignoring other developers, is not the way a more senior engineer works. They had trouble self reflecting and realizing they where not the seniors they thought they were.

Final step

Life is not always fair. You can do everything right and still lose. You did your work, but you are still not being promoted. That sucks!

If we apply Hanlon's razor, it can have any good reason. There is no budget, there are no openings, or they have another valid reason to not promote you.

Or it can be that your manager thinks you are unqualified and did not communicate that with you. Which sucks and might be time to look for a new manager in a different company.

If you take the route shared in this blog post, you will at least have a clearer picture of your own skills, what you might need to improve, and what your preferred promotion looks like.

Before you go

My approach to getting a promotion can be defined in 4 steps:

Tell your manager you want to go for a promotion
Get clear what requirements your promotion has
Self-reflect and make a plan to improve your skills
Either get the promotion or develop some skills along the way.

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Tales of the helpdesk intern

Jelle Smeets — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 18:59:22 +0000

A long time ago, before I finished my degree in computer science. And even longer before I became an engineering manager. I studied to be a sysadmin/web developer at a vocational college (MBO for Dutch-speaking readers). How the vocational college was set up meant you spend about 75% of your time at internships. In this blog post, I'd like to share some of my favorite stories that happened during two of my internships at the helpdesk doing tech support.

The unidentified Beep

The phone rang during my internship at a big school with about 15.000 students spread over multiple locations. Someone was having issues with an unidentified beeping. The beep was loud and clear over the phone. It sounded like someone was pressing multiple keys at the same time, a classical motherboard beep. Together with another intern, we grabbed a spare keyboard and went to the location.

At the location, we confirmed our suspicions. It was indeed the keyboard sound. We replaced the keyboard since we assumed it must be faulty. But the beeps kept happening. What is going on here? We tried to rule out other cases, but even with the spare keyboard not plugged in, the beep was there.

To make the test case as small as possible, and rule out as many things as possible, we started removing all USB devices. It turns out there was one unidentified cable going below the desk. And that is where we found the root cause.

A few days earlier, the lady that called brought in her personal keyboard because she liked it more. After some time decided it was not better than the original one. But instead of removing it, she put the keyboard below her desk, still plugged in. And that morning she had placed her bag coming into the office on top of the second keyboard. Resulting in multiple keys being pressed at the same

Luckily she could laugh about the situation as well.

The mysterious DHCP server

Where could this mysterious DHCP server come from?

In a different internship at my local municipality, we were having issues with configuring new computers. Multiple devices were getting IP addresses in unexpected ranges. Giving all kinds of networking issues. The network admin looked at our DHCP server but could not find any misconfiguration, and for a few weeks, we had no idea what was going on.

We got a call that somebody needed some help getting set up in their room that their small local party could use.

One thing to note about the building was that it consisted of a large building with 95% of the employees and some older external buildings used by the local parties. The external buildings were usually not in use that much, so we did not frequently visit them when resolving tickets. One thing the old building was notorious for, was poor wifi reception. Due to the low usage, it did not make sense for us to spend a lot of time expanding the wifi reach.

While helping this new party get set up in their small room we noticed a device. The party heard some stories about the awful wifi, and decided to do something about it! They brought a consumer wifi router and plugged it into one of the LAN sockets in the wall. They had been running their own wifi (with DHCP enabled) for a few weeks now!

Turns out every time a device needed a new lease, it had a race condition which the DHCP server got there first. We removed the wifi router, and magically our issues disappeared!

The department's printer is stuck

A stubborn printer was giving us some issues for a while. It kept getting stuck. We fixed it a couple of times manually. But we had it on alert that if a new issue came in, we had to get the manufacturer involved.

And as you might have expected, we got a call that the printer was stuck again. We created a support ticket at the manufacturer and went to disable the printer so it would not get stuck again. None of us expected what we found when we went to disable the printer.

It looked like someone had put fireworks inside the printer. It looked completely messed up. stuff that should be closed was opened, there was toner everywhere, and it was very clear this printer was going nowhere. My innocent intern mind thought the printer must have gotten stuck, and somehow caused this big mess.

While we were putting up a paper that this printer was out of commission and directions to the nearest one. A teacher came by. We got a tsunami of verbal abuse. We were lazy IT guys that never intended to resolve the printer issues in the past so he took it into his own hands to fix this stuck printer. it turned out this teacher had caused the complete annihilation of the printer. With 0 technical experience, he assumed it would be easy. But as we all know assumptions are the mother of all screw-ups.

Leave broken printers to the IT guys

We informed our team leader what happened and I expected to get in trouble for not keeping this client happy. Instead of getting into trouble, the teacher got into major trouble. This guy already had a record of destroying property under the assumption he could fix it. And this case was apparently the proof they needed to get this teacher into serious trouble.

I never heard the official outcome. Whenever I spoke to interns that interned after me, they all spoke about an urban legend of a teacher that got fired over destroying printers.

The clever thief

In one internship I briefly worked at the repair center of the big school mentioned in the other stories. We spend our time replacing parts on broken pc's and making sure they could go back out again.

