Brad Werth

My quick tip if you're interviewing for a CTO role: If you'll be the ONLY engineer on the team... It's not a CTO position. 😜

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I've seen a lot of bugs. (No, not another cicada post). Software here. Egregious, immediately noticeable bugs. The opposite - those that require 6 concurrent conditions and 6 hairs from your nextdoor neighbor and it still only triggers once a month. (Okay, 7 conditions, 6 hairs...don't split those hairs). A continuum of buggage. Those complicated ones, sans the hyperbole - those are your Zero day issues. Regression testing doesn't find them. A super wily code-reviewing look-at-it-all software QA professional (I know the best one)...might...but probably not. How do we even engineer testing all of the complicated conditions? The interrelationships at runtime? I don't see a lot of talk about "how could we have caught this?" in public for disclosed issues. Most of the fixes for Zero days (those security holes best known because they're patched with updates to software like Google Chrome browser, Apple's ioS, Microsoft Windows) are downplayed. You get "Hey, user, look at these new features you're getting, and in whispered voice, "and security updates." Not familiar with the term? Zero day means a security issue without a patch. When the patch arrives, there's a remedy for the problem. Users often don't APPLY the remedy until much later...its own problem...prolonging the risk of the Zero day issue. Back to my kinda silly example. That's a wicked hard problem to test for. A bunch of concurrent situations that then trigger the problem. But, when the problem's a known issue, it's not hard to re-trigger. And therefore exploit. So what do we do? Other than fixing/patching, and communicating? What else is there to add to this conversation? Sunday thoughts. Sunday thoughts.

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Is Your Ship and Debit Program Leaving You Dead in the Water? Without the automation of your rebate programs, your margins may run aground. #HighTech #RevenueOptimization #RevenueManagement

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What's the real cost of not involving developers early? ...Yes, involving developers early means more meeting hours. But the cost of NOT involving them? ↔ Constant back-and-forth clarifications ⏳ Rework and delays ⛓ Team disconnection 😑 Frustration ❓ Anything you'd add? Question for you Product Leaders out there: What's the costliest 'hidden' expense you've seen from leaving developers out of early product discussions? Do you agree that we should involve developers early on? What positive examples have you seen from involving developers early in the product process? Thank you so much to Eric Cussen for enriching our recent webinar. #ProductManagement #Agile #Leadership #ProductDevelopment #EngineeringCulture #ProductStrategy

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Happy Monday y'all! I've had a lot of questions recently about why I'm open to work. So, I figured I'd just be transparent and answer en masse. I quit my job at JB Hunt last October. I wasn't laid off; I wasn't fired. I was actually in a situation where I was working above my title alongside other directors in preparation for the next step in my career that was stagnated a bit because of market conditions and internal company shifts. I don't hate the shifts and think they made good business sense, but like any change - it was a bit difficult to see the future of my product and role during the transition. That combined with some other life events made me feel strongly that I needed to step away and reset in a major way. While that may not be a popular reason - perhaps worse to some that getting fired or laid off, it's the truth. My plan was to take a couple of months to reset, then hit the market again in Jan '24 in hopes of finding my next adventure with a clear head and renewed focus. The sad thing is that the market didn't do me any favors. One might argue that I lacked forward vision in sensing the job market downturn, but it caught a lot of us by surprise and I still feel like parting when I did was the right thing for me to do for myself. And for what it's worth, I'd still go back to Hunt if given the opportunity. Why am I telling you this? I hope that the transparency will help in two ways: - I hope this helps you find the internal grace to deal with your own mistakes. Life and work are hard. You do what you can and make decisions as you see fit, then you've got to own them and deal with them. Just how it goes, but your people are here to support you. If they're not, find new people. - I hope that this helps clear the air for anyone looking to hire me or recruit me who thinks I got fired. That shroud of uncertainty on LinkedIn is just perverse and doesn't do anyone on either side of the fence any favors. Y'all stay classy and keep paying it forward! Tech is weird right now and I think that we all need to practice humility, kindness, and genuine gratitude just a little bit more. Look to your right and left today and check on your people - some of them might be struggling to articulate failure and mistakes in a healthy way. If you need to talk strategies, perhaps my own adventures can help you navigate what's going on as well. Happy Monday and let's GOOOO!!!! #softwareengineering #techcareers #opentowork #techjobs #devcommunity #techtalent #engineeringleadership #leadership #careeradvice #careergrowth #techrecruiting #restandrefocus #mondaymotivation

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reach

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Great observation from a Senior PM currently on the job market: "the roles where they highly value domain knowledge I find to be not very versed in product and just go for what they know." When you don't understand the value of product you revert to looking for domain experts.

