Rose Koron Wittkower

A four-letter word I try to avoid at work: 🚫 just "Can't we just change this one line of code and ship?" "Is it just a caching problem?" (bad joke) "You could just ask [insert coding agent] to whip up a fix." The word "just" both trivializes the work involved, and sets an expectation with other people in the conversation that any further questions or discussion are going to make them look dumb. Instead, I replace "just" with questions that validate (or more often, invalidate) my assumptions about a task's complexity: "Are there any tests that we need to add or update based on this one-line change?" "Do we understand which caching layer in our architecture is likely responsible for this issue?" "Is this bug a good candidate for a coding agent to take a first pass at a solution, to be followed up by an engineer's review?" When I do use "just", I do it with irony and as a jab at myself for not knowing everything's that involved in the work. Scare quotes required.

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I’ve mentioned to some about how AI (chat assistants, other tools we’re developing, etc.) has helped me deal with some of the challenges I face with ADHD. I’ve also seen it have a profound impact on others around me, some who experience a different flavor of ADHD than I do. Below are some concrete examples—real ways some of us are using AI to work with our brains instead of against them. For Me: • Thinking out loud, safely: I process verbally. With AI, I can freely dump raw, mid-process thoughts without being misunderstood or judged. It helps me clarify my own ideas faster and turn them into something structured and shareable. • From chaos to clarity: Whether in long voice sessions or typed notes, I can offload everything and later ask the AI to organize, distill, and clean it up without losing my voice. • Different formats for different people: I often repurpose those raw sessions into “lightweight” versions (e.g., outlines, summaries, metaphors) depending on who I’m talking to—while keeping the deeper context in reach. • Digesting heavy material, my way: I can break down long technical or dense documents in bite-sized pieces or have them restructured into story, metaphor, or Q&A—whatever helps me retain the info. • Context-carrying for multitasking: I bounce between topics constantly. AI keeps track so I can jump back in later without losing momentum. • Capturing fast-moving thoughts: I can chase multiple ideas at once, and the assistant helps organize, label, and recover anything useful afterward. • Accelerated creative breakthroughs: I’ve compressed a week’s worth of “aha moments” into an afternoon by bouncing ideas around with the assistant. • Leveraging misinterpretation for insight: The AI sometimes misunderstands me, and that misunderstanding sparks new ideas. That feedback loop is a creative asset. • Preprocessing for human conversations: I now show up to team discussions more prepared and clearer—saving time and reducing confusion. • Practicing better dialogue habits: Having to speak in bursts (e.g., in the car) has taught me to communicate in shorter, clearer chunks—improving how I interact with others. • Learning better phrasing by example: I’ll often ask the AI to rework rough drafts or emotional reactions into cleaner, more effective responses—and I’ve learned a lot from how it does that. ... remainder moved to a comment due to max length limits on the original post.

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Ok Rust, there is a lot I genuinely love about your language design, but can we all acknowledge having self and Self as keywords that mean different things was a horrible decision. I don’t care what the rationalization was - having a key semantic characteristic differ by freaking capitalization is absurd. We shouldn’t sound like philosophers when we write code - “we each have multiple selves, and they represent different meanings��. Anyway, CodeQL has Rust support now, so for all of the security minded devs there is finally a global interprocedural analysis engine at your disposal.

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Yesterday I was chatting with a senior leader who had just started a new role. They were already thinking about how to set up their organization. It’s a common temptation, I’ve fallen into it myself. You want to “get moving,” so you start sketching org charts, or pivoting teams around key people you want to keep happy. But here’s the trap: an organization exists to execute against a strategy. If you design before you’ve clarified your vision and strategy, you risk optimizing for personalities or current constraints instead of the outcomes the business actually needs. The sequence I’ve found works best: 1. Vision: Where do you want to go? 2. Strategy: How will you get there? 3. Organization: Structure to accelerate that path. People are central to making it all happen, but they need to be in a structure that serves the strategy, and in turn, accelerates the company’s success. I go deeper on this in my book Tech Leadership. Structure should serve strategy, not the other way around #Leadership #TechLeadership #OrganizationalDesign #BusinessStrategy #OrgDesign #LeadershipDevelopment #Management #StrategyExecution #ScalingLeadership #ExecutiveLeadership