At one time a shipment of HP Pavilion laptops came in. We had about 10 of these high-end laptops, which needed to be prepared to give to teachers. We did not have time when they were delivered, so a row of neatly aligned laptop boxes sat next to the wall in the repair center.

A few weeks later we started to prepare the laptops. While opening the boxes we made a shocking discovery! One of the boxes was opened with great accuracy, to make it look like it was never opened. But the entire content was missing! Somewhere in those few weeks, a thief had sneakily stolen the content and made it look like the box was still sealed. Word spread quickly through the department, and the higher-ups got involved.

Every intern that worked at the repair center had to go to the manager's office one by one. Where an interrogation took place that could easily air an episode of CSI. At the age of 17, you have no idea about your rights, and that only the police could do an interrogation. They got no usable information from the 10 interns and over the course of a few days, the incident got replaced by other things.

In the end, I never heard if they caught the thief, but the whole ordeal made quite an impression on my 17-year-old self!

Before you leave

Thank you for reading some of my personal favorite stories of my it support internships. What was your favorite one?

If you liked these personal stories, you might like some of my other personal stories:

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Reflecting on 2022: A Review of the Blog's Statistics

Jelle Smeets — Tue, 03 Jan 2023 18:53:26 +0000

2022 has come to an end. This is the perfect time to reflect on 2022 for the blog. In this blog post, I will share the numbers. What pages were the most popular? What drove the most traffic, and some unexpected learnings along the way.

Pageviews

The most exciting metric for me is page views. What content did my readers like? In 2022 the blog managed to get a whopping 3470 pageviews. A 118.51% increase over last year's 1588 views.

The top 5 pages of 2022 where:

Page	2021	2022	Difference
Movie Retrospective	253	649	+156.52%
/	362	532	+46.96%
Do engineering managers make more than engineers?	-	282	+100%
4 Lessons I learned as a starting Scrum Master	221	139	-37.0%
Why I stepped out of my first startup	-	115	+100%

The top 5 pages of 2022

The movie retrospective is still going strong as number 1. But I suspect the page about engineering managers' salaries will surpass it soon. Two posts in the top 5 are posts that were written in 2022! That makes me hopeful for the future.

The absolute worst page? The monthly digest of April 2021 got 0 views. I still feel the monthly digest was a good idea. But I think the execution would be more beneficial as a newsletter. Something to think about.

Traffic sources

What drove the most traffic to the blog?

Top Traffic sources

My efforts in learning SEO-related skills are starting to pay off. Organic traffic grew from 35.5% to 50.9%! A special thanks to Maddy from Tech with Maddy. Who gave me some great tips on how to do SEO research without breaking the bank on expensive tools. Thanks, Maddy!

Breaking down the traffic from Socials tells me that Twitter & Linkedin are the main drivers. This is where I usually share my blog posts in relevant niches/groups.

The traffic on referrals is primarily from dev.to where I share my blogs. And when people click on links to my blog there. A nice 163 visitors came through there.

Learnings

While traffic grew, I also got traffic from unexpected sources. I learned that Google Lens is a thing, and I apparently get a small amount of traffic from it. Some competitors (I assume), visit the blog through Ahrefs, Engagementbuilder, or other Seo tools.

I tried different approaches to SEO. And found one that works for me. I don't see any of the mega returns niche sites or SEO guru's promise. But it is all about tiny gains for me.

The number of pages visited per user is currently 1.3. During the year several things were added to make it easier for users to read more. The sidebar now has 2 blocks of posts, and each post has a slider of posts from the same category. I'm curious to see if that metric will improve in the next year.

2023

I don't like new years resolutions. You can start to change any day. You don't have to wait for the new year (or a Monday). So I'm not going to make any resolutions here. But what I do like to improve is my writing habit. I'd like to create a real habit. I currently write in bursts of writing 3 blog posts in a week, and then nothing for a month. I'd like that to change to a more steady pace.

On the topic of writing. I would like to experiment more with the form of my writing. My blog posts are most often essay styled. While I would like to share spontaneous ideas, or things that I notice. Which might be less informative, and more thought-provoking.

I also would like to share more content on Linkedin. I notice I do not nearly share all my posts there, and only the ones I think will do well. And when I share on Linkedin this usually brings a spike in traffic. I feel the contrast with sharing on Twitter is the anonymity. And to be honest I'm sometimes a bit scared of negative comments.

Before you go

First of all, thank you for reading my review of the blogs 2022. As always it has been a pleasure to write, and it warms my heart to see the blog grow and people like the content I create. I hope that 2023 will be as successful as 2022, and I will aim for 10.000 page views in the next review.

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The assembly line of the idea factory

Jelle Smeets — Mon, 02 Jan 2023 19:34:48 +0000

People sometimes ask me, how can it be that you always have a relevant article to share? I might read more than the average engineer, but I don't feel like I spend an extreme amount of time reading. I try to make smart use of my time. And to do that I have a system. It may not be the best, and there is plenty of room for improvement. But it works for me.

