I’m Joe - a Product and Technology leader based in Exeter, UK. I’ve spent a large portion of my career in hands-on management roles, both working on code and leading teams of Developers and Engineers.
My interests include (but are not limited to) platform engineering, product strategy, scaling teams and companies, developer experience, music, sport.
On this site you’ll find posts (short, social media style writing/media or links) and articles (long form writing, less frequent). I add content about anything that interests me.
In my view, one of the best applications of GenAI is for organisational knowledge.
In theory, you should be able to speed up company onboarding massively by getting knowledge out of people’s heads and into an organised system of context for an LLM to consume.
The main drawback is this requires commitment, time and dedication to a task that not many people like doing: writing clear documentation.
That’s the trick. One of the keys to operational efficiency has always been access to good documentation.
In order to be productive, you need to be doing a lot of things.
I used to believe this was the case, but I was wrong. Slowing down and doing less actually makes you more productive.
Think of your mind like a web browser. The more tabs you have open, the more memory and energy is used up. If you open more tabs during your “rest” time (e.g looking at the news) you are just opening more tabs.
I’m not great at finishing stuff.
This is one of the reasons I’m a better leader/manager than I am an IC. My strength is in thinking, coming up with ideas and designing an approach to tackle a problem.
Being good at outlining an idea and enabling teams to execute around that idea is a positive leadership quality. So, being bad at finishing stuff is actually an asset.
Think about that for a minute.
Quick tip for speaking in front of people for overthinking introverts.
It’s often said that it’s helpful to do a lot of preparation and practice when writing a talk, presentation or speech. This can be helpful, but it can also be a hindrance.
Over-preparation (in my opinion) can lead to anxiety around the content of your talk. Having a strong grasp of the topic and some notes might serve you better.
What are golden paths?
Sometimes referred to as “paved roads”, they are the tried-and-tested routes to building and deploying reliable software. They are opinionated, well-documented and describe precisely how to carry out specific Engineering tasks within an organisation.
The term was coined at Spotify, an early pioneer in Platform Engineering. The name was taken from Frank Herbert’s “Children of Dune”, a sci-fi novel in which the “golden path” is the only future in which humanity survives.
Platform Engineering is a term I’ve only heard recently. It outlines the process of creating self-serve Developer tooling, aimed at reducing DevOps friction and enhancing existing workflows.
I’ve been digging into it heavily for the last year and it aligns really well with something I’ve been passionate about for a lot longer: making Developers working lives easier.
There are so many inefficiencies in the SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle). Whether its process, documentation or tooling, there’s a lot of improvements to be made.
There is a museum that started in Sweden called the “Museum of Failure”.
From their website:
“Museum of Failure is a collection of failed products and services from around the world.
Innovation needs failure. All progress is built on learning from past failures and mistakes. The museum provides unique insight into the tricky business of innovation.
Learning is the only way to turn failure into success.”
This is a quick reminder that failure means progress if you learn from it.