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NEW: Internal Threads Internal threads allow you to spin up conversations in Slack from Pylon. It's great when you want to start a conversation with someone, but they primarily use Slack (e.g. engineers, product people or anyone who isn't living out of the support system). Common internal threads we are creating at Pylon: 1/ #bugs to report a potential bug 2/ #project channels to ask a team a question about a specific feature 3/ #feedback to report product feedback to the team It's been one of the most game-changing features we've released and we're so excited to share it with everyone. Enjoy!

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If culture fit isn't the most important aspect of adding another developer to your team I know you don't ship much. I follow so many small companies that out deliver large ones it's crazy. 3- 10 person teams, ship ship ship ship ship...Why? The mission is ____ing LOCKED in, everyone is on same page from character to keyboard. Let me give y'all hiring managers a tip. When you have those two candidates, one has ALL the tools technically but you vibe better with the other who wants the gig more? Hire the latter, train 'em up. That 4 week ramp up they need on 'X' will be well worth it long term, 100%. #softwarejobs #java #javascript #typescript #react #reactnative #vue #angular #svelte #astroJS #htmx #go #golang #rust #ruby #rubyonrails #scala #kotlin #closure #haskell #elixir #csharp #aws #azure #ai #aiml #tensorflow #python

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Stop calling it technical debt. We’re not fixing old code - we’re investing in our platform's future. As product leaders, we often struggle to get buy-in for these critical improvements because we're telling the wrong story. Here's what transformed our customer conversations: Instead of talking about refactoring legacy systems, we shared how we're strengthening our foundation to unlock new possibilities. Rather than discussing system complexity, we focused on how our platform investments directly improve reliability and speed. The magic happened when we stopped apologizing for maintenance and started showcasing the long-term vision. Our customers don't care about our code - they care about growing their business, staying competitive, and reducing risks. The key is simple - translate technical challenges into business opportunities. Customers want to hear about outcomes, not operations. #ProductLeadership #TechnicalStrategy #CustomerSuccess #ProductManagement

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Crazy idea💡 ... I've decided to start offering recruiting services 100% free. For starters, you just tell me a type of "unicorn" developer or tech talent you've been deeply struggling to find: A type of candidate that seems "impossible" to land with your current setup and TA/HR team. But, you decide to let me TRY. And I do .... without you paying me anything, I spend hours, days, weeks ... months .... I pour my SOUL into finding someone that fits your ever changing goals, iterating with you, selling you to strangers ... I keep a 24/7 pulse on how likely you are to land each candidate. We discuss pros and cons, (often on nights and weekends). I keep them engaged, and you informed. We work together for hours on end thinking through how each person might strategically impact your business over long term. We work hand in hand with you, making sure you get this hire dead on, bullseye 🎯. ... and I do all of that without getting paid a penny. If my candidates only checked 11 of your 10 boxes instead of 12? No money. If you change your mind and don't want to hire? No money. If they don't pass your background check or drug screen? No money. If you don't like one of their references? No money. If sales were down for a week and you changed your mind at the final hour, i.e. decide not to hire? No money. If I bring you incredible people but you don't offer enough to win them? No money. I find the unicorn but they only have been working with Rust for 7 years and you want more? No money. If I bring you amazing candidates but they decide they don't like your WFH policy so they turn you down? No money. If I bring you amazing people but they get a counter offer they can't refuse? No money. If the CEOs third cousins uncles granddaughter gets referred in at the final hour and you decide not to hire my candidate... even though they're better!? No money. ... ... ... ... Welcome to agency recruitment :) Here, we work for free .... Unless ...unless ... unless I somehow beat the insane odds and bring you someone YOU absolutely love and who also loves the idea of working with YOU. Yes, if that .... then you owe me some money. Give it a try. You might be pleasantly surprised ... I'm willing to bet on myself my team. And if we don't meet and exceed your expectations, you didn't pay a damn cent. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #devrecruiter