In this blog post, we will explore the assembly line of my idea factory, and how I go from reading to remembering, and in some cases writing about it.

Gathering Ideas

The first step of the assembly line is input. My favorite way to gather asynchronous information is to subscribe to newsletters. Not those spammy newsletters of webshops you once bought something. But newsletters by creators whose content I love.

Some of my favorite newsletters are:

I never read newsletters when they come in. I usually scan the topics and add the linked articles in Pocket. Bonus points for the Software Lead weekly, it has timesaving links to save articles directly from my mail client to Pocket!

My second favorite way to gather ideas is to follow inspiring people on social media. My primary source is Twitter and Linkedin. But I do feel fewer tech folks are on Twitter now Elon Musk has taken over.

Do you have any newsletters I missed? Let me know in the comments below. I'm always interested in new insightful newsletters.

Keeping ideas

My idea-keeping system is inspired by building a second brain. I can wholeheartedly recommend everyone to read the ebook (before you go on the expensive course) if note-taking systems and having easy access to information is your jam.

To keep my assembly line asynchronous, I save all interesting articles, tweets, and videos to Pocket. When I have spare 5 to 10 minutes (you have more than you think). I try to read one or two articles when I can.

I have a Zapier flow configured so that whenever I favorite an article, it gets sent to a folder in Notion called "The waiting room". Waiting for me to process it further. This is where a part of building your second brain called "think like a curator" comes into play. If I find something interesting enough to save in Notion, I will write a short summary of the article. And add some notes of my own. Why is this specific article interesting? Where can I already apply some of the learnings? etc.

I use the PARA method for organizing the notes. It stands for Projects, Areas, Resources, and Archive.

Idea to blogpost

The place where the magic happens as a writer is when I combine existing ideas. There is no need to have every single thought from scratch. Steal like an artist by Austin Kleon is one of my favorite books for new content creators that explains that all creative work is iterative, and creators are a sum of all their heroes and inspirations.

Steal like an artist, a must-read for any beginning creative

Some examples of combining ideas in my own writing are:

I don't have a silver bullet for combining ideas. Whenever I write a quick summary of an interesting post, in some cases I get a hunch. "This would go well with X or Y". And in many cases, I don't. But that is the beauty of having a system. If in the future another idea pops up that combines with this one, I know I have it.

List of tools

In this blog post, I shared all the tools I use. To have them all in one handy place:

Pocket (Read later app)
Notion (Where my notes live)
Zapier (Connecting Pocket and Notion)
Building a second brain (Great ebook/course by Thiago Forte)
The PARA Method (A system for organizing digital information)

Before you go

I hope this blog post has inspired you to start your own system of reading and remembering ideas. And it would be even more amazing if some of you who read this start creating content of your own. If you did any of these two points let me know, and I'm more than happy to read/watch your content and provide feedback.

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How to remove your phone as a distraction

Jelle Smeets — Wed, 28 Dec 2022 19:11:03 +0000

Do you sit down to do some deep work, only to be distracted by your phone? I used to be the same way, getting more frustrated by not getting things done. In this blog post, I will share the lessons I had to learn to be able to answer the question: How to remove your phone as a distraction.

This is the 3rd post in a curiosity chase on my attention. In fixing my attention deficit and the 30-day update I explore ways to spend my time more intentionally. By removing several available time sinks, I could spend more time doing the things I love. And now I'm ready to take it one step further. The next step in my attention: How to remove your phone as a distraction? Let's see how deep this rabbit hole goes.

How to remove your phone as a distraction

I was inspired by a post that was recommended by Tim Ferris. He is a big fan of disabling notifications and checking your email only at a specific time of day. The recommended post is on optimizing your iPhone for productivity. It is an in-depth and extensive list of how to make your iPhone work for you, instead of against you.

There are several things I incorporated into my iPhone setup. Some of the points changed how I look at certain things.

Notifications are evil!

What is a notification? A way to get your attention. Usually a random uncontrolled interruption from what you are actually doing.

An example of my notification habit lies in my geography. I'm Dutch. It rains all the time. And as a typical Dutchman, I have several apps to help me go outside without getting wet. I've had apps configured to notify me if it was going to rain. But whenever I went outside, I always checked the apps manually.

Disable most notifications

When did I get the most notifications on rain? When I have no intention of going outside and get interrupted from work, blogging, reading, relaxing, etc.

For every notification that you get, ask yourself: "Is this notification worth getting my focus stolen?".

My advice to you

In the process, I disabled notifications of:

All social media
Streaming apps like Netflix, Prime, Disney+
Food delivery apps, and other Grocery related apps
Apps like Strava, Untappd,
Utilities like google maps & photos

After I carefully examined which notifications I found worthy of interrupting, I found that they were almost zero. my messaging apps and email are the only ones I allow. Whenever I want to get some work done, I combine it with the part on Focus / Do not disturb mode. Disabling notifications is key in how to remove your phone as a distraction.

The next step for me would be to disable these notifications as well.

