Cody Django Redmond

Cody Django Redmond

What makes a good manager?

I was recently asked this question by a friend considering a move into engineering management. It's been a few years since I've asked myself this question, and I find it interesting how my perspective on this has changed over the years. Before I begin, I'd like to note that I

Missing from my bookshelf: the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership

This book was recently recommended to me from Bryan Dunn, the VP of Product at Crowdbotics. It arrived at my door on Saturday, and I started reading it immediately. My general approach to a new book is to first read the intro and conclusion – this generally gives me a good

Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building

In addition to my new role at Crowdbotics, I've also started reading a recently published book on scaling people management. It was written by Claire Hughes Johnson - former COO of Google and Stripe. I'm excited because it purports to be a pragmatic take on management, complete with templates and

Democratizing Sofware Development in the Low-Code Industry.

I'm happy to announce that I'm starting a new leadership position as a Platform Software Engineering Manager at Crowdbotics. I'm working with a fantastic team to simplify and accelerate software development using AI and low-code/no-code approaches. Crowdbotics was founded in 2017 by Y-combinator alum and Forbes Magazine "30 under

software testing

Observability at Scale

This is Part IV in Observability Engineering: Achieving Production Excellence Build Versus Buy and Return on Investment This chapter provides solid advice for those who are unfamiliar with the "not invented here" syndrome. When considering building with open source tools, weigh the full impact of hidden costs like recruiting, hiring,

Simplifying complexity

As organizations evolve and software grows, so does complexity. Learning how to identify and curb complexity is a core skill to develop as an engineering manager. Unconstrainted complexity inevitably results in suboptimal outcomes, such as: * A slowdown in a team's ability to accurately assess a problem or deliver a solution

Coaching frameworks

I received a question a few weeks back on if I used a coaching framework and which one. My response was that I use a framework of my own design: a combination of SWOT analysis with OKR-style reporting. At the time, it didn't seem satisfying as an answer. The reality

software testing

Observability for Teams

This is Part III in Observability Engineering: Achieving Production Excellence Applying Observability Practices in Your Team Start with the most significant pain points, and then flesh out your instrumentation iteratively. Observability-Driven Development * A key finding of Accelerate: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations was that the inverse relationship between

software testing

Fundamentals of Observability

This is Part II in Observability Engineering: Achieving Production Excellence We can’t understand a complex system if it’s a black box. Observability aims to understand and explain your system's internal state from its outputs, ideally without adding new metrics. Structured events are the building blocks of observability. High

Engineering Management, in my own words

What is the role of an engineering manager? At a high level, it's to deliver value, keep the engineering team engaged, and retain and grow direct reports. But let's unpack this a little further. This means ruthlessly prioritizing while simplifying complexity and promoting deep work. Tactically, an effective EM knows

software testing

The Path to Observability

These are notes that I've found interesting from Part 1 of Observability Engineering published by O'Reilly. I'm reading it as part of the Honeycomb-hosted book club.

Business books that are also enjoyable

A friend is transitioning from service industry to project management. She's looking to get into tech, and even through she's very tech-minded, she feels insecure about her lack of experience in the business. I offered to put together a list of books that would be valuable in introducing common business

Supporting Diversity and Inclusion

How can I, as a middle-aged and CIS white guy, support diversity within the engineering department and throughout an organization?

A framework for a system design interview

Recently, one of my direct reports was assigned a rate limiting feature to be implemented across our mobile games. They're fairly new to backend engineering, and I was keen to get them more opportunities to practice software design. I was pleased to remember that designing a rate limiter is one

Community-led Growth

I recently was interviewed by Zapnito [https://zapnito.com/], a platform for growing communities. This was the questionnaire, central to the direction of the interview. Can you give a brief intro to who you are and what you do? I'm Cody Django Redmond, a software engineering professional specializing in product

Mobile game marketing in 2023, for Engineers

This is a primer, designed with developers in mind who might not otherwise be too familiar with marketing in mobile games, and specifically the changes that have taken place over the last few years. A Quick History The mobile gaming industry has been forced to respond to a seismic shift

Running in 2023

Yep, a little late for this considering it's already March. What can I say, things have been moving a little slower with the baby. I'm going to run a half marathon this year. I've never run any sort of marathon. I was running quite regularly for a while, and was

2022 Music

In no particular order, my favorite albums of the year.

Moved to the island

Moved to the island

Audrey and I have extracted ourselves from Vancouver. We've moved to Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island. Over the last few years we've been researching potential areas but with our daughter on the way we felt it was the right time to finally make a big life decision. Originally I had

We have a baby now

We have a baby now

I'm happy to announce that Audrey and I welcomed a beautiful baby girl into the world last week. It's our first. We're ecstatic, and exhausted! I'll be less available for the next little while, as we start this new journey.

Proposed team values

Proposed team values

I've been involved in quite a bit of hiring as our company continues to grow. I'm always looking through engineering CV's. If someone looks interesting, I'll spend a few minutes looking through previous employers. If it's a company I'm unfamiliar with I might check out the website. It's not uncommon

Let developers tell you where the bottlenecks are

developer experience

Let developers tell you where the bottlenecks are

The DX surveys are similar to what you might expect if you've read Accelerate – they focus on proven drivers for velocity, and provide insights into which changes will be most impactful across engineering departments.

Code Smells

“Look, that's why there's rules, understand? So that you think before you break 'em." – Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time A Code Smell is a hint that something might be off in the design of a component or system: something doing undue harm; something that might not need to be. Calling

Starting a meditation practice

Back in February my friend Natiea introduced me to the Waking Up [https://wakingup.com/] app, and with it, Sam Harris. I had previously been introduced to Sam Harris in the same breath as a certain Jordan Peterson, who, at the time, I wanted nothing more to do with. Over

Is Zeigarnik affecting your team?

Yesterday I had a call with an old acquaintance, and while chatting about various team behaviours, he described a situation that reminded me of a topic I've been wanting to write on. It's called the Zeigarnik [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeigarnik_effect] effect [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeigarnik_