Ben Guillet

The best use case for overseas development I've heard: We have customers in the eastern hemisphere. To support those customers better, we're standing up product, dev, and support teams to help serve those customers needs. Two key ingredients in making that successful: commensurate pay and the same level of performance and accountability as US peers. #software #international #teammanagement #overseasdevelopment #startup #leadership #coaching

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on hiring an ea While companies like Athena and Wing are popular options, they come with challenges I didn't like: * Time zone differences * Cultural gaps * High initial costs ($3000+/month) Instead, leverage your network. Tell everyone you know that you're looking for an EA. You'll be surprised how many qualified candidates are already in your circle. Plus, working with someone who understands your culture and timezone is invaluable. Two crucial tips for success: Document everything. Create clear SOPs using tools like Notion or Loom. This makes onboarding smoother and sets clear expectations. Start small and scale up. Begin with a capped number of hours at a set rate. This lets you build trust and understand your needs. (Trust me - once you find someone great like my EA Maria, you'll wish you had more time with them!) Bottom line: Start with who you know, really just ask everyone for referrals first, document well, and scale gradually

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🏎️💨 Making of a Ridiculously Fast™ API client in R. Why my package is **~17x faster** than the community alternatives that call the **exact same API endpoints**. 👇🏽**design choices matter** ✨ https://lnkd.in/ggi_2XyQ

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NEW: Internal Threads Internal threads allow you to spin up conversations in Slack from Pylon. It's great when you want to start a conversation with someone, but they primarily use Slack (e.g. engineers, product people or anyone who isn't living out of the support system). Common internal threads we are creating at Pylon: 1/ #bugs to report a potential bug 2/ #project channels to ask a team a question about a specific feature 3/ #feedback to report product feedback to the team It's been one of the most game-changing features we've released and we're so excited to share it with everyone. Enjoy!

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If you haven't seen the new oxc-transformer release, you should check it out: https://lnkd.in/e_2KYHWq This morning I released a new version of hohoro (a minimal JS/TS build tool for libraries supporting incremental builds) with a new experimental export and binary that uses oxc under the hood! This means you no longer need to install or configure swc and also tsc for library builds! Check out hohoro here: https://hohoro.vercel.app/ and give it a try in your next project! The coolest part of this - is that all you need for: - Building your library (.ts/.tsx/.jsx/etc ➡️ ESNext JS) - Generating types (.d.ts files) - Incremental builds (only building changed files) Is to: - Install `hohoro@0.3.0` - Add the script: "build": "hohoro-experimental" And that's it!

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When Klaviyo recruited me three years ago to help architect a system that would deliver hundreds of millions of email messages per hour on behalf of their customers, I thought, "Wow. That's a lot of mail. How could I *not* build that?" Now that we're doing it for real, I still think, "Wow. That's a lot of mail. We *built* that." $3 billion+ in Klaviyo-attributed value. 420 million messages sent in a single hour on #BlackFriday. And over 15,000 customers having their best day ever (🙌) on Klaviyo.  Read our full BFCM By The Numbers report to learn how Klaviyo customers achieved recording-breaking results this #BFCM.

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Question for engineering leaders (managers, directors, VP's, etc): I'm curious about the current landscape of developer productivity analysis + management tools - things like LinearB and Jellyfish. Which tool, if any, are you using? Any opinions/pros/cons on the tool you're using (or the entire domain overall)?