Make it easy to do the right thing

In Atomic Habits, James Clear has a principle of friction related to habits. Make it easy to do the right thing, and difficult to do the wrong thing.

Create an environment where doing the right thing is easiest. Reduce the friction associated with good behaviors. When friction is low habit is easy. Increase the friction associated with bad behaviors. When the friction is high habits are difficult. Prime your environment to make future actions easier"

James Clear in Atomic Habits

You can apply this principle to your phone. Make it easy to do the right thing, and make it take some steps if you do want to go on a social media binge. Personally, this resulted in making it harder to open certain apps without thinking about it. I noticed in the past I would randomly open Instagram whenever my phone lit up.

How can you remove your phone as a distraction? I applied the following to my phone:

The screen does not turn on automatically.
My non-locked background is black.
Time sinks are hidden and have screentime of max 5 minutes per day enabled.
Apps that have an equal working website are removed.

Use focus / Do not disturb mode

I noticed that I can get the most amount of work done if I get into a "deep work" mode. Having 2 hours to focus on a subject without getting distracted does wonder for me.

Disabling notifications and making my phone less attractive is a good start to helping me get to deep work. There is one additional step I take whenever I want to go into deep work mode.

I use focus / do not disturb mode on my iPhone and Macbook to make sure I don't get distracted. This blocked all notifications and delivered them when I stop my deep work. This also includes email and Slack. Disabling slack notifications and going offline spiked a massive fear of FOMO. But after giving it a few small experiments I found out that when I got over that hurdle it worked really well for me.

Use focus mode to enable deep work

To make sure I don't miss anything that is actually important I set up the following rules:

Everyone close to me knows how to reach me by calling me in case of emergency
If someone calls twice in <5 minutes the call goes through.
I make sure my Slack status is set, so everyone knows I will be in deep work mode

But what if my coworkers don't stop calling me about little stuff? In the 4-hour workweek, Tim Ferris has a chapter dedicated to how you can handle these deep work slots, and how to handle it when your co-workers keep calling you.

How to remove your phone as a distraction? Using focus mode to delay notifications will help you be less distracted.

Conclusion

How to remove your phone as a distraction? In my personal experience, it helps to make it less fun. I have poor self-control and need some guide rails to help me stay focussed.

The things that worked for me are:

Disable as many notifications as you can
Make it easy to do the right thing (Or hard to do the wrong thing)
Use focus or do not disturb mode when you go into deep work mode.

In this blog post, I answered the question that plagued me for a while. How to remove your phone as a distraction? I hope this blog post has helped you in the same way as it helped me.

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Overcoming not invented here syndrome

Jelle Smeets — Sat, 24 Dec 2022 12:22:52 +0000

Not invented here syndrome is a phenomenon where people prefer to develop a solution internally, instead of adapting an existing external product. It is often motivated by a desire to maintain control, fears the unknown, and reduce expenses. In my career as a developer, scrum master, and now engineering manager I have had my fair share of not invented here syndrome. In this blog post, I will take you along in how I overcome the not invented here syndrome in my teams. By using a real story I experienced in the past.

The story

A few years ago we had a team that had to build a feature for our marketing department. A part of the feature was the ability for our marketing department to fill in content related to it. What we always did in the past was to build a microservice for this feature, add an interface to the backend, and create a small CMS there. It would take a couple of sprints in total. Building a WYSIWYG editor is always one of those things that is way more complex than it seems at first.

While this feature was being developed, one of our engineers went on a trip to another company. Get a look and feel how they tackle problems, how they organize, and any other learnings we can take away. The next day the engineer came back with his mind blown. Have you folks ever heard about Contentful? It is a headless CMS. Using it would make most of our content-related features a lot faster to build!

The team building the feature went back to the drawing board. Using the headless CMS instead of building one on our own made the feature much smaller. We removed several layers of complexity, and were able to deliver it faster!

But wait! Doesn't an external tool cost money? Don't you introduce a new dependency? Is this a new tool we need to learn? Let's take a look at those concerns below.

Mindset changes

The story might be a perfect example of Hanlon's razor, it was not that the team was unwilling to use a headless CMS, they did not know the thing existed!

If your team starts a new feature or big project, I've found that it helps to do timeboxed research in the orientation phase. Can we find any services that roughly do what we want in 30 minutes? If that is the case it requires a proper investigation.

Overcoming not invented here syndrome requires your engineering teams to change their mindset. Ours used to be to build everything ourselves. But in my years at an eCommerce company, I learned a surprising thing. In essence, most of you and your competitors share 80% of the features. Every webshop needs a place to write content or a contact form. Why should your engineering team spend their time and focus on creating/maintaining that 80%? While it will be much more interesting to focus on the 20% of the features that make you unique and drive the real value.

Focus on the peaks of your business (The 20%)

Some reason people use to justify not invented here syndrome is the costs. The development teams are there, and it does not cost me additional money. But an external service does cost me money. The solution to this problem is in the 80/20 rule. Sure the development team may not cost you any extra money. But the way I see it if the team can focus on that 20% unicorn magic that makes you special. It will earn you extra money in the long run. And then I'm not even taking into account that the features will be delivered sooner, and bring in value sooner!

