In this series, we have looked at what it takes to build a great Engineering Team. This post is going to be a little different as we chat with Angie Terrell to get some of her thoughts on the topics shared thus far. Angie is the director of the Design team at Big Nerd Ranch, where she is also a Design Bootcamp instructor. Angie has been leading the Design team for over three years now and continues to push Big Nerd Ranch to excellence in all of the disciplines of Design for Digital Product Development.

In Part One, we talked about how the first step in building a great team is starting with yourself as a leader. Can you share some insights on how you lead yourself? What are some daily rhythms or disciplines that help you as a leader stay sharp, balanced and ready to lead?

Knowing yourself is key to being a leader. This means knowing things like your values, your strengths, your weaknesses, and your expectations.

It’s very difficult, if not impossible, to try to lead a team while trying to become someone you are not or attempting to embody values that you don’t believe in. If you think that others need you to be someone you are not, this will create an inherent tension and it simply does not work.

Also on a daily basis, I try to tune into when I’m not my best, either because of stress or not sticking to a regular schedule. On those days, I just have to be honest with myself and perhaps delegate more or set the sails down for a bit.

So how do I really come to authentically know myself? I meditate and I journal frequently. I would like to say I do this every day, but it’s more like 3-5 times a week depending on my schedule. No matter how frequently, it always helps me investigate what I feel, what I truly believe, what I can do, and what I cannot do. As a leader, it’s incredibly important to know what you should not do and what you cannot do. And then empower others to do those things.

In Part Two, we talked about building a team begins with who you currently have. Can you share from your experience what it is like to inherit a team? How did you navigate that season, build relationships and set your current team members up for success?

When you inherit a team, you are getting people that worked for the previous leader. The team was picked and shaped by that leader. That leader may not resemble you at all. So the first thing you need to do is assess the team’s expectations, their desires, and their goals. Learn as much as you can about the people individually and how the team functions together. For the first month or two, you should be observing, inquiring, and learning as much as you can. All the while, you can be shaping your vision for the team.

At some point, you need to assess whether the individuals on your team are aligned with your vision. It’s normal to find that someone doesn’t exactly fit with your vision or is performing in such a way that does not meet your expectations. It’s a good idea to have a frank conversation with that person as soon as you’ve been able to articulate your vision clearly and expectations clearly.

In Part Three our focus was on Hiring, building your team from the outside. What stories can you share from your experience on hiring Designers, any systems you use and advise you may have for others who are in this hiring season as a leader?

Determining skills are the first gateway by which a prospect will get an interview. Depending on the level of Designer we are looking for (Junior, Mid, Senior), there is a baseline of skills that one must have to qualify. That is mainly determined by someone’s portfolio. A polished, professional portfolio is essential to even get in the door.

After skills, communication is essential for a Designer at Big Nerd Ranch. In my experience, the ability to effectively communicate determines whether you succeed as a designer or not. So much of our job requires communication – communicating designs, understanding and inquiring into features, interviewing users, and so forth. It is much harder for me to teach effective communication than technical design skills. So if someone is lacking in one area, let’s say, user testing, yet they are an effective communicator, I will pick them any day. What makes someone an effective communicator? That could be an entire blog post of its own. But I look for someone who listens well and asks good questions.

Finally, in Part Four we spent some time exploring the idea of retention and it is not just important to build a great team but you also have to retain it. As a leader, this is something we focus on all of the time so can you share a little bit of how you create an environment where your team members want to stick around? What are some things that leaders can begin doing today that will ensure the future is one their team wants to be a part of?

It’s important that your team connect on things that are not necessarily work-related. Our team frequently shares articles or designs we like, things that make us laugh. We go to lunch together. When we’re in the office together, we spend time just laughing or talking. In the Design area at BNR, we created a space for our team that is comfortable and cozy, where we can gather together or just sit on the couch with our laptops. Most of the designers had a hand in rearranging our area, so they feel that it is theirs. The team genuinely likes each other.

As for my direct involvement with each individual, I have weekly 1:1s and we do bi-annual reviews. I am constantly aware of how they might want to grow in their career and what they want to learn. I try my best to provide any opportunity for that learning and growth.

As we wrap on our series, I hope this has been helpful as we think about building our teams. I want to thank Chris and Angie for their help in this article and partnership in leading the Engineering and Design teams at Big Nerd Ranch.

The post Building a Great Engineering Team: Part Six – Q&A with Angie Terrell appeared first on Big Nerd Ranch.

In this series, we have looked at what it takes to build a great Engineering Team. This post is going to be a little different as we chat with Chris Stewart to get some of his thoughts on the topics shared thus far. Chris is the director of the Android team at Big Nerd Ranch, where he is also an Android Bootcamp instructor. Chris co-authored the best selling Big Nerd Ranch guide on Android Programming and has been leading the Android Engineering team for over five years.

