Leo Kim

💡 AI doesn’t just change how code is written – it changes expectations and outcomes. In the final section of Jellyfish’s AI Adoption Guide, we explore how expectations for engineering leaders are evolving as AI becomes embedded across the SDLC. Because the organizations pulling ahead are treating AI as a transformation, not a tooling upgrade. Inside, you’ll explore: - Why AI adoption is quickly becoming a leadership mandate, not an option - How to balance ambitious goals with realistic expectations - What cultural investments are required to sustain long-term gains - How data can be used to align executives and engineering teams The teams that win in the AI era won’t just have better tools – they’ll have leaders who know how to guide change. Download today: https://lnkd.in/dut_6WpQ

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I'm not anti-meeting. I'm anti-wasting-expensive-time-with-the-wrong-people-talking-about-the-wrong-things meetings. The cost is enormous. Think about a 90-minute meeting with 12 people. Even at conservative salary estimates, that's thousands of dollars. And if only a few people actually need to be there? That cost adds up fast across a year. Here's what I ask teams to consider: Did we make any decisions? Do people know what to do next? Did everyone participate in some way? If the answer to any of those is no, you probably didn't need that meeting. Or at least not in that format, with those people. As you plan for next year, take a hard look at your standing meetings. Which ones are actually driving work forward?

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Platform engineering is the future 🚀 Developers are at the core of everything we do at PagerDuty 💚 Our latest collaboration with Spotify for Backstage brings PagerDuty’s industry-leading Incident Management directly into Backstage, the open platform reimagining developer experience. With the new PagerDuty Plugin for Backstage, devs can see incidents, on-call context, and service ownership right where they already work : Less dilution ; More focus. Let’s go 🎉 Read more 👇 https://lnkd.in/gnsq8Nr9

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I used to lead Forward Deployed Engineering teams at Palantir Technologies. If you're hiring FDEs, here’s what actually matters: → Customer empathy. Your FDEs will spend most of their time talking to non-technical stakeholders. They need to: • Break down complex concepts into simple language • Meet customers at their technical level • Ask great questions to uncover root problems → Technical skills alone won't cut it. The best FDEs are: • Deeply curious about new industries • Quick to jump into unfamiliar territory • Comfortable learning on the fly → (Most importantly) Look for autonomous executors. FDEs own the full cycle: - Problem discovery with customers - Solution scoping - Implementation planning - Building the actual solution This isn't your typical engineering role where specs come pre-defined. FDEs are a hybrid of customer success, product management, and engineering. They're running their own mini-startup within your company. Hire accordingly.

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Full delegation to autonomous teams is not a silver bullet. Sometimes, it’s just abdication. For the past 20 years, I’ve seen a recurring pattern: Leaders delegating too much responsibility, too early, under the guise of "empowerment." The result isn’t autonomy. It’s confusion. We need to stop treating leadership tools like they fit every situation. You cannot use the same approach for a Day 1 junior as you do for a 10-year veteran. This is where Situational Leadership comes in, a leadership method that's too underutilized. Situational leadership method requires you to assess the readiness of the individual or team you're leading: * Brand new on the job? Newcomers can rarely handle full delegation effectively. Instead leaders shouldn't shy back from suggesting direction and follow up frequently. * Fully ready and capable? High control is demotivating. A too directive style then becomes ineffective Even seasoned experts are helped by direction on a new assignment. Giving clear instructions to a senior hire isn't micromanagement; it’s alignment. It prevents slow onboarding and misaligned expectations. Don’t be afraid to be directive when the situation calls for it. But don’t get stuck there. What's your experience from overusing any of the leadership styles? What do you think about this subject? There are 4 styles: Directive, Coaching, Supporting, and Delegating. Notice that "Abdicating" isn't on that list.

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Simplicity at Scale - Why High Performance Shouldn’t Require High Complexity: Over the past six months, I’ve been leading a community coding bootcamp — an experience that’s been both humbling and eye-opening. Mentoring young developers has a way of making you revisit the fundamentals we often take for granted in software engineering. Through this journey, I found myself reflecting on a simple but powerful idea: Simplicity at Scale. The following questions surfaced .........(for full story click on the article) https://lnkd.in/dkEBBbuT #softwareengineering #performance #resilience #costreduction #rustlang

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The division into Product, Design, and Engineering was a detour. Marc Andreesen recently called what's emerging "super empowered individuals". Tomer Cohen calls them Full Stack Builders. The less optimistic term making the rounds is "role collapse." I think we're just returning to an older word: Builder. For most of human history, someone with a vision made it real. The craftsman who designed the chair also built it. Then came scale. Especially in software the number of steps and knowledge required to ship something simply grew beyond what one mind could hold. We needed specialists. Now the constraint is dissolving. People with the title "Designer" and "Product" can all do the same thing: ship a solution to production. They see something that should exist and make it real. When founders start companies, they don't dream of org charts. They don't want roles and dependencies and handoffs. They want a solution in the world. Now we can finally see a path to making that happen. Use AI. Be a Builder.

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Excited about today's PM Brief as it highlights why I’m really enjoying this project... 1️⃣ Teresa Torres wrote a fantastic summary of how LLMs work. If you’ve been curious but a little intimidated, it’s worth slowing down and really digesting it. 2️⃣ I pulled an insight from her piece and framed it around something directly actionable: how PMs should technically understand their own products. This is exactly the kind of benefit I want The PM Brief to deliver. Hope it resonates with you as well! Links in the comments... #ProductManagement

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I moved our product planning into a git repo. Not Jira. Not Notion. Not Google Docs. Markdown. Version controlled. Here’s what last week looked like: Pulled data from Jira, Amplitude, Slack, support. Drafted the cycle proposal. Had a planning call with our CEO. Fed the transcript to Claude Code. Minutes later: updated proposal. Priorities adjusted. Rationale captured. I reviewed the diff, made a few tweaks, merged it. Every decision now has a commit. Every shift has a diff. The whole team can see exactly what changed — and why. On a small team, leverage matters. Planning shouldn’t live across five tools. It should compound like code. I wrote up the full pattern — how we structured the repo, how AI fits in, and why this is working better than traditional PM workflows. Full post here: https://lnkd.in/gUiNEMha

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