Limiting dependency impact

A potential downside to overcoming not invented here syndrome is dependencies. Introducing an extra dependency can be tricky. What if we host all our content in one place, but that place has an outage?

The key to limiting the dependency impact is to think defensively. I'm a big fan of the term "defensive programming". Assume that everything can go wrong and act accordingly. In this example, it might be wise to add a layer of caching. If an endpoint returns something unexpected, try to make it a soft fail.

Nothing is worse than customers not being able to process a payment because the translation API on the thank you page is giving an unexpected response. Sure it might not look pretty to have untranslated words, but customers can still pay!

Acting defensively will help you in managing incidents. Instead of the entire site or page breaking, you might have some smaller features that do not work, but your core flow will be able to go through.

Before you leave

In this blog post, you learned about overcoming not invented here syndrome. Focus your time and attention on the 20% of your business that matters, and perhaps you can use some already existing tools to take care of the other 80% of your business.

To summarize not invented here syndrome for development teams:

When implementing a new feature, check if there is a tool that already does what you want
External tools might cost money, but that will free up your teams to work on the parts that bring the most value
You need to be aware of the impact dependencies can have, program defensively, and limit the impact of external outages on your business.

If you liked this post, I think you might like these posts as well:

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2022 Book Recap: The Best Books I Read this Year

Jelle Smeets — Mon, 19 Dec 2022 19:47:05 +0000

It is time for the 2022 book recap! 2022 was a year with a lot of changes for me. The most important thing was that I became a twin dad in May! With limited time and energy, some of my hobbies were abandoned. But one thing that I kept coming back to was reading. I read a total of 19 books in 2022.

Engineering management books

On March 1st, 2022 I started as an Engineering manager. I quickly found out that it can be scary to do things you have not done before. That is why I read a bunch of engineering management books.

The making of a manager by Julie Zho
Engineering management for the rest of us by Sarah Drasner
Remote engineering management by Alexandra Sunderland
The manager's path by Camille Fournier
An Elegant Puzzle by Will Larson

A common thread among the engineering management books above was that (great) managers are made and not born. It takes hard work and experience to become a good manager. A lesson that hit me in the face in the first few months!

Do you have any recommendations you missed in the 2022 book recap? Let me know!

Tim Ferriss

This year I rediscovered my love for Tim Ferriss, or his books at least. I read the 4-hour workweek in the past and loved it. This year I (re-)enjoyed the following Tim Ferriss's books:

The 4-hour Workweek
Tools of Titans
Tribe of Mentors

I enjoyed reading Tim Ferriss his books and blog

I liked the last two books specifically, where I got a lot of tips, advice, and great books from other interesting people I would otherwise not have known. Tim provides valuable links to all the recommended books mentioned in the books. Check the recommended books from his books. If you (just like me) can't get enough, some older blog posts on tim.blog are goldmines as well.

Personal development books

I'm a sucker for personal development books. I'd love to learn a thing or two and add it to my collection of knowledge and lifehacks. That is why a big part of the 2022 book recap consists of books that teach me something.

The things you can only see when you slow down by Haemin Sunim
Ikigai by Yukari Mitshuhashi(Thanks for the recommendation Dennis!)
The motivation myth by Jeff Haden
Find joy in chaos by Kevon Cheong
Building a second brain by Thiago Forte
The third door by Alex Banayan (but this could be a pleasure read as well)

My absolute favorite was building a second brain. It helps me to gather ideas and interests for my blog and my career as an engineering manager.

Kevon Cheong's Find joy in chaos was a refreshing book on how to grow your Twitter. It is not a book about shady tactics. But rather focuses on building meaningful relationships, and did remind me a bit of finding your 1000 true fans.

Fiction books

One of my favorite creators Ali Abdaal recommended in one of his videos to only read fiction in bed. If you read non-fiction you get excited about all the things you can apply in real life, which is the opposite of getting ready for sleep. This is something I found as well. And that is why I picked up several fiction books to read in bed.

I enjoyed:

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Dune by Frank Herbert
The midnight library by Matt Haig
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

It was fun to read the classic Count of Monte Cristo. With a whopping 1500 pages, it was quite a challenge to finish it. But I enjoyed the many plot twists along the way. Another classic I enjoyed reading was Dune. After I visited the Dune movie at the cinema, I wanted to read the books. I experienced what many believe to be the best/first science fiction book.

The alchemist was hyped to me for many years before I dared to touch it. It was a decent book. But not worth the hype it had built up in my mind. I enjoyed it, but it was not as life-changing as I expected it to be. It felt like the writer took some shortcuts, and some parts of the story could be more fleshed out.

Did you miss a literature or fiction book in the 2022 book recap? Let me know!

Before you go

If you liked the books in my 2022 book recap. You can go one step further and check my 2020 reading list. If you enjoyed this list you can follow me on Goodreads, where you can follow my reading journey in real-time, so you won't have to wait for my yearly report. The goal is to read 24 books next year. A grand total of 2 per month. Let's go!