In Part One, we talked about how the first step in building a great team is starting with yourself as a leader. Can you share some insights on how you lead yourself? What are some daily rhythms or disciplines that help you as a leader stay sharp, balanced and ready to lead?

There are a few things that I do every day to make sure I’m at my best for the team.

I’ve found reading to be a great way to learn. My focus is mostly on management and leadership books, but I also read some biography and fiction from time to time. I’m an early riser and there are no distractions when I get up. I’ll pour a cup of coffee and read for a while each morning. I’ve also found that taking notes (even if I don’t read them in the future) has made me a much more active reader and helps me to retain the most important points from the books I read.

Once I arrive at work, I start each day with some planning. I have a notebook and turn to a fresh page every morning. I will copy over long-term goals from the previous day’s page along with short-term todo items. As the day goes on and new tasks pop up, I will record those as well in my notebook. I’ve found that the act of writing things down in my notebook helps me to prioritize my work, feel at ease that I won’t forget something important, and allows me to think about both short-term and long-term goals.

Finally, it’s important to recognize that we all have good days and bad days. I’ve seen that my diet has a big impact on my mood. To operate at my best, I eat breakfast every morning and never miss eating an early lunch. Ask anyone in the office at Big Nerd Ranch, and they’ll tell you how dedicated I am to eating lunch at 11:30 every day.

In Part Two, we talked about building a team begins with who you currently have. Can you share from your experience what it is like to inherit a team? How did you navigate that season, build relationships and set your current team members up for success?

In my experience, when inheriting a team, it takes time to get to know the people on that team and to build trust. It’s important to recognize that this is an uneasy time for the team because they have a new leader who may want to change the way things are done and who may want to evaluate people on the team in a different way than they are used to. Take time to build trust first before making any significant changes to the way that the team works.

For some people, building trust can take a long time. It’s important to prove that you genuinely care about the wellbeing and desires of the people on the team. Talk to people and have conversations that touch on why they come into work each morning. Find opportunities to get everyone closer to where they want to go. I’d also suggest rolling up your sleeves and doing some of the jobs that nobody wants to do. This does not mean you should try to do someone else’s job, but it is important to show the team that you would not ask someone to do something that you wouldn’t do yourself.

As you’re building trust and understanding of the team, take note of things that are going well on that team and things that could be improved. Be sure to recognize and highlight the strengths of the team. Offer ideas for improvement and make sure that the team agrees with any significant changes before they are made.

In Part Three our focus was on Hiring, building your team from the outside. What stories can you share from your experience on hiring Developers, any systems you use and advise you may have for others who are in this hiring season as a leader?

To hire great people, you first need to bring in great candidates. At Big Nerd Ranch, we’re motivated by helping others learn a new skill. Through our work teaching and helping to build a community of developers, we connect with candidates who either learned from us or share the same drive that we do.

Once great candidates apply, we place a huge emphasis on how well those candidates work on a team. No matter how good a candidate’s skill set is, if he or she cannot work well with others they are not a good fit for the long-term needs of your team. We also work to understand what a candidate’s aptitude is along with their current skill set. A candidate may not bring the needs you have today, but if they have a strong aptitude to learn, they may quickly meet and then exceed your expectations.

Finally, I’ve worked to make sure that everyone on the team can have a chance to meet and evaluate each candidate before they are offered a job. Taking the candidate out to lunch is a great way to include people on the team who aren’t in an actual interview. At the end of the interview, we meet as a team to discuss if this person is the right fit to take us to where we want to go.

Finally, in Part Four we spent some time exploring the idea of retention and it is not just important to build a great team but you also have to retain it. As a leader, this is something we focus on all of the time so can you share a little bit of how you create an environment where your team members want to stick around? What are some things that leaders can begin doing today that will ensure the future is one their team wants to be a part of?

It’s important that you find some way as a leader to celebrate team success. One fun thing that we do on my team is celebrate completed projects with a project “trophy”. When a project is completed, I will find some kind of artwork that is tangentially related to the project and then gift that piece of artwork to the team. Now, our office is filled with mementos of past projects.

Celebrating success goes a long way, but to me, the most important thing you can do is build a team culture that people want to be a part of. You want to have a reason for people to be on your team that isn’t just a paycheck. If people are able to grow more than they would be elsewhere and are able to help other people on the team do more than they thought they could, then you have a winning combination.

Any final thoughts?

I think it’s important for leaders to recognize that the reason they are in the position that they are in is because of the people on the team. If you focus on making the team and people on the team as successful as possible, then your success will follow.

Thanks Chris for taking time to weigh in on this topic and our next post will be another Q&A coming to you from our Director of Design, Angie Terrell.

The post Building a Great Engineering Team: Part Five – Q&A with Chris Stewart appeared first on Big Nerd Ranch.

