Intentionally accepting a lower level than you qualify for reduces immediate pressure to deliver massive project impact. This creates the space and freedom to explore, learn the systems, and build innovative side projects that establish a strong reputation from the ground up.
To drive adoption for an internal tool, identify the teams most frustrated with the existing solution by scraping support channels. Then, schedule small, bespoke tech talks directly for those teams. This targeted approach generates highly engaged and grateful early adopters.
Gain influence by curating a backlog of valuable "side quest" projects that address team pain points. Proactively offering these well-defined opportunities to other engineers helps them meet their career goals and establishes you as a key network hub and leader.
A severe physical limitation can be an unexpected catalyst for growth. Boris Cherny, after breaking both arms, was forced to find languages with fewer keystrokes. This led him to discover the power and efficiency of functional programming, fundamentally improving his coding approach.
Adopt an "unshipping" culture. If a feature doesn't meet a predefined usage bar after launch, delete it. While a small subset of users may be upset, removing the feature reduces clutter and confusion for the majority, leading to a better overall user experience.
When a critical technical decision is stalled, force a resolution with a timed design competition. Split all relevant tech leads into two competing teams and give them a few hours to independently architect a solution. This quickly reveals areas of consensus and isolates points of disagreement.
To resolve a strong disagreement with a senior engineer, 'disagree and commit.' Execute their plan diligently. This either proves you wrong or makes the plan's flaws so apparent that reversing the decision becomes the logical next step, earning you trust and credibility in the process.
The creator of Claude Code prioritizes hiring generalists who possess skills beyond coding, such as product sense and a desire to talk to users. This 'full-stack' approach, where even PMs and data scientists code, fosters a more effective and versatile team.
Friction between teams often arises from deeply misaligned values, not just personality clashes. A "move fast" team measured by DAUs will inevitably conflict with a "reliability" team measured by uptime SLAs. True alignment requires shared goals, not just shared projects.
Treat code reviews like a system to be automated. Tally every piece of feedback you give in a spreadsheet. Once a specific comment appears a few times, write a custom lint rule to automate that check for everyone. This scales your impact and frees you up for higher-level feedback.
According to Claude Code creator Boris Cherny, the single most impactful technical book for an engineer is 'Functional Programming in Scala.' While the language itself isn't widely used, the book's principles teach a new way of thinking that fundamentally improves how you approach and write code.
When developing AI-powered tools, don't be constrained by current model limitations. Given the exponential improvement curve, design your product for the capabilities you anticipate models will have in six months. This ensures your product is perfectly timed to shine when the underlying tech catches up.
Identify how users are already "hacking" your product for unintended purposes (e.g., using Facebook Groups for commerce), then build dedicated features to serve that existing intent. You can't make people do new things, but you can help them do what they already want to do more easily.