Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 18, 2022

When you reach senior level on an engineering track, you’re expected to be optimal in your hard skill set. You’re autonomous, your code is immaculate, and you have a deep understanding of building and shipping software. Then, four years ago, in 2018, she got a job at Algolia as a software engineer. Unblock bottlenecks?

Engineering 204

Engineering Software Review Technical Review User Testing 204

The Product Coalition

DECEMBER 23, 2021

“If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design,” Ralf Speth, a former Jaguar Land Rover CEO. The study by the Design Management Institute analyzed the performance of design-led organizations that place influential design decisions at the top as compared to the Standard & Poor’s index over 10 years.

Weak Development Team 171

Weak Development Team UX User Testing Technical Review 171

UX Planet

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

Prescriptive Agile frameworks make it hard for designers to add valuable contributions to the team. I designed every detail in Photoshop before handing the mockups to the developers. I was excited to be part of a cross-functional team and I could not wait to start working in sprints. But it wasn’t all that bad.

Agile 90

Agile Weak Development Team Product Research User Testing 90

Intercom, Inc.

JANUARY 25, 2019

That attitude can extend to engineering, too. When trying to solve a problem with software, it can be tempting to build an exciting, complex solution. At our event Building Intercom in Dublin, I argued that when it comes to building software, we should avoid excitement and embrace boring. How do we develop with it locally?

Reporting Tools 168

Reporting Tools Research Software Weak Development Team User Testing 168

Intercom, Inc.

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

Scaling a support team is challenging enough as it is. Maybe you’ve just extended support hours and it’s becoming harder to plan shifts for different time zones; maybe you’re spending hours figuring out schedules for the week ahead; maybe the inflow prediction was a bit off and now your team is under or overstaffed.

Feedback Software 206

Feedback Software Research Software Customer Experience User Testing 206

Mironov Consulting

AUGUST 29, 2023

 And calling out the need for some honest discovery before we embark on major engineering efforts. Imagine we’re a SaaS company selling logistics software that helps companies track their shipments, warehouse inventory, goods reordering, and time-versus-shipping-cost analytics.  Our

Analytic Tools 52

Analytic Tools Feedback Software Reporting Tools Engineering 52

Intercom, Inc.

JUNE 10, 2020

I hope this post allows people and teams to safely talk about Product Judgment. If you ever had to face a Manager, Director or Exec as they make bad product decisions and you’re struggling to persuade them otherwise, this post will help you. It takes years to build, and therefore ranges from very weak to very strong.

Research Software 291

Research Software Weak Development Team Reporting Tools Customer Communications 291

Intercom, Inc.

MAY 29, 2018

Those unfamiliar with what product engineers do could be forgiven for assuming that it’s all broadly the same job. The shift from one type of job to another has highlighted for me the stark differences between different engineering disciplines. Being a Consultant Engineer.

Consulting 169

Consulting Engineering Reporting Tools Weak Development Team 169

Mironov Consulting

JUNE 30, 2017

I’ve noticed a frequent executive-level misalignment of expectations across a range of software/tech companies, particularly in B2B/Enterprise companies and where Sales/Marketing is geographically far away from Engineering/Product Management. Let’s call it the software development deli counter problem.

Software Developers 96

Software Developers Software Development Reporting Tools Software Review 96

The Product Coalition

JANUARY 26, 2022

Chris’s team worked for a logistics service that tracked the ocean containers coming in and out of the ports. Their team set up the infrastructure and prepared the environment waiting for prospective accounts, which never came. That is how EveryPig evolved to an AI-based solution and became a vet tech software product.

Reporting Tools 120

Reporting Tools Feedback Software Data Visualization Engineering 120

Intercom, Inc.

MARCH 15, 2018

As a startup scales, the importance of infrastructure engineers simply can’t be overstated. They’re the ones making sure your app is secure, that uptime looks good, and that the rest of your engineering org has the right tools to build features your users need and want. The tenets of foundation engineering at Stripe.

Engineering 214

Engineering Feedback Software Onboarding KPIs Customer Experience 214

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 19, 2018

In engineering, you want to move fast, ship often and solve real customer problems. Yet competition and the exponential rate of change in software are pushing against that mission. Enter our philosophy of Run Less Software. Rich: Today I’m the Senior Director for Foundations Engineering at Intercom.

Research Software 192

Research Software Feedback Software Analytic Tools Customer Communications 192

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 20, 2018

I came to Intercom from a company with a culture of heavyweight engineering processes. From an engineering perspective, it successfully kept you focused on coding. Processes have to serve the development of the product. No separate QA team. It was a well-oiled machine with battle-tested and often updated procedures.

