Plato ’s Post

No matter how important an objective is for your company, you can’t suddenly assign a thousand engineers to work on it using systems built for 10 engineers and still expect results. In recent years, we've seen tech companies often invest 30% or more of their engineers in platform teams, intending to allow product engineers to move faster. I find this trend interesting and a clear indicator of where our industry is heading. However, simply increasing the number of engineers in platform teams won’t automatically solve the scaling challenges. You still have to build the right tools, processes, and culture that enable those teams to drive efficiency and innovation across the organization. Without a holistic approach and a product mindset applied to platform engineering, companies are essentially throwing money into a black hole, hoping for results that may never come. My experience at Thinkific shows that when we align platform investments with company priorities, create specialized teams, and build a strong platform engineering culture rooted in high agency, extreme ownership and continuous improvement, incredible things happen. You enable faster shipping, fewer bugs and outages, and most importantly, a resilient, scalable infrastructure that adapts as your business evolves. Start early and treat platform investments as an ongoing priority. This will set your teams up for long-term success, allowing them to focus on delivering value rather than battling technical debt and inefficiencies.

Positive trend: Widespread understanding that a leader who was/is an expert in their domain needs more than that expertise to be a leader. I knew about a company who had a director of engineering who was a brilliant engineer. One of the best people they had ever seen. Unfortunately, that was his only major talent. He'd work 16 hour days, would dive into the code of his direct reports and overwrite it at night. They'd come in the next day to find their work had drastically changed. When they'd ask him about it, he'd tell them it wasn't good and they needed to be better. While they may have had high quality code and few bugs, there were two things that happened over time. One - their best people left. Turnover was double that of the rest of the org. But since deployments were happening with few errors, senior leaders looked the other way. In fact, a few thought those engineers were overhyped because nothing significant changed with quality after they left. They never saw the second one coming. As they grew and the systems became more complex, one person couldn't keep up. He continued to try and work in that way, but because he became increasingly unaware of all the dependencies across systems and platforms, issues began to appear. And they skyrocketed. The amount of tech debt was staggering. They said it took two years of more than half of engineering's time to clean everything up. All that said to say this - to be a great leader, it's nice if you're an expert in the domain. You can really help people be successful and work through problems. But you also need to empower people to make decisions whenever possible. They WILL make mistakes. But they learn and grow and find new ways to solve problems that you never thought of. Seeing the focus on leaders who build trust, empower teams, AND know about their domain to some level is exciting. I'm here for it.

🌟 Celebrating the Best Engineers 🌟 The best engineers don't get bogged down by tools or cloud preferences—they get things done in the most sensible and efficient way possible. They are tech-savvy yet business-savvy, embodying the perfect blend of both worlds. Half entrepreneur, half engineer, they bring an entrepreneurial mindset coupled with engineering grit to every challenge they face. These professionals understand the broader impact of their work, driving innovation while aligning with business goals. Their ability to balance technical excellence with business acumen makes them invaluable assets to any team. Here's to the engineers who are redefining what's possible! 💪🚀 #EngineeringExcellence #TechLeaders #Innovation #BusinessAndTech #EngineeringGrit #cruxdigits

In engineering, it's often the "HOW" that makes all the difference, not just the "WHAT." Effective execution, thoughtful approach and an understanding of WHAT NOT TO DO defines the engineering success of any product. There are no big billion ideas. It’s the execution which makes simplest of the idea turn into a big billion business. An Engineers success story speaks volumes about these key pillars      - Putting HOW ahead of WHAT. The kind of tech stack you choose , choice of algorithm, choice of architecture, balancing different tradeoffs during choices are all the HOW type of questions which predominantly defines the engineering success in the long run.   - Having an understanding of WHAT NOT TO DO is as important in any Technical decision making as much as having an understanding of WHAT TO DO. It’s just helps setting up a stronger product base and avoids running into major problems as the product grows. #EngineeringExcellence #StrategicExecution #Innovation #ProfessionalGrowth

💡I vividly remember (to this day and probably all throughout my career) one of my past experiences as a Technical Lead taking over a project without sufficient support or clarity on how to navigate it and how this proved to be a significant hurdle. 📉 Despite my best efforts, I struggled to ask the right questions and seek the assistance needed to steer the project towards success. This was one of the toughest lessons I l've learned and it highlighted the importance of proactive communication and resourcefulness in leadership roles. 🙏🏻 Needless to say I am endlessly grateful for having experienced that since it has helped me develop a completely different approach to new challenges that allows me to look forward to new beginnings instead of dreading them. #LessonsLearned #LeadershipGrowth #GrowthThroughFailure #LeadershipLessons #ContinuousImprovement

This is good advice for any one stepping in to a tech leadership role. Surrounding your self with competence and trust is key to successful building.