How the 2-minute rule improved my life

Jelle Smeets — Sat, 24 Sep 2022 06:30:23 +0000

I am a master procrastinator. I have tried several productivity methods to get me to stop procrastinating. Most of these tools did not work for me. The 2-minute rule however is one of the few that does.

The 2-minute rule is crazy simple, and that is why it works. Here is what you need to know.

2-minute rule explained

How do you beat procrastination? By taking action. The biggest hurdle is getting started. And once I am started I usually will stick around for a while. This is the power of the 2-minute rule. Created by David Allen in his book Getting things done.

If an action will take less than two minutes, it should be done at the moment it’s defined.

David Allen

Why does it work? Often the biggest hurdle is to get started. Once you are already active, it's easier to keep going. Like Isaac Newton said: "An object in motion tends to remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.".

How it improved my life

I use to have dishes piling up, a big pile of laundry, and other small things around the house. A big mess does not start at once. It consists of many small moments of not taking action. If you have eaten dinner, how long does it take you to put your plates in the dishwasher instead of on the counter?

How long does it take if you put your plates in the dishwasher right away?

The 2-minute rule helped me to prevent my tasks from getting too big. Spending a few minutes to clean up after cooking, and putting the plates in the dishwasher seems like nothing. But all these small actions add up quickly. They prevent a pile-up and the need for a "big cleaning day" every few weeks.

Applying the 2-minute rule to your day-to-day life takes some getting used to. The format that worked for me, was asking myself "can I fix this in 2 minutes?" whenever I put something off. It helps if you have an accountability buddy to remind you every once in a while.

How to apply it in your career

The examples I shared above are all related to personal things. But how to apply it to make your work more productive? The 2-minute rule helps you start. In my work as an Engineering Manager I apply the 2-minute rule as follows:

Find a part of a big task that takes <2 minutes to complete.
Complete the task right there and then.
Usually, that momentum will keep me going on the big task.
(Bonus points) if you combine it with Eating a frog, tackle your biggest issue of the day first.

The tasks I am usually struggling with to get started are those big nasty tasks that feel impossible to work with. Using this rule helps me to find an angle I can start with (that does not have to be the natural beginning). I noticed that whenever I am in the flow, it is much easier to find another point to continue working on.

On several occasions, the 2-minute rule has helped me tackle big obstacles. Obstacles I had no idea if or how to climb. By just taking action and using that momentum.

Conclusion

The 2-minute rule is a great productivity tool to get you to take action. It is an easy system that lets you take the first step. And the momentum of taking action will in most cases help you on finishing your big task.

It changed my life by making me take small steps that take minimal effort to keep my life in order. And prevent me the frustration of having a "big cleaning day" every few weeks. This is one of the few productivity tools that work and stuck around.

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Engineering manager vs Tech lead, 2 key differences

Jelle Smeets — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 12:53:12 +0000

What are the differences between Engineering manager vs Tech lead? Not all companies use the same definition, and it can be quite confusing what is what. Discover the key 2 differences between the roles that help you keep them apart.

Are you looking for your next professional role? Discover if being an Engineering manager or Tech lead is your next dream role!

Engineering manager vs tech lead

In several companies, the roles of engineering manager and tech lead overlap. They are both leadership positions close to the development teams. And are expected to navigate complex problems. People or technology. But what are the key differences on Engineering manager vs tech lead?

The engineering manager has their main focus on people, and the tech lead on technology.
Tech lead is usually a role people have besides their engineering title. The engineering manager job is not something you do on the side.

If you are interested in a more in-depth explanation of the differences between engineering manager vs tech lead, continue reading below.

#1 People vs technology

The engineering manager has their main focus on people. The Tech lead on technology. You can expect an Engineering manager to work with people on their goals, and personal development plans, and do their performance reviews. This is not something a Tech lead would typically do. But the engineering manager can still be expected to run a project on technology if the need arises.

The Tech lead however is often in charge of leading specific areas of technology. You can have a tech lead on platform, security, specific parts of your product, etc. It is not the tech lead's goal to work on the personal development of people. But it can be a side effect of trying to achieve technical excellence in their projects.

Interested in learning more about being an engineering manager? I have a brand new series on Engineering leadership.

Will your focus be on People or Technology?

#2 Role vs title

The second big difference is the role vs title. The engineering manager is in most cases a job title. It is not something you do on the side of a different role. And that brings me to Tech lead. Usually tech lead is a role a (senior) developer will have besides their role. They can be a developer in a team. And be expected to be the tech lead on several projects.

A quote from The manager's path that nails the definition of a tech lead:

The tech lead role is not a point on the ladder, but a set of responsibilities that any engineer may take on once they reach the senior level.

Camille Fournier in the Managers Path

The difference between role and title also explains the authority you have in these positions. In both cases you will be a leader. And people will count on you to lead. But only the engineering manager will be in a management position. This means that as a tech lead you will not be responsible for salaries, performance ratings, etc. But it is possible that an Engineering manager will ask you for your advice on the performance of any developer in your projects. And last but not least, as a tech lead you will still probably report to an Engineering manager.

