In the world of software engineering, complexity often takes center stage. We celebrate intricate algorithms, sprawling architectures, and convoluted code as signs of expertise. But what if I told you that complexity isn’t always the answer? In fact, more often than not, simpler solutions are not only easier to understand and maintain but also more effective in solving real-world problems.

It’s easy to understand why complexity is alluring. Complex code and …

The Problem

When you have a remote engineering team, the tools you use are really important since you can’t use an office as a band-aid. We had some issues with our project management tools, where some information didn’t reach the relevant people. We needed to fix that to improve our productivity.

Actions Taken

My first action was to reach out to everyone involved and get more feedback on our current software engineering process, what’s working well and what isn’t. Using this …

The Problem

When I joined an early stage startup as the first engineer, one of my goals was to build out the initial engineering team we needed. Building that initial engineering team is really critical and it must be done right. Having an initial team that is great (or bad) will have a huge impact on the startup as a whole. So I had to be sure I was building the right team.

Actions Taken

First, I spoke with the CEO to really understand the mission and vision of the company. …

The Problem

We were working on a critical project, with a huge emphasis put on delivering on time. I realized that the critical nature combined with the time bound constraint was causing some stress for the team. The team needed to be focus on the goals we had instead of worried about possible outcomes and other conjectures. I knew that if the stress wasn’t relieved, we wouldn’t be able to succeed.

Actions Takens

My first action was to discuss with the team about the …