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I'll let you in on a little secret ... My #1 interview question when hiring new team members is “Tell me about a [….] you love and why” For a product position that could be “Tell me about a product you love and why” For an engineering position: “Tell me about a project you love and why?” For a marketing position: “Tell me about a marketing campaign you love and why? For an infodev position: “Tell me about documentation or product help you have used that you love and why?” This is a powerful question that allows interviewees to express their personal motivations/passions, critical thinking skills, and how they approach their work as a genuine conversation instead of a standard list of interview questions. 1. Reveals Passion and Communication skills By asking candidates to discuss something they "love," you give them an opportunity to express genuine enthusiasm, which can be an indicator of passion for their field. This is valuable in any role because passion often correlates with motivation and resilience. It also puts them in a place where they can show their best communication and persuasion skills. 2. Uncovers Depth of Knowledge The question invites candidates to dive deeper into what makes a product, strategy, or approach effective, giving insight into how well they understand their field. For example: Product role: It shows if they have thought critically about user experience, design, and functionality. Support role: It may reveal an understanding of customer psychology and empathy. Sales role: It highlights whether they grasp the nuances of successful sales tactics and customer engagement. 3. Shows Alignment with Company Values Candidates’ responses can reflect whether they value similar qualities as the company does, such as innovation, customer-centric design, or transparency. 4. Demonstrates Analytical Skills and Reasoning Asking “why” requires candidates to articulate the reasoning behind their choice. This sheds light on their analytical and critical thinking skills—qualities that are essential in any role but especially important in roles that require strategic decision-making. 5. Encourages Authenticity and Personal Expression This question is more open-ended and personal, allowing candidates to feel comfortable sharing their unique perspectives. This can lead to more genuine responses, which helps the interviewer get to know the candidate beyond rehearsed answers. 6. Assesses Creativity and Problem-Solving Approach Their answer can demonstrate creative thinking or innovative approaches they appreciate and potentially would bring to the role. In product management, for example, it can indicate a candidate’s capacity to think outside the box. This question is so versatile and strives to create a genuine conversation that explores a person's passions and experience over standard rapid-fire questions. Genuine conversation will always be better for both the interviewer and the interviewee.

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This product was practically built for me. I’ve been waiting for something like it for years, long after I gave up writing on paper almost entirely. Heck, if it wasn’t for having kids, I probably could have gone the last the past decade with the challenge of not writing anything down on paper. Which makes it all the more frustrating at the price point it’s released. This isn’t targeted for grade school students, college students, or young professionals. It’s targeted at prosumers which share the same space as an iPad Air, and the market is already dominated by prosumers who want that product. For those who can’t afford the iPad, Amazon releases tablet computers in the $100 range. I know Remarkable is a much smaller company, and can’t compete on price with Amazon, or volume like Apple. But waiting so long for something I can’t justify the purchase price just hurts. At half the price it would have been a no brainer. It checks practically every box.

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Last Tuesday, Malsgufa, our legacy CMS backend, was shut down. This milestone for BI's Tech and Product team culminated years of planning, effort, and execution. Malsgufa's first commit was on July 25, 2014, leading to 5,186 commits across nearly 30 repositories. Built and maintained by scores of engineers, its deprecation represents significant cost savings (20 production replicas, 3 instances of Solr, and an insane number of Zookeeper instances!), reduced security risk, and the elimination of an often-blamed boogeyman. The journey began in January 2020. Our challenge: moving traffic off Malsgufa without rebuilding everything in Muse. Initially, we tried GraphQL as an intermediary between Viking and our services, but progress was limited by Viking's complex Angular/Vue architecture. In January 2023, we pivoted to the strangler fig pattern with a shim. This approach proved far more effective – all Malsgufa traffic went through the shim first, with verbose logging to track unhandled requests. Meanwhile, we built Story Versioning API (SVAPI), incorporating lessons learned from Malsgufa's limitations around history and publishing states. We ran four major migrations (stories, custom pages, slideshows, and videos), building support in Muse and shimmed compatibility for Viking. Traffic gradually decreased from a torrent to a trickle, leading to the gloriously uneventful shutdown. Next, we will deprecate Viking by Q2 2025, unifying our users in the Muse ecosystem to create the industry's most innovative CMS. Special thanks to the entire Story Creation team: Chase Gruber, Chris Speziale, Daniel Arita, Danny Feliz, Dasha Lary, Dawin Camillo, Eric Saam, Frederica Chen, John Laslo, Kelly Filush, Morgan Cohn, Sarah Pai, Tyler Greenfield! Thanks also to DaD, Engagement, Helpfulness, Cloud Engineering, Test Engineering, and Operational Excellence! Finally, we recognize Malsgufa itself. Developed as a unified CMS backend to support Business Insider's expansion into new markets, it served our global newsroom reliably for a decade, publishing millions of stories despite no major changes in recent years. While it became less sustainable as our business evolved, it deserves our respect. Thank you, Malsgufa. May you rust in peace.

