How to crush your Daily Standups[Technique Tuesdays]

For anybody looking to be succesful in as a developer/coder of any kind, this is crucial.

Jul 12, 2022

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So you want to be a software engineer at Google? Since you’re here, there’s a good chance that you will end up in one of the big organizations. But there’s a lot more, to these organizations than the amazing salary, prestige, and perks.

One of the very interesting things that I have heard about these large companies is that they are sticklers for processes. At their scale, it can be impossible to track the process of teams and organizations without having a standaridzed process. One such process is the Daily Standup is a daily meeting where the development team informs each other about the current status of their work with regard to the sprint goal. The name comes from the fact that they are meant to done standing up (thus updates are short and concise).

I came across a very insightful breakdown by Rahul Pandey (shared below), about what makes a good standup update. He contrasts a bad (no insight given) update to a great one (lots insight). As developers looking to build a strong career in software engineering, this is a topic that is crucial to everyone.

Highlights

The video covers shares the following process of how

Give details- Don’t just say what you did. Talk about your decision making process, who you’re working with, important information (deadlines/external facors), and maybe share one or two technical details.
Involve more stakeholders- Remember the mantra that is stressed in this newsletter, “You’re not paid to write code/solve technical problems, you’re paid to have an impact.” Talking about how your work would impact other people down the line is a great way to invite people to collaborate with you and build better projects.
Understand/Express the why- This is an extension on the other ideas. Just wanted to stress this. As an engineer, it is crucial to know why you’re being asked to solve a problem. This will provide you with additional context, that will allow you to create more indepth solutions. Naturally, this requires an understanding of both the Computer Science and the Economics of your project. If only there was a newsletter that covered all those concept :)

Don’t underestimate how much participating well in a standup can help you. Rahul already shares a fantastic example of how participating in the standup can help your manager/colleagues understand exactly you’re working on. This will allow them to recommend you to any interesting opportunities they come across.

For a more detailed post on how you can improve your communication and network with well positioned individuals, check out the post How I got a USD 100/hour offer at 21[Storytime Saturdays].

Amazing career advice and results for all involved. Come try out the premium subscription for 2 months at no risk to you. If you don’t like it, **ALL money back**.

Notice that many of the points that Rahul mentioned were similar to the ones I shared in my guide on writing good documentation in Machine Learning. This is because even though the context may be different, the principles of good communication stay consistent. If you want me to do a more detailed look at that, let me know in the comments below/by replying to this email.

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