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Marcus Blankenship

marcusblankenship.com

You started this company because you saw a problem worth solving. You hired talented people. You’re working harder than ever. But somewhere between 10 and 50 employees, something broke. Deadlines slip. Good people burn out. Everyone’s stressed, including you. The magic that made your early team hum

Engineering management / careers

’15’16’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25’26
Posts
298 from 21 Apr 2015 to 28 Feb 2026
Posting
now and then (2 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
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https://marcusblankenship.com/feed/

2026 2

  1. If only.
  2. Why your feedback might not be working

2025 1

  1. Deeper Conversations at Work

2024 2

  1. I am the epitome of dominant culture.
  2. Leading indicators that indicate leading

2020 22

  1. When they don’t know what to do, they’ll do what they know.
  2. Are your engineer’s bees or chickens?
  3. Bridging the PM Gap with Rich Mironov
  4. How Core Values Influence Diversity and Inclusion with Kim Crayton
  5. No Fighting In This (Agile) Dojo with M. David Green
  6. Finding Career Opportunities Through Experimentation with Josh Doody
  7. How Agile Work Actually Works with Allen Holub
  8. Leveraging Remote Work with Laurel Farrer
  9. Making Software Development Teams Hum with Ron Lichty
  10. Being Your Own Leader in Times of Transition with Han Yuan
  11. Changing How We Change Software with GeePaw Hill
  12. Improve your Product Management with Ellen Gottesdiener
  13. Safety not guaranteed
  14. Build better relationships through coding
  15. The uneven distribution of onboarding
  16. Leadership Strategies from Nature with Dr. Kathleen Allen
  17. The Art of Leadership with Michael Lopp
  18. Junk-food for the Manager’s Soul
  19. Collaboration and Notqmail with Amitai Schleier
  20. A thought on Relational Onboarding
  21. Office Space Cathedrals
  22. Debugging problems