Final thoughts

In this blog post, you discovered the 2 key differences on engineering manager vs tech lead. The engineering manager focuses on people, and the tech lead on technology. The engineering manager is a full-time job, while the tech lead is usually a role people do on the side.

If Engineering manager vs Tech lead has been helpful to you. Consider forwarding it to a friend or colleague.

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30-day update on fixing my attention deficit

Jelle Smeets — Sat, 10 Sep 2022 09:08:36 +0000

It has been 30 days since I started to fix my attention deficit. In this post, I will take you along in the good, the bad, and the ugly of trying to improve my attention deficit.

The Good

Most of the time that I spent on social media was now blocked. Just 15 minutes per day. Seeing my apps being blocked made me realize how much of my time I have been spending on autopilot. Feeling bored? Open an app.

I evaluated which social media actually brought value to my life. And I considered Instagram to not be one of them. And I decided to remove it from my phone. I almost never used it to see content from my friends and family. As the algorithm was pushing me creators I don't follow. Why spend time on it?

I discovered a plugin for Youtube called Unhook. It removes all recommendations, autoplay, homepage, etc. You can only search for a video and watch it or go to your subscriptions! A great addition to make sure I actually stop watching after my intended video.

Having my social media access shut off after 15 minutes per day made me realize I have a lot of those spare 15/30 minutes. I normally would watch a Youtube video or scroll through social media. But now it opened up an unknown slot of free time!

In my spare moments over the last 30 days, I was able to achieve more than I thought. Here's a summary.

I was able to finally start using some of the Udemy Business courses I wanted to follow. I was able to dive into my interest in personal finance :

Follow a course on technical analysis of stocks
Read a lot on the concept of Fire.

I tried to make it a habit to not spend time on my phone in bed anymore. I loaded some books on my reader and started reading. I was able to read additional 30-ish minutes per day. If you want to see my read books in real-time, add me on Goodreads. I read:

Dune
The making of a manager
Ikigai (thanks for the recommendation Dennis)
Started a re-read of On Writing Well

Blocking social media has opened more time for reading books!

As some of you might have noticed, I was able to write more blogs. I tried to improve my knowledge about keyword research. A high of 5 posts in the month of August. High score! Besides fixing my attention deficit post I wrote:

Learn and document: A beginners guide to developer stock options.
Combined a philosophy I used as a football coach years ago with being a manager. Leveling engineers with Wiel Coerver's football ideas.
Wrote a blog on one of my favorite topics, metrics! What has blogging brought me so far?
A fun little research on comparing salaries. Do engineering managers make more than engineers?

The Bad

My close relatives primarily use Facebook Messenger as the primary means of communication. It took a while before I discovered that if you use ios screentime to limit Facebook, that includes Messenger. After discovering I let them know if it was something urgent, use WhatsApp or call me.

Another thing I experienced is what I like to call the boredom muscle. At the start of blocking all social media, I became aware of how often I was bored or uncomfortable. Previously, I would open social media and scroll. Now that I face a blocked page, this requires me to confront my boredom.

I can be better at confronting my boredom. A big step forward in living more intentionally is to ask me the question: "Okay I'm bored right now, what is something that I want to do?". At this point, I'm made aware of my bad habits, but I find it challenging to take the step forward.

At what point do Social media become an addiction?

The Ugly

At the highlight of my confrontation with my attention deficit, I started to find other ways to get my social media fix. I found myself mindlessly refreshing random apps like Strava. If I got a blocked social media app, I would try to open another one.

This experiment has really made me realize how much of a social media addict I was.

From now on

Fixing my attention deficit was in my eyes a big success. I feel more intentional with my time and have found the time to do several things I lacked the time for. And the best thing? I'm not even missing social media.

I do have a somewhat hate/love relationship with Twitter. I feel I sort of need it for promoting this blog and connecting with like-minded individuals. And honestly is a big part of my idea generation machine. I like Kevon Cheong's approach to making Twitter more intentional. Read about it in his book finding joy in chaos.

I am going to split up social media into two groups. I want to keep using Twitter for a 15-minute max. But the other social media forms can be reduced to <5 minutes.

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The making of a manager review

Jelle Smeets — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 13:40:10 +0000

In this blog post, we will make a The making of a manager review. Is this book written by Julie Zhuo any good for (new) managers? and what are the main takeaways/tips?

In The making of a manager, Julie shares her transition from a designer at Facebook, to being a manager. She starts from a point where she was promoted with no management experience, to gain all that experience. And takes you along on that journey.

I saw this book get recommended by several engineering managers on social media, and I had to read it. I finished in just two days. And honestly couldn't wait to start this The making of a manager review. Let's dive right in!

The making of a manager review

The first chapter of The making of a manager is called "Great managers are made, not born". And that is a great introduction that grabs the essence. Every time someone becomes a manager for the first time, you have a million things you need to learn, do, and master.