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A staff engineer scolded me on my first day. For saying "It's always DNS." Five minutes later they DM'd me: "You shouldn't make that joke. The systems team is sensitive about it." I didn't know anyone. First day on the job. Suddenly felt like I'd crossed some invisible line. This is what happens when staff engineers forget how heavy their words land. The best ones use that influence carefully. They amplify others. They create safety. The worst mistake seniority for expertise in everything and use it like a blunt instrument. Intent doesn't matter. Impact does. If you're a staff engineer, you're shaping culture whether you mean to or not. First impressions set the tone for the whole team.

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The most underrated part of engineering isn’t tools, it’s consistency. I recently met a Senior Staff QA/Automation Engineer who has stayed hands-on for 25+ years because solving problems and shipping reliable software still matters to him. He’s not chasing titles or meetings. He’s writing automation, fixing issues, and making systems work. At Synopsys/Blackduck, he’s spent over a decade building automation frameworks with Cypress, Selenium, Java, JavaScript, CI/CD, Docker, and Kubernetes. Before that, he was trusted to build test automation from scratch at companies with no established processes, creating solutions that later became industry standard. He focuses on reliability and doing things right, not buzzwords. If your team needs a senior individual contributor who actually delivers quality, I can make an introduction. #AutomationTesting #EngineeringLeadership #SDET #QualityAssurance

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I’ve noticed something lately when I talk to PMs prepping for interviews - or even just telling me about their work. They’ll spend two or three minutes describing a project… And by the end, I still don’t know what problem they were solving. Not because they aren’t smart. They are. But because clarity is harder than it sounds. So here’s a simple trick I’ve started using: Can you explain the problem you solved - in plain English - in the first 7 seconds? Not the tech stack. Not the number of sprints. Not “we launched a flexible, scalable platform that integrated X with Y.” Just: what was broken, what you did, and why it mattered. If you can’t get there in the first few lines, the rest doesn’t land either. I’ve started testing my own stories this way too. It’s surprisingly humbling.

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It's rough out there in the tech industry for middle managers - folks high enough on the org chart to be far away from coding, but beneath the executive ranks. In large organizations, even directors are feeling the squeeze of de-layering. The good news is that it is possible to not only survive but thrive in times when the industry is constraining and flattening. But, you must take action! In today's post, I share three things that can make you an outstanding middle manager who is likely to gain additional responsibility. https://lnkd.in/gCzm95rY

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I once worked with a manager who micromanaged our team down to the smallest of tasks.  Every decision had to go through him, every small update had to be shared, and we felt like we weren’t trusted to do our jobs. It sucked the joy out of the work and killed our motivation.  That experience taught me very early that people hate being micromanaged.  When I became an engineering manager, I made my own mistakes but never micromanaged. Because from my own dev experience, I realized:   - You don’t just tell people what to do.   - You set clear goals.   - You empower them.   - You trust their initiative.  You want people to take ownership. When they feel trusted, they’re happier and more productive, and they perform better. But here’s the tricky part: How do you motivate your team without burning out or burning them out?  Here are a few strategies that always work for me:  1. Set clear, meaningful goals   –When people know the “why” behind their work, they’re more driven.  –Make it clear how their tasks connect to the bigger picture.   2. Recognize and celebrate wins   – A simple “thank you” or acknowledgment during a meeting can go a long way.  – People stay motivated when their efforts are seen and appreciated.   3. Encourage work-life balance   – Set realistic deadlines, encourage breaks, and lead by example.  – Don’t reward overwork—reward good work.   4. Give autonomy and ownership   – Nobody likes being told how to do their job.  – Trust your team to make decisions. –  Let them own projects, and watch them grow.   5. Create a safe, supportive environment   "If people don’t feel safe to share their ideas or challenges, they won’t thrive."  – Encourage open communication and value collaboration over competition.   6. Offer growth opportunities   – Stagnation kills motivation.  –Help your team grow with new challenges, mentorship, and training.   7. Lead by example   – Your team watches you.  –Be the kind of leader you’d want to follow: positive, transparent, and resilient.  Motivating your team is creating an environment where people feel respected, trusted, and valued.  And most importantly, it’s about remembering that your team isn’t a set of “resources.” They’re human beings. Treat them that way, and they’ll show up for you every single time.  – P.S: If you're a senior engineer, or a tech lead and looking to transition to management and grow, I'm doing a free webinar soon, please fill out this form to register: https://lnkd.in/gZ7VcqMD This will also be useful for a new manager!

