1 . Reference Vedio:

My comments

I really like this video, this is less about interviewing others / being interviewed, but more of ideology about team collaboration and how to think in others’ shoes.

I learnt a lot about how to interview external candidates mapping to AMZN leadership principles.

And also more person skills in day-to-day team work.

Notes

  1. [2:10] deal breaking signal: genuineness / dishonest
  2. [3:00] don’t fake, or else enter a bad long-term-relationship
  3. [3:39] maintain company culture
  4. [6:12] passion: if not believing in the product or team, everything else is bullshit
    • teammates such
    • sister team incapable
  5. [7:20] clear no: his/her own mis-step, but blame it on the circumstances that they were in
    • @Xin: so true…miss hired a guy then it’s a pain for the whole team at the cost of team morale, and project timeline
  6. [9:35] is this person a net positive contributor?
    • red flag: take huge credit from your team
    • my team I shipped xxx
  7. [32:33] career trajectory
  8. [34:35] @Xin: my favourite piece!!! so true…
    • can you effectively communicate your frustration?
    • can you identify and communicate with the frustration with other people
    • can you work across multiple teams across multiple levels of understanding of different people, and give people the corrent things they need to understand to know what you are up to
  9. [38:55] effective communicator
    • :-1: carelessly worded email as a personal affront
    • :+1: someone being aggressive toward to you verbally, but you can tease apart what they actually mean from their frustration
    • address the content of what they are saying, rather than the method about it of they are saying it

2 . about tech lead and people management

Some quotes and my comments

“I failed because I lacked some specific skills that, as a coder, I had never had any reason to learn. In many ways, the skillset of management and the skillset of engineering are disjoint.”

“The Team Succeeds or Fails… Together”

=> yes, but, if you have a load of shitty team members then it’s another story, or, if the culture encourages individual success over team success then it’s a shithole

“You can sometimes tactically allow those rough edges to persist when they don’t risk the success of the team. But very often though — you can’t.”

=> all about keeping balancing, like NeedForSpeed you adjust gas pedal real-time to cut the corner and avoid crash

“You Have to Give Feedback”

“Good Feedback Starts From Clear Expectations”

“Good Feedback Happens Immediately”

“What if I had told him frankly that if he doesn’t master the basic Git commands, he would be failing our expectations?”

=> PIP yo!

=> Seeing too many PIPs around out of nowhere but all of a sudden surprise… bad, bad, bad…

‘They let those feelings come, let them be felt, and then let them go. Tech leads and managers have to learn the same skill.’

=> yes… lol…

“If I’m trying to hold back a sense of resentment, I can’t really be compassionate toward the other person”

“My management style is …”

=> it’s all by person

“Being able to read the other person’s emotional response is crucial for giving tough feedback”

=> none tech at all…totally different skills

“If you’re not balanced emotionally, you can’t effectively lead a team.

If you’re not able to have your feedback spit back at you without losing your cool, you’re not going to get the best out of your teammates.

If you can see things from their point of view and give them direct feedback from a balanced position, you’ll run more effective teams and more successful projects. ”

=> super!