Building Effective Engineering Teams and Avoiding Cargo Cult Practices | Exec Engineering #122

Hey👋

I couldn’t have asked for a better way to start 2025.

The newsletter just crossed 2000 subscribers on LinkedIn, and I had to take a moment to let that sink in.

When I started sharing these weekly reads on tech leadership, it was just me sending out articles I found helpful in my own journey of building and managing remote engineering teams.

Reading and sharing these pieces has sparked so many great conversations about the real challenges we face in tech leadership.

That's exactly what I hoped for when I started this.

Thank you to everyone who reads, shares, and engages with the newsletter. You make this journey worth it.

I hope this edition brings you value.

The Digest

Predictions For The Tech Job Market In 2025 (Jack Kelly / Forbes)

This research confirms tech's pendulum swing from pandemic-era mass hiring to precision recruiting, with rising technical bars and a surge in AI engineering roles signaling where the real demand lies.

"28% of U.S. leaders now prioritize outsourcing via contractors. This cost-saving incentive may lead businesses to prioritize contractor hiring over full-time positions”

The Adaptive Chief Technology Officer (chubernetes / Medium)

The piece reveals patterns in CTO adaptation through growth stages. Early focus on survival evolves to building structure, then shifts to balancing innovation with efficiency.

The 3 top mistakes of managers under 30 (Anton Zaides / Leading Developers)

Anton’s experience shows why age becomes an issue only when young managers make it one. They ask for favors when they should be setting expectations and apologize for their role instead of owning it.

"If you behave like a child who was given power, you will be treated as such. If you forget about the concept of 'age', other people will forget too.”

(Un)common Sense Playbook (John Cutler / The Beautiful Mess)

A take on why common sense solutions should be our go-to but often fail in real life: toxic environments make them impossible to implement.

Twenty Tiny Leadership Lessons (Subbu Allamaraju)

Lesson 11 particularly stands out to me. Understanding whether a challenge is technical or adaptive completely changes your approach and explains why great leaders pause before acting.

"You don't become a leader just because you show some personality traits. You are a leader when you can influence others to follow you to accomplish a common goal in a particular situation and not otherwise.”

Building Effective Engineering Teams and Avoiding Cargo Cult Practices (David Guttman interviewed by Shane Hastie)

This discussion challenges standard team practices by showing how automated check-ins and written one-on-ones can be more effective than traditional face-to-face meetings.

Problem Driven Development (Stay SaaSy)

These insights go deeper into how technical roadmaps often miss the mark. Teams prioritize solutions people want to build instead of problems that need solving.

"Oftentimes, good technical vision can feel like it has to be some gift from the heavens or a skill you're born with. In reality, good technical vision is often a very simple and boring review of small amounts of data.”

How to measure the impact of engineering in 2025 (Jennifer Riggins / LeadDev)

Jennifer Riggins shows how measuring engineering success goes wrong. While leaders chase AI productivity gains, developers just want less tech debt, better docs and time for deep work.

Dialog

Teams are more than just a set of individuals following predefined processes. They're dynamic ecosystems, where each person’s unique perspective and energy contribute to the collective.

In my recent conversation with John Durrant , Co-Founder of Human-Centric Engineering , we discuss how engineering leaders can navigate the intricate human dynamics that shape successful tech teams. Check out the full interview here:

More reads

• 2025 Predictions (Tomasz Tunguz)
• How to Avoid Getting Lost in Thought (David Cain)
• Things to argue about over the holidays instead of politics (DYNOMIGHT)
• How Your Mindset Determines Your Course (Deb Liu)
• “Founder Mode” and the Art of Mythmaking (Charity Majors)

This digest is supported by Gemography .

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About Exec Engineering

I’m Yassine 👋. I spend a big chunk of my time digging into engineering management and talent acquisition, especially where the two overlap. I share the most interesting resources I come across in this newsletter, all curated by hand.

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P.S. If you prefer your content on Substack, I'm also there.