Dan Na

he/him/his. discriminate tastebuds, crossover dribble, iced coffee. mediocre golfer. dad. engineering @squarespace. @[email protected].

[Dan Na @dxna]

Happy to share a video (finally!) of "Pushing Through Friction" from SREcon19 EMEA / Web Unleashed 2019. This is my favorite talk that I've ever delivered.

If you've ever felt frustrated at a company in the midst of enormous growth, this talk is for you.

https://t.co/vpGuRCY8R3

[Dan Na @dxna]

Two properties I admire most in coworkers are ownership and urgency.

Ownership: "No matter what, excuses aside, this is on me."

Urgency: "What’s the point in doing this if we’re not going to do it as well as we can?"

More here: https://t.co/rBPrGww2Ab

[Dan Na @dxna]

Have you ever received a non generic annual review that legitimately acknowledged your effort, accomplishments and growth areas? That you felt was fair, substantive, challenging and encouraging? It’s awesome.

[Dan Na @dxna]

There is a necessary evolution that happens eventually as a manager when the burden to write reviews becomes the privilege to write reviews.

[Dan Na @dxna]

People sharing Spotify Wrapped screenshots in slack is the true measure of a team’s psychological safety

[Dan Na @dxna]

@Jonnytron 💪💪💪

[Dan Na @dxna]

Happy to share a video (finally!) of "Pushing Through Friction" from SREcon19 EMEA / Web Unleashed 2019. This is my favorite talk that I've ever delivered.

If you've ever felt frustrated at a company in the midst of enormous growth, this talk is for you.

https://t.co/vpGuRCY8R3

[Dan Na @dxna]

Exploring some of the real pitfalls of vulnerability avoidance in leadership roles - including archetypes I call “The Tyrant” and “The Pushover”, the Peter Principle management theory, and the unwillingness to even deliver positive feedback.

https://t.co/xpWMRnazhN

[Dan Na @dxna]

When teams want to change others' behavior (for code quality, test coverage, a11y, perf, etc), they often reach for "education/inspiration."

It doesn't work.

My advice: “If you want to change engineer behavior, don’t change hearts, change workflows.”

https://t.co/hl8fP4FyYS

[Dan Na @dxna]

Wrote some thoughts and takeaways from this podcast recording, including my two favorite responses around (1) how I explain the resonance of the manager track and (2) the three expectations I have of my own performance: https://t.co/3OvxAlUqqr

[Dan Na @dxna]

Thanks to Patrick Kua for the opportunity to record a podcast for the first time!

[Dan Na @dxna]

@simpixelated @eleven_ty I just truly hate changing tools at this point. Just let me write markdown!!

[Dan Na @dxna]

Intention: Write blog post, make some small site updates

Reality: 48 hours googling how to update Ruby/docker dependencies to get my jekyll build working again bc the build kept borking on Vercel

sigh

[Dan Na @dxna]

This is probably one of the biggest “more art than science” parts about moving to a role where you manage managers rather than ICs.

[Pat Kua @patkua]

Nobody enjoys being "micromanaged", and a key part to #ManagingManagers is to create space for your managers to thrive. Listen to @dxna talk about how he thinks about this.

[Dan Na @dxna]

why leadership roles get increasingly imprecise as titles increase, how I evaluate my own performance, why I love parental leave as a humane/generous employe benefit, how I think about growing new managers, and why being a manager feels like a different planet than being an IC.

[Dan Na @dxna]

Thanks to Patrick Kua for the opportunity to record a podcast for the first time!

[Pat Kua @patkua]

I'm pleased to share yet another episode of the #ManagingManagers podcast, this time with Dan Na. I've really appreciated a lot of his writing on his blog (https://t.co/GDpG8wVYYk).

[Dan Na @dxna]

Upon a re-listen I'm happy that it accurately captured my feelings on a range of topics. We covered a lot of ground: the story of the evolution of International Engineering at Squarespace, why I view management as a career calling (and how I suck at guitar),

[Pat Kua @patkua]

I'm pleased to share yet another episode of the #ManagingManagers podcast, this time with Dan Na. I've really appreciated a lot of his writing on his blog (https://t.co/GDpG8wVYYk).

[Dan Na @dxna]

@superlativest Cam and I are in a small group

[Dan Na @dxna]

Made a google sheet allocating expenses across a trip to Disney with 11 people. Different nightly stays, nuanced distributed costs. And man do I feel ALIVE

… yes, I am very weird in exactly this way

[Dan Na @dxna]

@gleebix makes me appreciate this place even more, tbh

[Dan Na @dxna]

Disneyworld prevailing thoughts:

1. A bathroom every 5min is brilliant
2. Stroller parking is an unspoken honor code that nobody appears to violate
3. The single thing that unites an amazingly diverse crowd is the desire for our kids to feel magic. They do, and it’s worth it.