George Sifalda

Stop telling your engineers to "work on visibility" The visibility problem isn't theirs to solve. It's yours.

things that went south in engineering management in recent years, and how to fix that:

www.blog4ems.com/p/if-your-e...

i wasted my only monday deep work block to learn this:

skills are cheap.
mindset is rare.

i keep telling myself:
"just one more crazy week, then it slows down"

but honestly? i think i am lying to myself.
when efficiency is the new growth, the pressure never drops.
this chaos isnt a spike, its the new baseline.

don't just believe in your people.
make sure the room knows it.

who are you going to loudy back today? :)

#leadership #engineeringmanagement #teamculture

I am seeing this leadership mistake all the time:

pushing someone outside their comfort zone creates a debt.
you owe them visible trust.

silence kills motivation faster than criticism.
it makes people wonder if you're betting on their failure.

as an engineering manager, you are in sales.
you are selling problems to solve, tech debt, and culture changes.

if your team isn't buying, look at your hook.
don't just assign tasks → sell the transformation.

#engineeringmanagement #growingpain #leadership

now with 5 hours, i cant hide in busywork.
i have to pick the one thing that actually ships value.

constraints arent the enemy. comfort is.

if you only had 5 hours, what would you work on?

#engineeringmanagement #productivity

5 hours.

thats my total deep work this week.
the rest → meetings, 1:1s, slack fires…

i used to resent this. felt like drowning.
then i noticed something weird.

when i had more time, i spent it tweaking things that didnt matter.
felt productive, but wasnt.

shipping a feature with clear specs? thats just doing your job.
pushing forward when the api is down, requirements are vague, and nobody has answers?

thats the difference.

#engineeringleadership #management

"take ownership" is feedback that never lands.

my team nodded, nothing changed.
i couldn't explain what i actually wanted until i reframed it:

ownership isn't delivering when everything works.
ownership is navigating reality to make progress even when it starts being hard.

“you get what you need faster when you drop the ego”

not weakness., but leverage

💯

- hours of prep for a 30min session
- anxiety before every single presentation

i hate the process.
but nothing else forces clarity like this.

want to master something?
stop consuming. start explaining.

#engineeringleadership #learning

teaching is selfish.

i tell my team i run workshops for their growth.
real reason, i do it for mine.

explaining something is the only way i verify i actually understand it.
"if i cant teach it simply, i dont know it well enough."

what nobody sees:

currency for the future?

.
..
…
your prompts!

for @GitHubCopilot :
1. go to github billing interface
2. export usage as csv
3. dump into google sheets
4. calculate usage per user

struggling with the ai adoption inside your teams?
gamify it!

eg. create an usage leaderboard

most devs love it, they take it is challenge to be first one with the most tokens usage

and the biggest “spenders” to share what they do, and how

i suck at improvisation

as an intj architect, i plan everything.
but beaing a senior EM taught me that...

1. executives dont get prep time.
decisions happen on the spot, usually when I least expect it,

2. i need to adapt, and learn that as well.

excited to see what 2026 brings 🤞

@obsidian (aka writing):

2025 was quite a "run"...:

@github 👇

ai assisted development is turning us (developers) into context switching addicts, and i am worried about it

and even mode because nobody talks about it

instead we can see plp create more social platform blockers to fight it…. but it is not gonna work

I never figure stuff out at my desk.
I have zero time to think during work “hours”

The desk is for tasks.
The dog walk is for strategy 🦮

Where do you do your actual thinking?

#EngineeringManagement #Leadership

In other words:
Impact = (Curiosity * Learning Rate) + (Base Skills / AI Leverage)

#hiring #EngineeringManagement

2. Optimize for "learning rate" → Can this person pick up a new stack in a weekend? In the age of #ai, velocity of learning is the only sustainable edge.
3. Demand Curiosity → You want the person who asks "how does this LLM actually work?", not the one waiting for a ticket.

Its the algorithm I use when looking for talent:

1. Ignore the "Senior" label → It often just means "I have done this for 10 years." That experience is depreciating faster than ever.

Hiring mantra for 2026:

Hire for learning rate & curiosity, not their seniority.

if you still wondering what to put inside your agenda.md instructions 👇
x.com/rauchg/stat...

This is the only question you need to answer now to succeed in 2026:

Imagine yourself it's the end of next year (it's a long time away, yes...): what are three major accomplishments that you can be proud of?

Then,
...create a plan for how you will accomplish them

A practice run for a talk I gave on 2025/11/5 about how the expectations of good engineering management have shifted as the macroeconomic environment has shi... "Good engineering management" is a fad

thanks for this guide @Lethain
www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJl...

what made us good engineering leaders in 2025 may not be what we will need in 2026...

however, these 8 fundamental leadership skills will remain the same... and if you have ever wondered: "am i a good leader?", self-assessing these skills will help you to find the answer...