How to Identify Efforts that Make a Big Impact When Building Software Products | Edmond Lau

If you’re a technical person, such as an engineer or designer, then your todo list is probably filled with product launches, bug fixes, interviewing candidates, attending meetings, answering emails, and fighting fires.

The daily grind can leave you wondering if the work that you do is actually worthwhile and makes a big impact.

While it’s easy for people to tell us to work smarter, not harder, the bulk of the work still falls on our shoulders, and it often feels like the only way to get it all done is to put in more hours!

In today’s episode of FemgineerTV, we’re going to tackle your todo list. We’ll talk about how you can identify activities that will make a big impact for your organization, your team, and yourself, and how to feel good about deprioritizing those that don’t!

For expert guidance, I’ve invited Edmond Lau, who is the author of the new book The Effective Engineer. Edmond has worked as an engineer at big companies like Google and growth-stage startups like Ooyala, Quora, and, most recently, Quip. While he onboarded and mentored many new engineers at work, he discovered which habits, techniques, and mindsets set them up for success early on (read: huge impact in less time).

Edmond will help us identify common myths about productivity in software development that hold us back from making a big impact. We’ll also share our favorite framework for evaluating how much impact our activities and tasks actually have, using the concept of leverage.

Watch the episode and learn:

1. Why it’s important to focus on more than just technical skills
2. Why you shouldn’t drop everything to satisfy a request
3. Why you should dedicate time to activities like automation as well as mentoring and onboarding new employees

If you find yourself drowning in tasks and feel like you’re not making the kind of impact you want to make, then you’ll want to watch this episode!

After you’ve watched the video, let us know what your favorite part of the episode was in the blog comments here: femgineer.com/?p=7197