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A lot of companies are going to learn quickly that having principal/staff PMs aren’t a silver bullet. If senior PMs can’t make reasonably good progress in a company, you have problems elsewhere. Principal/staff PMs are more experienced, obviously, but a lot of work doesn’t require principal / staff level experience (or shouldn’t require if, at least).

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Years of experience in software is mostly noise. "Oh wow! 15 years with Rails!" - hmmm. I've been seen by some as a "grizzled veteran" because I've been working with Rails since 2.3. Confession time - this feels good. It bolsters my ego. It gives me credibility. I even like to trade on this sometimes. But it's mostly meaningless. Here's the truth: It's how I've spent those 15 years that matters. For those 15 years, I've mostly ignored what's been going on in Rails as a framework. I've devoted those 15 years to learning the "basics" of programming. Design. Refactoring. Testing. Debugging. And the real truth? I'd say only 3-4 of those years has been me really pushing myself and learning. The rest has been coasting. I've spent a lot of time on my career - a lot of time outside of day jobs - learning marketing mostly. I have been doing this for a while, so I have undoubtedly got better at the basics. I've also invested a ton of time in experimenting with observability over the last 3 years. But when you see someone like me boasting about their experience, ask a few questions. 1. What have you spent most of your time doing? 2. What skills have you focussed on? 3. What areas do you know little about? what are your weaknesses? By asking those questions you'll be able to tell whether you should pay attention or ignore ideas or advice. Let's stop blindly idolising experience. Is it 15 years of experience or the same 1 yeah repeated 15 times?

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Dev agencies, if you don’t want to be treated as a commodity, stop acting like one. - Learn the business context for engineering needs - Stop squeezing your clients every opportunity you get - Prioritize transparency, communication, and accountability In short, position yourself as a partner that uses tech to solve business problems. You really can’t complain about being seen as a commodity if you treat everything as a transaction.

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My hypothesis: Engineering specialists are bad at marketing their skills as contractors, leading to overstaffed engineering teams and overly complex software solutions. Businesses spend ridiculous amounts of money on engineering talent. A company providing $150,000 USD in salary, 4% 401(k) match, and average benefits adds up to over $200,000 per year. I understand wanting to foster the same-team relationship, but I find that I do my best work when I treat the employer as the customer. My job is to identify the customer's needs, make recommendations with evidence and support, and drive the outcomes the customer wants. This relationship works well as an employee, but even better as a contractor.

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Product is fun, complex, messy, and there are no shortcuts. Once you accept that—and embrace it—amazing things happen to your career. Cat Hicks, PhD puts this better than anyone: "Doing research with developer teams, something that really strikes me is how much people look for ways to make complex problems easy rather than make it easy to work on complex problems What I mean is, sometimes it's really useful to admit we just are trying to accomplish tough things. Asking how we can support our teams who NEED the time and space to work through that, it's often a much more tractable lever than trying to change the inherent nature of the work I think it behooves me to say as a psychologist here that I think people are actually really excellent at working on complex problems! It's one of the reasons research with developers is so great. Overall devs love to learn, love to be curious, love to innovate. It is core stuff. What would it look like if we could ask, "how do I make this the absolute best environment for complex problem-solving" instead of "how do I take away all these annoying hard problems." The stuff we want to accomplish in the world is hard. But can be joyful to accomplish."

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Intuit TurboTax ‘s latest Tax Breakup commercial appears to be a blatant advertisement that they put small businesses out of business. I’m all for software saving folks money, but maybe not be so obvious about the negative impact that you have on entrepreneurs and smaller tax preparers. I know that this is a side effect of a capitalistic society, but it does have to be this way.

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