2019 139

  1. My three hopes for 2020
  2. Becoming a Better Manager Means Starting with Yourself with Johanna Rothman
  3. Reverse engineering meetings
  4. When should you code, coach, or consult?
  5. Foresight is 2020
  6. Rise of the Resilient Manager with Lara Hogan
  7. How marketing ruined leadership
  8. Put me in coach, I’m ready to play
  9. Compassionate Coding with April Wensel
  10. What can you find, but never keep?
  11. Can I run an analogy by you?
  12. What do sex, drugs, and turnover have in common?
  13. The evolution of my leadership ideas
  14. ”Thanks for cleaning the toilet, Marcus”
  15. Finding Your Balance with Camille Fournier
  16. 5 questions to untangle sticky problems
  17. Find your first-team
  18. My Mission
  19. Seven quick rants
  20. Three parts to the mission
  21. Conflict: Uncomfortable, Yet Necessary with Jennifer Jones-Patulli
  22. The mission
  23. Turnover: “It’s not me, it’s you”
  24. Give transparency in small doses
  25. ”How can you get lucky more often?”
  26. Rules of Change with Esther Derby
  27. Minesweeper and bad hires
  28. A New Leadership Model with Jason Wong
  29. 13 questions to get more feedback from your team
  30. It’s not a sign of weakness, but of strength.
  31. ”What advice do you have for addressing the insecurity of…”
  32. The One Constant with Don Gray
  33. On cubicle and apple farms
  34. The Importance of Trust and Communication with Tim Ottinger
  35. Investing in the Long Game with Reuven Lerner
  36. No naughty or nice with nuts
  37. Improvisational sketch leadership
  38. A First Team Mindset
  39. Designing problems is harder than it looks…
  40. An audiobook, a workshop, and slack – oh my!
  41. Learning to Handle Uncertainty
  42. Buy your toothpaste when you get there
  43. Managing to Solve An Elegant Puzzle with Will Larson
  44. The leader’s blind-spot
  45. Building good relationships are the key to everything you want
  46. Monkeys and Rocks with Matt Greenberg
  47. It’s impossible to keep your balance
  48. Dynamic Reteaming with Heidi Helfand
  49. My mistaken motivation mindset
  50. Does the “point velocity” of a scrum team matter?
  51. Putting the Emotion Into EQ with Etienne de Bruin
  52. Quantum Onboarding
  53. ”What is everyone working on?”
  54. The Importance of Proper Feedback
  55. Systems always seek their real goal
  56. Stepping in without Stepping in it
  57. Lessons Learned on the Path to Managing with Amy Phillips and Aaron Randall
  58. The surprising effect of traffic and bathrooms
  59. ”I really like what you did there.”
  60. Authentic Feedback
  61. Our newest sponsor comes bearing gifts
  62. Status update and reading list – July 2019
  63. There’s Always More Information
  64. Games Socrates played
  65. Motivation is NaN (Not a Number)
  66. I guess Ananya’s situation looked familiar.
  67. Does this sound familiar?
  68. If only I’d had more time
  69. How Buffer.com Develops Engineering Leadership Skills From Day 1 With Katie Womersley
  70. ”Grown up” issues
  71. What Jack (probably) thought about being fired
  72. Imagine the Possibilities: How to Break Ties That Hinder Our Potential
  73. Use a PIP, or just fire them?
  74. My haunted closet
  75. ”Nah” – Rosa Parks
  76. Using Performance Improvement Plans the Right Way
  77. From Engineer to Executive: An Interview with Eric Muntz of MailChimp
  78. You can borrow my teaching style
  79. Let’s play “name that bias”
  80. We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
  81. Push training vs. Pull training
  82. Mental Model Machinations
  83. Some beliefs about your training programs
  84. Getting to Know You – The Key to Successful Leadership
  85. It works, but you’re gonna look silly doing it
  86. Can you help me decipher this riddle?
  87. Flipping training on its head
  88. Communication 101: Be Clear and Direct
  89. The true religion of developing leaders
  90. Everyone’s talking about it, but no one’s doing it.
  91. Transitioning to Management with Confidence
  92. A tool for adjusting your mental models
  93. “Dad, telephones dial with sound!”
  94. A small question to make a big improvement in your meetings
  95. A Star is Learned
  96. My daughter was hit in the face
  97. The violence in asking “What is the goal?”
  98. ”How do I manage difficult developers?” and more…
  99. Getting Real. Establishing Realistic Expectations for Yourself and Your Team
  100. Getting Real on the Programming Leadership podcast
  101. 30s to better problem solving
  102. Lean in with your ears
  103. Re-entry is the hard part
  104. So, What Is Leadership, Really?
  105. Learning through everyday situations
  106. Managing vs. Leading: What’s the Difference?
  107. Me, a Manager?
  108. The one in which Jim points out a coffee shop lesson
  109. Hiring lessons from barista shopping
  110. Four books that helped me see leadership differently
  111. Your choice: go big, or get real
  112. The painful truth I need to admit to you
  113. Four interview mistakes (and what to do instead)
  114. This space intentionally left blank
  115. The Insane Beast
  116. A slightly silly (and bit sad) history of leading programmers – Final chapter
  117. A slightly silly history of leading programmers – Part 3
  118. A slightly silly history of leading programmers – Part 2
  119. A slightly silly history of leading programmers – Part 1
  120. Who’s your Bob?
  121. A new meeting goal
  122. Tech Lead Talk, a Community of Practice
  123. OUTER JOIN or INNER JOIN?
  124. Where do software engineers want to work?
  125. Key Three: The relationship with your team as a group
  126. Most of the system is hidden from view
  127. Key Two: The relationship with individual team members
  128. A bit more about that first key relationship…
  129. Priorities for a new development manager: The Four Keys
  130. Q&A: “Priorities for a new development manager?”
  131. Chewy Motivation
  132. A new question for your 1:1’s
  133. Is teamwork like pulling teeth?
  134. Currying decisions
  135. Fame not included (or necessary)
  136. ”If your programmer refers a friend, consider it red flag on the candidate”
  137. When you do nothing it leads to the best somethings
  138. A one-second experiment about words
  139. Where did the motivation go?

2018 5

  1. The Only Leadership Theory That Matters
  2. Tech Leader Fortune Cookie #133
  3. Tech Leader Fortune Cookie #122
  4. Tech Leader Fortune Cookie #121
  5. Tech Leader Fortune Cookie #120