Engineering 212

Engineering Weak Development Team Agile Consulting 212

Melissa Perri

JULY 7, 2023

I don't think this is a bad thing. In SAAS companies, the Product Management role has always been about figuring out how to grow the business by solving customer problems with the right software. Someone overseeing the teams that build the things you sell. What does a GM look like in a product-led business?

Product Management 156

Product Management Product Manager Weak Development Team Management 156

Mixpanel

JANUARY 3, 2022

Engineers are always looking for ways to differentiate themselves. As data-driven product development continues to balloon in popularity, so does the need for accurate and sophisticated implementation of analytics tracking in software products. Spearhead a slick analytics implementation. You’d be celebrated.

Analytic Tools 59

Analytic Tools Data Visualization Engineering Weak Development Team 59

The Product Coalition

OCTOBER 13, 2021

One of the ways is to focus more on software quality. In the article, I’ll cover the most significant mobile software testing types to bear in mind on the digital transformation journey. Functional testing As practice shows, mobile users are intolerant to low-quality software ? from insecure cryptography to weak passwords ?

User Testing 120

User Testing Product Research Testing Weak Development Team 120

Mind the Product

MARCH 26, 2020

What does it take for an engineer to become a product manager? If you’re considering changing from engineer to product manager , you’re not alone. You go beyond developing a solution and like to be involved in the definition of the solution itself, giving your perspective and suggesting appropriate changes. Learning the Basics.

Engineering 128

Engineering Research Software Product Management Product Manager 128

The Product Coalition

DECEMBER 21, 2021

Here’s our story how we’re developing a product using machine learning and neural networks to boost translation and localization Artificial intelligence and its applications are one of the most sensational topics in the IT field. So does that mean there’s already localization software on the market that uses machine translation?

Artificial Inteligence 128

Artificial Inteligence Analytic Tools Data Visualization Weak Development Team 128

PMLesson's Ace the PM Interview

MAY 22, 2021

Engineering manager interviews are some of the toughest in the tech industry. Unfortunately, engineering manager interviews can often be quite opaque - EM interview questions can range a wide spectrum, and it's usually unclear what good preparation looks like. Managing Individuals How do you run 1:1s with your team?

Engineering 52

Engineering Weak Development Team Technical Review Research Software 52

Modus Create

APRIL 5, 2021

Little would my professor know that three years later I’d build and publish an iOS application on the App Store and would be interning as a Front End Engineer at Modus Create. Joining the Modus Create Team. In other words, making big decisions and not knowing how technology works is bad for business. My College Experience.

Software Engineering 91

Software Engineering Software Review Engineering Technical Review 91

TechEmpower - Product Management

SEPTEMBER 25, 2023

When speaking with founders and CEOs, we often hear concerns like this: My project manager is losing confidence in the development team. I think that poor communication and differing team cultures might be part of the problem, but how can I know for sure? And in the software world, an A player is worth 10+ C players!

Weak Development Team 104

Weak Development Team Software Review Development Technical Review 104

The Product Guy

FEBRUARY 27, 2018

We had just hired a new VP of Product who was radically (and rapidly) changing our product development process, and our engineers – based remotely, in Argentina – were struggling to keep up. “To Well, before, product knew what was going on and engineering didn’t.” and one engineer in Iceland. And what can I do about it?

Engineering 100

Engineering Weak Development Team Technical Review Software Review 100

The Product Guy

OCTOBER 9, 2018

First, I did not know how to frame, develop and present product strategy in a systematic way, and second, as a startup, my company has not historically had a good track record of strategy being developed outside of senior management (read: founder). Two major obstacles stood in my way.

Weak Development Team 130

Weak Development Team Product Strategy Strategy Development 130

Johanna Rothman

NOVEMBER 16, 2020

Yes, the Computer Science curriculum had several required Hardware Engineering classes. Up until the mid-80s, many of the software engineering jobs were for special-purpose machines or applications. Fewer women graduated with Computer Science degrees and fewer women applied for software jobs. What's so bad about that?

Technical Review 111

Technical Review Research Software Software Review Systems Review 111

The Product Guy

AUGUST 1, 2019

What do you do when your team is working their socks off and yet they are getting little credit for the work being done, mainly because the team isn’t able to set concrete expectations with the stakeholder? This obviously reflected as a failure to deliver on part of the engineering team. THE CHALLENGE. THE CAUSE.