In this book, you have a great starting point on all topics related to being a manager. Julie shares her personal experiences, best practices, and how some decisions have not played out well. (and how you can prevent them of course).

Learn from Julie's personal experience as a new manager

The thing I like the most about the making of a manager is the fact that Julie writes from her point of view as a freshly promoted manager. In most management books, you read from the perspective of a big CEO which I cannot relate to. But Julie writes about the struggles I'm currently having, making this relevant for new managers.

There are several high-quality gems spread in the chapters on the following topics:

What is management
Your first three months
Leading a small team
The art of feedback
Managing yourself
Amazing meetings
Hiring well
Making things happen
Leading a growing team
Nurturing culture
The journey is 1% finished.

As you can imagine it is almost impossible to get one main takeaway from all these chapters. Instead, I focussed on the top 5 tips in the book.

Top 5 tips from The making of a manager

To be honest it was pretty hard to pick "just" 5 tips from this book. In each chapter, there are several great takeaways. To tone it down, I picked the 5 that resonated the most:

It was hard to pick "just" 5 tips, as you can see by my tags

The top 5 tips:

Being a good manager is challenging, and frightening but a skill you can learn!
Managers get hit with imposter syndrome harder!
- The reason is that you are usually looked to for answers, and are constantly put in situations where you are doing things you did not do before.
Every major disappointment for your direct reports is a failure from you to set expectations
Get honest with yourself
- Spend time to know your strengths and weaknesses. Understand yourself at your best & worst.
Never stop talking about what is important

There are several other great tips that did not make the top 5. If you have read the book, what are some of your top tips from Julie?

Rating

In this The making of a manager review I am excited! I have the feeling this is one of those books that will stay on my desk for a long while and read a specific chapter when I am in that situation. The book lived up to the high expectations I had at the start (by the recommendation of several well-respected managers).

If you are a starting manager this is a must-read in my opinion. The only negative thing that I can think of, is that I wish I read it before I started, not 6 months in.

In this The making of a manager review I give the Making of a Manager 5/5 stars!

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Do engineering managers make more than engineers?

Jelle Smeets — Wed, 24 Aug 2022 12:35:02 +0000

Do engineering managers make more than engineers? Most of us have a picture in our minds of managers making tons of money, while the engineers do the "hard work". But is that really the case?

In this post, I will answer that question. I will compare the salaries of several companies in The Netherlands. And answer the important question! Do engineering managers make more than engineers? Let's find out!

Do engineering managers make more than engineers?

As always with a good question, the answer is: "it depends". By comparing salaries I have found that in most companies managers at the top of their range usually earn a bit more than engineers at the top of their range.

However, there are several companies that don't. Uber and Booking are two examples that give a much higher compensation package to engineers who are at the top of their range.

Good things to keep in mind are that these are two separate career paths, and in most companies being a manager is not considered a promotion as an engineer.

If you want to see the full breakdown of salaries of engineering managers and engineers continue reading.

Comparing salaries

With the help of TechPays, I am able to compare salaries. Techpays is an Initiative by Gergely Orosz. They aim to make compensation in Europe more transparent and give everyone a fair chance to negotiate higher total compensation. Cool! People can (anonymously) add their own salary. And your company will only be shown if more several people have filled in their salary, to guarantee anonymity.

You can use tech pays information in your next salary negotiation. By Techpays

To make a fair comparison we need companies that have listed both Engineering manager and software engineering compensation packages. I compared the "engineering manager" title with all software engineer titles. As most companies usually specifically hire a backend/frontend/full-stack/etc engineer. And we want to have a clear picture across all disciplines. I took the highest compensation that was listed.

I looked up five big companies that score high on the wishlist of people to work at. Uber, Ikea, Spotify, Booking, and eBay. They are either located in Amsterdam or hire remotely. Let's take a look at how the salary compares:

Company	Manager Total Comp	Engineer Total Comp
Uber	€196.000	€374.000
IKEA	€193.000	€105.000
Spotify	€180.000	€163.000
Booking	€167.000	€276.000
eBay	€166.000	€123.000

Comparing Manager and Engineer Total Compensation

The majority gives a higher compensation package to managers. But the companies that give a higher package to engineers are much higher! An engineer at Uber can theoretically make almost double the salary of an engineering manager! At Booking, you don't make double the amount, but the difference is still substantial. With several data points, with these 5 as the big ones. I am able to answer the question: "Do engineering managers make more than engineers".

In the table above I have used total compensation instead of salary. In most of these positions, your total compensation consists of your salary, potential stocks, bonuses, etc. If you want to know more, you can check the beginner's guide on developer stock options I wrote.

Conclusion

By comparing salaries in The Netherlands of Engineering managers and engineers, we can answer the question. Do engineering managers make more than engineers? In most cases they do, but there are several companies who give much higher compensation packages to engineers!

I hope this blog post has helped you on your path to deciding on a career. Keep in mind that in most companies being an engineering manager is not considered a promotion from an engineer. But a completely separate career path, with different goals and rewards.

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