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These are some great thoughts on engineering metrics; I agree with much of this. Metrics have always been a great way for me to identify areas for conversation within the team itself and as an engineering executive looking across teams.

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Breaking into product management without prior experience is tough, but it’s not impossible. This week, I sat down with Ivan Pineda Dominguez, a former software engineer who recently transitioned to product management through Instacart's APM program. In our conversation, Ivan shared: ✅ How he pivoted from engineering to product ✅ Challenges he faced in PM interviews ✅ His process for finding and applying to APM programs ✅ Tips for aspiring PMs without product experience This is the second post in my series on landing a PM job in 2024. Next up, I’ll chat with Tyler Taaca about his journey from RPM to PM at Zynga straight out of school. 💡 Key takeaways: 1️⃣ Leverage your background: Ivan used his technical skills as an engineer to stand out in PM interviews. Focus on the transferable skills from your current role that can add value to product management. 2️⃣ Prepare for the interview shift: PM interviews require a different approach—think strategic, not just technical. Practicing PM interview frameworks and watching mock interviews can be key to success. 3️⃣ Use unconventional methods: Ivan found Instacart’s APM program on TikTok! Exploring non-traditional platforms and networks might lead to opportunities you wouldn’t expect. Link to full post and newsletter: https://lnkd.in/dj6RAurD If you found these insights helpful, feel free to like, comment, or repost to reach more aspiring PMs or those looking to transition into product management! 👇 #productmanagement #techcareers

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If you really need multiple backend repos before you have multiple teams question whether you should be multiple companies. If not you’re probably better off as a monorepo if so you’ve got bigger concerns. At UpContent we’re actively retreating from the architectural complexity of micro-repos, as a smaller team it’s just unnecessary and most tech these days support multiple separately deployable components/services in a mono repo. Exceptions might be tiny services that don’t hit your main db and for whatever reason are in another language. People always forget that part of microservice architecture principles were separate databases and no shared code. People also forget they were a way for large companies to segregate duties with fully autonomous teams each owning a service not a strategy for startups with one team. Multi-repo is a very valuable tool in the tool box but it is one for after your first team split and when you process in place to handle cross team coordination.

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A new Jepsen report from Kyle Kingsbury looking at the Kafka-compatible Buf: https://lnkd.in/gijxaHzr It includes broader findings about the Kafka protocol and implementation too: "We also characterize four issues related to Kafka more generally, including the lack of authoritative documentation for transaction semantics, a deadlock in the official Java client, and write loss, aborted read, and torn transactions caused by the lack of message ordering constraints in the Kafka transaction protocol. These issues affect Kafka, Bufstream, and (presumably) other Kafka-compatible systems, and remain unresolved."

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After a year of work my book Building A Startup - A Primer For The Individual Contributor is finally available! https://lnkd.in/erThxvpP If you’re working in or around startups as an IC or technical leader this book is for you. It’s based on 20 years of startup work and will help set you up for success to do more with less, move faster and more correct, and spend more time building features and product people love and less time banging your head at roadblocks and bottlenecks.

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One of my favorite acronyms in #SoftwareEngineering is WTF - Where to Focus. When you have a small team you should focus as much energy as possible on the pieces that make your business competitive and buy everything else. I guarantee your cost estimate to justify building a tangential capability over buying it is missing a bunch of hidden cost factors.

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