2017 107

  1. How to get paid on-time, every-time, from day one
  2. My clients were jerks
  3. Fred Brooks was right
  4. The #1 pricing mistake you must avoid
  5. Might as well own it
  6. Obstacles -> Assets
  7. How could that possibly be fun?
  8. “I’ve always known it wouldn’t work out.”
  9. Timex or Rolex?
  10. What did you learn today?
  11. A crazy idea she had at the campfire.
  12. What surprised me the most from the simulation.
  13. “Dude, crank it to the left!”
  14. “Thanks for coming in on-time, Todd.”
  15. The repeating lesson from my #Velocity2017 training
  16. A learning from today’s simulation
  17. “How do I get sales to quit making bad deals?”
  18. Do you bite or hide?
  19. Task or Relationship focused?
  20. Decision delegation done wrong
  21. Hokey Pokey-er to Ballroom Dancer
  22. Are you doing the hokey pokey?
  23. Why I don't talk about the technical bits
  24. The blinding anticipation
  25. DX that really matters
  26. Buck the trend
  27. When in doubt, 👍 🙌 😂 😊 😳 it out.
  28. Crank up their enthusiasm to 11
  29. I dare you to be curious
  30. I just watch them move a pile of lumber
  31. Don’t tell, ask.
  32. His radical candor left me speechless.
  33. "Why doesn’t anyone listen to me?"
  34. Can you taste motivation?
  35. Surprise your boss in your next 1:1
  36. The brain wants what it wants
  37. Who would you rather have on your project?
  38. When NOT releasing is the right thing to do.
  39. Would you trust earwax flavored jelly beans?
  40. Its all engineering, but not all of engineering
  41. The brilliance of
  42. [Video] Q&A: I am an un-happy developer. What do I do?
  43. "They just want to be left alone and code."
  44. [Video] DevLeads, stop coding production tasks. Seriously.
  45. [Video] Resentment will kill your team…
  46. [Video] Why I chose to be a Software Manager (and you should too!)
  47. [Video] Q&A: How do I teach developers to be more self reliant?
  48. [Video] Q&A: My developers keep getting stuck!
  49. [Video] The Number #1 Complaint I hear…
  50. [Video] One-on-One 101:How to ask for feedback
  51. [Video] Help my dev turned in crappy code!
  52. [Video] Q&A: My developer keeps flaking out on me!
  53. [Video] "I don't feel like a great man."
  54. [Video] "I will fire you"
  55. [Video] How not to fire your developer
  56. [Video] Quality vs Speed
  57. Can you go home again?
  58. [Video] What is Shame Driven Development?
  59. "We don't have control over our ambition."
  60. How do you know it is too big before it is too late?
  61. [Video] The dark side of points
  62. [Video] Crying in my office
  63. [Video] Are you expecting perfection?
  64. [Video] 5 questions to ask when you hear "your code sucks"
  65. [Video] Your code yard
  66. Do you suffer from floccinaucinihilipilification?
  67. "We're sneaking in training and improvements"
  68. How do you deal with 30 resumes per day?
  69. Wrangle your stories
  70. The results of my Slack experiment
  71. "Why is it taking so long?"
  72. What's your PR review goal?
  73. Home runs or times at bat?
  74. That time I fell off a cliff
  75. Unicorns shmunicorns
  76. What I saw when I turned my head to the left
  77. Humble provocateur
  78. Saying "Sayonara."
  79. She's just not that into you :(
  80. scuffing the shoes
  81. Yours, mine and ours.
  82. Joyful technical leadership
  83. What is "high-quality LMX"?
  84. Eat dessert first
  85. Notice when something amazing happens in your 1:1s
  86. Ruining your 1:1 meetings with 'optimizations'
  87. Why millennials hate your open door policy
  88. Are you abusing agile burn-down (or up) charts?
  89. When you have a relation you speak the same language.
  90. Are you a Debt Drunk?
  91. Why your boss doesn't care about "Tech Debt"
  92. Agile, you've been a bad friend.
  93. A 4-year old morality
  94. Lies programmers tell
  95. Blindsided by a happy developer
  96. "That word makes my blood boil."
  97. Are you in "the friend zone"?
  98. Don't pretend it didn't happen.
  99. Stepping on the shoes
  100. Do you love blank stares?
  101. Q&A: How did you know you wanted to be an engineering manager?
  102. Death by 1,440 cuts
  103. Would you count moving a meeting from 1:30 to 2:30 as a broken promise?
  104. You don't have the balls for this job.
  105. [Video] "Your code was hard to maintain."
  106. Optimism is your worst enemy
  107. Ever get your priorities "re-aligned" by your boss?

2016 7

  1. The Wrong Section of the Bookstore
  2. But I miss building things…
  3. Changing Jobs, Changing Roles
  4. What to do the first two weeks as a new manager for an existing team
  5. [Video] Stop coding production tasks, seriously.
  6. The Real Work of (Software) Management
  7. Which developer on your team is looking for a new job?

2015 13

  1. 3 Steps to having that conversation that you are dreading, today
  2. Chapter 12: The Answer to the Dreaded Annual Review: No Surprises
  3. Chapter 11: Defusing Frustrating Situations with Gentle Corrections
  4. Chapter 10: New Manager’s Playbook–Having Difficult Conversations With Employees
  5. Chapter 9: The Case for Weekly Meetings, Why an Old-School Schedule Gets Leading-Edge Results
  6. Chapter 8: A Real-Life Handbook for Making Delegation Work for You
  7. Chapter 7: How to Manage Your Clients
  8. Chapter 6: Straight Talk on Your Team’s Expectations of You
  9. Chapter 5: What Nobody Told You About Being an Agency Owner
  10. Chapter 4: How to Really Put Down the Tools and Get Back to Being a Manager
  11. Chapter 3: Putting Down the Tools
  12. Chapter 2: Fantasy vs. Reality–When Running a Dev Shop Isn’t What You Imagined It Would Be
  13. Chapter 1: Lead from the Podium–6 Essential Concepts New Managers Miss