Weak Development Team 149

Weak Development Team Software Review Technical Review Onboarding KPIs 149

svpg

JANUARY 11, 2016

I normally write about how to evolve your organization from a weak product org to a strong one. But in this article I want to talk about a pattern that I see in many companies that are actually doing really well, growing aggressively, yet they will sometimes, over time and unintentionally, replace their good behaviors with bad ones.

Weak Development Team 107

Weak Development Team Naming Branding Software Developers 107

Intercom, Inc.

AUGUST 15, 2018

On day one as Reddit’s new VP of Engineering, Nick Caldwell faced a dilemma. He had just spent 13 years at Microsoft, most recently as the head of 300 engineers. At Reddit, he led a team of 35 – none of whom knew how to manage other engineers. Managers oversee their team members’ work and career development.

Engineering 141

Engineering Leadership CTO Coach Feedback Software 141

The Product Coalition

SEPTEMBER 4, 2020

Three years later I became a web application engineer at a startup that built software for military and private industries. I became director of communications, leading the development of intranets and web applications. Designers vs Developers The work culture in this large organization was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

Weak Development Team 126

Weak Development Team Systems Review Customer Experience Software Review 126

Mironov Consulting

FEBRUARY 28, 2024

An essential role of CPOs and other product leaders that’s never listed in the job description is giving organizational 'air cover' to product managers to postpone almost all new requests — so that their teams can finish work already underway.    Lately, I’m calling this permission to stay focused.

Reporting Tools 105

Reporting Tools Software Review Technical Review Weak Development Team 105

BrainMates

AUGUST 22, 2019

If you work in Product Management and you haven’t heard of Rich Mironov, then best keep this to yourself, and jump onto his blog, pronto, where he’s been blogging about software product management for 18 years. Don’t tolerate bad management if it’s making you miserable. Pick your place.”. This is a great division of labour.

Weak Development Team 77

Weak Development Team User Testing Product Management Product Manager 77

Intercom, Inc.

APRIL 22, 2021

As it turns out, he’s also quite the writer – since the last time we spoke , he has published not one but two books on engineering. After writing An Elegant Puzzle about the challenges of engineering management in high-growth organizations, his focus shifted to a career path that’s much less understood – the technical leadership track.

Technical Review 274

Technical Review Leadership CTO Coach Weak Development Team 274

PMLesson's Ace the PM Interview

JUNE 28, 2021

Many engineering managers first transition into their roles as former individual contributors. This is especially true for new EMs, who often previously worked as software engineers or developers before being promoted. EMs are no longer only responsible for themselves and their own workload, like the ICs on their teams.

Engineering 52

Engineering Weak Development Team Feedback Software Management 52

Product Warrior

DECEMBER 7, 2022

People creating solutions need to see how they create a direct impact Making software is not like manufacturing thousands of widgets which all look the same, even when the technology is very well understood. To do this, we need to understand which decisions underperform rapidly and then course correct.

Weak Development Team 52

Weak Development Team Product Strategy Strategy Feedback Software 52

Business of Software Conference

DECEMBER 28, 2023

Software, to the average person, is pretty boring. How to Write Copy for Your Software Company 1. To demonstrate this power of (un)predictability, Wiebe shared an example of when she and her team wrote test copy for a fashion website landing page. Words are actually free. Now, getting them wrong is expensive.

Software Review 59

Software Review Research Software Feedback Software User Testing 59

Intercom, Inc.

JULY 19, 2018

As up and coming engineers in Silicon Valley, Jean Hsu and Edmond Lau long sought more influence and impact in their respective positions – but they couldn’t shake the feeling of being stuck. Many engineers feel like they must make a jump into management to lead. Jean: Especially with engineering teams.

Engineering 135

Engineering Feedback Software User Testing Leadership 135

The Product Coalition

JULY 24, 2021

I truly believe that our bad mental model i.e. expecting people to execute like machines is at fault here. I have been in countless conversations where people argue incessantly about the definition of agile, PO vs PM, how the customers in their industry just don’t get it, and what actually constitutes good software engineering practices.

Agile 173

Agile Feedback Software Weak Development Team Customer Experience 173

Userpilot

APRIL 6, 2023

Developing and releasing sophisticated products with all the bells and whistles imaginable might seem like a great idea. After all, you want your newly released software to be as good as it gets when it’s finally launched, right? Low feature adoption is one of the symptoms of over-engineering. Book the demo!

Feedback Software 89

Feedback Software Analytic Tools Research Software User Testing 89