Showing posts from leadership

The 9 Talents in Software Teams

The 9 Talents in Software Teams

Job titles like “Senior Engineer” or “Principal Engineer” don’t explain how someone actually contributes to a team. Counting a candidate’s years of experience doesn’t tell you whether they’ll bring stability in a crisis, explore new ideas, or quietly hold a group together when things get messy.

After leading different engineering teams and organizations, I’ve seen the same profiles appear again and again, regardless of title or tech stack. These profiles shape how teams perform, where they get stuck, and how they grow. Over time, I began to think of them as archetypes of engineering talent: Patterns of behavior and impact that show up in every healthy software team.

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28 Days Later: Surviving Your First Month as a CTO

28 Days Later: Surviving Your First Month as a CTO

There’s a tired old trope in leadership circles: “Your first 100 days define your legacy.”

Cute idea. Presidential even. But let’s be real: in a tech org, 100 days is a lifetime. By the time you’re on Day 101, you’re not building credibility – you’re shambling through the hallways, moaning about roadmaps, and scaring interns. In other words: You’re already a Zombie CTO.

You don’t get 100 days. You get 28. Roughly three sprints if you’re on a 10-day cycle, and that’s all the slack you’ll ever get. If you don’t establish trust, show judgment, and land a couple of quick hits by then, you’re at best irrelevant – at worst, undead.

So here’s your 28-day survival guide – not theory, not TED-talk fluff, but field-tested tactics for how to stay alive (and keep your org alive with you).

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Is SAFe Just Waterfall Wearing a Hoodie?

Is SAFe Just Waterfall Wearing a Hoodie?

SAFe gives leaders a comforting sense of order: roles, layers, roadmaps, and predictable increments. But too often, that “safety” hides something familiar – Waterfall dressed up with agile terminology.

On paper, SAFe promises agility at scale. In practice, it often turns into months-long planning cycles, extra layers of governance, and top-down control with new names. The labels change – “epics” instead of projects, “program increments” instead of deadlines – but the behaviors stay the same.

Which brings us to the real question: Is SAFe actually helping companies become agile, or is it just Waterfall in disguise?

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Stop Faking Agile: How to Actually Deliver Faster

Stop Faking Agile: How to Actually Deliver Faster

Almost every company today claims they’re “agile.” They run standups, hold retros, track velocity. The word shows up in job postings, investor decks, and board meetings.

But let’s be honest: In 99% of cases, “agile” is just a buzzword. It’s a label slapped on the same old waterfall process, dressed up with sticky notes and Jira boards.

I’ve stepped into SaaS companies where work still moved in quarterly chunks, QA was a final-phase bottleneck, and priorities were dictated top-down. Nothing about that was Scrum or Kanban — it was waterfall in an agile costume.

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