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I’ve been running a lot of behavioral interviews lately, and one pattern keeps popping up: “We shipped” isn’t a senior story. What actually lands? Clear stakes, a hard call you owned, the specific moves that unlocked progress, real outcomes, and what you turned into a reusable practice. I wrote a short piece on this: https://lnkd.in/d7sYJbrJ. Curious to hear from both sides of the table: -- If you interview, what signals make someone actually stand out? -- If you’re interviewing, how do you pick and frame your stories? #hiring #engineering #leadership #interviews #careers

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Early in my tech career, I was obsessed with the latest tools—every new framework had to be in our stack. Inheriting someone else’s code? I’d call it a mess and push for a full rewrite, convinced it was the only way. I see that same fire in young engineers today, and it takes me back. Years later, as a tech founder, I sat across from a frustrated CEO: “My tech leads say our platform’s a disaster. They want a complete overhaul, but we need new features to stay competitive.” Tech debt was choking their roadmap, and the team was stuck in an all-or-nothing mindset. I’d been there—passionate, but shortsighted. Experience taught me to step back. A good CTO doesn’t chase every shiny tech or burn down the house to fix a leaky roof. We mapped a smarter path: targeted refactoring to stabilize the platform, paired with strategic feature rollouts that aligned with business goals. It was like rewiring a live circuit—complex, but we delivered without derailing the company. Now, I approach tech debt with calm clarity. It’s about breaking problems into prioritized steps, balancing innovation with stability, and keeping the C-suite and engineers aligned. #apuravwrites

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I haven’t written production code in a while. But I still do technical reviews. Not to nitpick. But to understand what my team is up against. Because here’s the truth: You can't unblock engineers if you don't understand the blocks. The best EMs aren’t architects. But they can talk architecture. If you want to lead engineers, speak their language.

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I am an able-bodied son of a general category middle-class family. So when people talk about the challenges some face due to reservations and gender diversity hiring, I lie on the sweet spot of that most disadvantaged intersection in the Venn diagram. But through the years studying and working, I understood why we need affirmative actions for education and the workplace. To the people who feel that movements like reservations and feminism are sham, I'd like to present two anecdotes to you: 1. A person whom I know closely was forced out of her job, citing poor performance, when the rest of the team was all male. The other female employee who joined the team after the former left was also treated badly and left the team soon after. There was no harassment or explicit mistreatment, but there were signs of subtle sexism when working with colleagues who often tended to ignore requests for help or the doubt on quality of work provided by female members. 2. In my college, a junior approached me for help as he was struggling in his studies. The situation was worsened by the fact that, as he was coming from a reserved category, his batchmates maintained a distance in interactions. They weren't discriminatory, but just uncomfortable interacting with the person and therefore avoided close ties. From these incidents, I learnt how it's necessary to promote people in places where the stereotype doesn't want them to be. It is important to push for breaking norms even if the general public is non-discriminatory. You might not care about the rights of minorities today, you're neither for nor against them, but your lack of empathy will be taken as tacit support for discrimination and persecution today and in the future. When I see people arguing over how the draconian laws ruin men's lives over divorce settlements, I agree with them, but just for a particular case. To think that all men are suffering is a laughable rhetoric, and we have enough statistical evidence to prove otherwise. And so is the case for every discussion on how some minorities are being given benefits in society. There are some cases of exploitation, but there are also cases where rules promoting the rights of minorities are needed to protect them from exploitation. This is my serving of "food for thought" for you. #education #workplace #justice #equality 

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