About Customer Obsessed Engineering
This newsletter is about making the hard things in tech easy, and becoming a tech superstar who always exceeds expectations.
We’ll talk about career and technical advice, and if you’re a team lead, building blocks that keep your team focused on what matters. We’ll explore techniques for delivering successfully, always. And we’ll explore how to eliminate waste, and eradicate mistakes. Most of all, we’ll learn how to delight customers.
I’m a startup veteran, VP of Professional Services at Lightbend, and ex-Accenture Director. Today, I’m a CTO who’s passionate about building teams that always outperform.
Occasionally, I’ll post something about me. I like diving, sailing, biking, and baking.
Why “Customer Obsessed?”
So much of what I write is about overdelivering to your customer — whether that’s your boss, your business, or literally a customer that’s paying for product. It’s something I’ve come to care about deeply over my career, and along the way I’ve found a lot of engineering teams aren’t understanding or connecting here.
That’s why Customer Obsessed Engineering is about “delighting the customer,” and doing it with tactical, concrete actions that you can take every day. That’s what the Playbook is all about too.
If you’re looking for that secret weapon that guides you to success, then Customer Obsessed Engineering is for you.
What do you write about?
For paid subscribers, there’s the Delivery Playbook. If you’re a free subscriber, you’ll get limited previews of the playbook, but check out this free chapter to see what it’s all about. Then, there are weekly articles on career development and technology like these:
Plagued with problems getting to delivery? — solve them with a “steel thread"
How I became 3-4 times more efficient than my coworkers — & get more done!
Why being a hero isn’t great — how to really become invaluable
Please don’t share this online — the hidden risks of AI + social media
Shall we play a game? — upping your cybersecurity game
Stop measuring effort — McKinsey got developer productivity so wrong
Taking time to plan is not slowing down — on how engineers really accelerate
Faster, better with a product mindset — how to think about your team & product
Context switching is killing your gains — and how to get that time back
Features and flags — a great strategy to ship stuff faster
And a lot more, take a look in the archives.
What do free and paid subscribers get?
I write about an article a week. Articles are usually a few thousand words or more. I try to keep them short and accessible.
As a free subscriber you can read about half of all articles. You can go on reading as a free subscriber for as long as you like — and please, send me a note to let me know what you like, and what you’d like more of!
Paid subscribers get full access to the entirety of each article, as well as the full archives (which are temporarily open to everyone, as the body of work grows).
Also, paid subscribers get access to my Delivery Playbook, an in-depth exploration of how to create your own path to success that’s been validated with hundreds of customers.
Why should I subscribe?
If you’re in tech, you might be surprised how small improvements in communication, customer-facing skills, and interpersonal skills can really pay off. Likewise, technical execution is king. I firmly believe this newsletter, and the Delivery Playbook, will give you returns easily worth hundreds, if not thousands of times the cost of a subscription.
Many companies are eager to support employee growth and let employees expense this newsletter (ask your manager about an educational expense)!
Can I expense your newsletter?
You bet! I think that’s a great idea. If you need a starting point, try reaching out to your manager with this template.
And by the way, there are fantastic group discounts. Maybe your company wants to sponsor your whole team?
Why Boss Logic?
I wrote a short post about that. Boss Logic was my second startup (I joined four other founders), and dates back to the early 90’s. This was when Steve Jobs was building NeXT Computer, and we worked pretty closely with him.
It was a formative time for me, and one I remember fondly. I hung on to the domain name, and decided it was time to come full circle.
How do I get a receipt?
For a receipt go to settings, click on a newsletter, then billing history. The ellipse menu on that page has all the links you should need. There’s more information here.
Can I get a refund?
Yes, absolutely (within 30 days for an annual subscription, which I think is pretty fair). If you subscribed and just aren’t getting what you wanted out of the newsletter, or you just don’t like my humor, you can reply to any newsletter in your mailbox and contact me.
How do I change my email?
Take a look at this support page.
Can we get a group discount?
You bet! Group subscriptions are nicely discounted too!
So you sail, bike, dive?
I love all three, and love being outdoors and living a well-balanced, fit life. I’ll probably write the occasional article drawing inspiration here (like, that time we were in a huge storm off the coast of Florida, half my crew was violently ill, and the autopilot gave out… but, that’s a story for another time).
I’m glad you’re here, and I hope you find this newsletter insightful. I’ll be publishing about one article a week, more when I can — and, you’ll get the Playbook, an in-depth exploration of how to create your own path to success.