I have been following Ramp's journey for some time now and their Engineering Blog is worth a read, especially if you are a CTO, Director of Engineering, VP of Tech or a CEO of a tech start up.... Want to Build a Rockstar Engineering Team? Kudo's to Eric Glyman and Karim Atiyeh for creating such a powerful engineering group that has 10x+ it's output over the last 2 years & thank you for sharing your secret sauce in your blog posts! 📈 Building a strong engineering team is crucial for any tech startup, but it's not always easy. Here are 3 key takeaways: 👨💻 👩💻 Focus on Your People: Great engineering managers understand their reports' motivations and technical skills. By investing time in 1:1 meetings, you can build trust and create an environment where engineers thrive. 🥇 Hire Strong Technical Leaders: Look for engineering managers with a deep understanding of the technical challenges your team faces. This will allow them to provide effective guidance and support. 📖 Embrace Open Communication: Transparency and open communication are essential for building a strong engineering culture. By following Ramp's lead, you can create an environment where engineers feel empowered to share ideas💡 and feedback.

Is speed really the measure of success in engineering? 🤔 “Ship better products faster!” We have heard this way too often and while it sounds like the gold standard, let’s take a step back and ask ourselves and our engineering teams this question — does speed alone guarantee success? The reality? Speed is just one part of the equation. High velocity might look like progress on the surface, but if it means cutting corners, skipping crucial testing, or overlooking long-term scalability, is it really a win? 🚩 In the push to deliver quickly, some of the essentials—like robust code, thoughtful design, and strategic documentation—can get left behind. Over a period of time, what we’re left with is technical debt, mounting bugs, and overworked engineers. ⏩ Sure, the product gets shipped fast, but at what cost? This unbalanced approach could be quietly slowing down your engineering team’s effectiveness in the long run and hurting their overall productivity. In our latest blog, we explore the velocity paradox: how the pursuit of speed might actually be holding back your engineering team. Discover practical strategies to sprint smart, not just fast—balancing the need for timely releases with the foundation of quality that makes your product resilient, scalable, and truly satisfying for your users. 💪 🔗 Check out the blog at the link in our comments to read more. #VelocityParadox #TechLeadership #QualityOverSpeed #DeveloperProductivity #EngineeringTeams

This week, I had the privilege of speaking with multiple founders and engineering leaders across Series A, Series B and Series C tech start up & hyper growth firms. 🚀 One powerful trend stood out: the rising demand for product engineers, full-stack engineers, and forward deployment engineers who are more than just technically skilled—they’re aligned with business requirements and can integrate customer needs at speed. 🤝✨ The search is on for engineers who bridge the gap between technical execution and business impact, I'm looking for those who don’t just code in isolation but integrate seamlessly with product strategies and user insights. 🔗📈💡 It’s inspiring to see this shift towards product-focused engineering that values collaboration with product teams and engagement with end-users. This approach accelerates innovation and builds more resilient companies. 💪💻 Are you noticing the same trend? How is your team integrating engineering with business objectives? Let’s chat! 📧 E: george.wilson@stottandmay.com 📲 P: (929) 909 8365

Are you tired of seemingly simple changes taking way too long to implement? Do you get frustrated when a change causes a problem in a completely different area of the code? Does it feel like you are trying to climb up a muddy hill while people are pushing boulders from the top at you? If so, you're likely mired in technical debt and you're not alone! At Exceptional Difference, we're committed to empowering elite engineers, teams, and leaders to manage their technical debt and reclaim their joy of engineering. Stay tuned, as we have an upcoming series of talks, workshops, and courses that will help you understand the types of technical debt, calculate the cost of tech debt in your environment, and identify strategies to remove, manage, and prevent technical debt. By doing this, we will help you reclaim ownership of your speed to value and foster a culture that crushes tech debt for good!