Tag: Engineering management
On-call onboarding checklist: what to include (and what to skip)
A tight checklist that gets new responders ready without turning onboarding into a thesis.
Why runbooks fail and how to fix them
Runbooks fail under pressure for predictable reasons. A practical fix that holds in real incidents.
How to keep onboarding docs current without big doc pushes
Small, frequent updates beat quarterly documentation days.
What to do when tribal knowledge blocks new hires
A short plan to turn recurring questions into owned answers.
On-call rotations: how to reduce variance for new engineers
Lower variance means fewer escalations and faster learning.
Incident comms cadence: a pragmatic schedule
A clear schedule that keeps stakeholders informed without derailing responders.
How to teach software engineering (not just computer science)
A practical way to bridge the theory-to-production gap: ownership, failure modes, debugging, and change management.
Ownership models for runbooks and operational checklists
Runbooks stay trusted when ownership is explicit and visible.
A 30‑day onboarding pilot that actually ships
Run a 30‑day pilot that ships small fixes into one workflow. A week‑by‑week plan that cuts repeat questions without big doc projects.
Choosing the right focus tags for a training module
Good tags scope training so it stays specific, searchable, and reusable.
Mentor queues: how to triage questions without burnout
A lightweight system for handling questions without exhausting senior engineers.
No leaderboards: measure onboarding without breaking trust
If onboarding feels like performance management, engineers will hide. Use team‑level signals that improve ramp time without judgment.
SOC 2 evidence that doesn’t feel like paperwork
SOC 2 gets easier when evidence falls out of normal workflows: PRs, access reviews, incident drills, and restore tests.
A practical rubric for engineering onboarding
A lightweight rubric to measure readiness without turning onboarding into a test.
The hidden cost of “quick questions”
Escalations feel like a people problem, but they’re usually an ownership and knowledge problem. A simple fix.
HIPAA for software teams (without slowing shipping)
A practical path to lower PHI risk: minimum necessary, safe logging, de‑identified dev data, and a clean vendor/incident path.
Why on-call coaching beats more documentation
Coaching creates behavior change where documents can't.
Laptop security baseline for engineering teams
A practical endpoint checklist (encryption, updates, MFA, secrets) that reduces risk without turning EMs into security police.
How staff engineers get leverage (without being on-call for everything)
It’s not about fewer questions. It’s about fewer repeated questions by turning answers into reusable guidance with owners and links.
Use repeat questions to prioritize what to fix next
Repeat escalations usually mean missing owners, missing links, or missing guardrails. Treat them like a backlog you can ship.
Kill “who owns this?” pings with a living ownership map
A lightweight way to keep ownership, escalation paths, and links current without turning it into a process project.
Stop doing documentation days
Docs rot when they aren’t used. Capture answers from real work instead—owners, links, and first checks.
“First checks” are the best onboarding doc you’ll ever write
If new hires don’t know what’s safe to check first, they escalate early. A simple first‑checks format that works.