Part of building something great is building it to last. No one builds a home for a season, and the same is true for your Engineering team. Retaining your team for the long haul is no easy task, but it is imperative that as a leader it is a priority. Let’s take a look at a few things you can do to retain your excellent Engineering team.

First Things First

There are seasons in life. In one season your team may be the right fit, and in another, it will not be. Family, health and life events will cause people on your team to go. Take a deep breath and be okay with some of your team coming and going…it happens. It is unavoidable and healthy for people to come and go, that’s not the focus here. What we want to focus on are the things we can control, let’s take a look at three areas I think will help you improve retention if you begin to prioritize them.

Bigger Picture

People will stick with your team if you invite them into something bigger than themselves. Most people call this vision, but whatever you call it, there must be a bigger narrative running through the day to day job for people to stick around. Profitability is fantastic, working with cool technology is fun, but all of that can lose shine after a while.

In my career, I have personally taken less money to stay at a company because their mission and vision was compelling. I’ve seen countless others choose careers because the cause was worthy.

What vision are you painting for your team members? Knowing this could unlock a longer tenure for the team you are building.

Work-Life Balance

One thing I hope to see change in the next 10 years is the culture around Engineering work-life balance shift from a grind to one that is sustainable. We all work hard, but we can also work smart. You’ve probably seen it and hopefully are not one pushing the agenda, but this churn of overworking people, extracting as much as you can from them and cycle them on is killing our industry’s ability to retain top talent. Pulling 60-80 hour weeks is not a badge of honor, it is a signal that a crash is looming.

At Big Nerd Ranch, one of our aims is to create balance in how we work hard and how we serve our customers. We accomplish this by offering a generous PTO and Professional Development package. We want our people to invest in themselves, whether it is getting away for the week to learn or play, finding a balance in life is essential for retention.

Another way we try to accomplish this is by offering remote work. Not only does this allow us to recruit from outside of our Atlanta footprint, but it also allows us to compete with the best in our industry for talented individuals who want to be able to live outside of the valley. Remote work has boomed in the last ten years with more and more companies offering the ability to work from anywhere. Perhaps for your company, it starts as a couple of days a week from the same state and blooms into multi-state recruiting. Whatever the case may be, give it a try, watch productivity and morale soar and reap the retention benefits.

Make Them Better

My last word of encouragement on the topic of retaining a great team center around making your people better. I’ll never forget one interaction early on in my career with a former boss. We were talking about allowing employees to go to conferences and training events. The boss could not fathom spending all of this money and having someone leave, and I could not fathom saving all of the money and having them stay.

What I’m trying to say here is that the more you invest in your team, the better they will be and in the long run the more likely to stick around. Investment in others is why at Big Nerd Ranch we believe so much in training. It’s not always about learning a new skill it is also about sharpening them. What investments are you making in your team in the short term that will keep them around for the long term? Perhaps you cannot afford training, but what about a book or a screencast? A little goes a long way here. Start small, let it snowball and reap the benefits of investing in your people.

Final Thoughts

Retention is more about doing the right things than a formula. No matter what you do, there are seasons of life that will take people to and from your team. Focus on what you can control as a leader, invest and develop with intentionality and see the team you are building gain lasting power.

In Part Five, we are going to hear from some of our other leaders at Big Nerd Ranch as they share some of their thoughts on Building a Great Engineering Team. I cannot wait for you to hear from them and I know you will benefit significantly from their perspective.

The post Building a Great Engineering Team: Part Four – Retention appeared first on Big Nerd Ranch.

In Parts One and Two of our series, we looked at leading yourself well as the leader and building with the team you have today. Now let’s turn our eyes towards hiring new team members and some strategies that have worked for my team here at Big Nerd Ranch.

Hire for Character

“I’ve always believed you hire character and train skill.” – Lori Greiner

More than a great quote, I have found this to be imperative when hiring anyone to join your team. It is very easy to over-index on skill when making an Engineering hire. We often fall in love with puzzles, complex formulas, and code that blows our mind while neglecting to see who the person actually is.

One of the ways we guard against this at Big Nerd Ranch is by hiring with specific values in mind. Our values are Brilliant, Curious, Hardworking, Accountable, Kind and Authentic. Whatever values your company hold should be evaluating criteria for each hire you make. Our founder, Aaron Hillegass, once told me to make sure you are hiring people who could come hang out with my family for a few weeks. This might sound odd but if you know the value of kindness that we hold in high esteem then this makes perfect sense.

Are you hiring with character in mind? Are you too focused on skill and find yourself overlooking traits that clash with your values? Knowing where you are on these fronts will go a long way in helping you build a great team.

Build a Hiring Team

One way to ensure you make great hires is to not isolate yourself in the process. Far too many leaders make hiring decisions in a vacuum instead of building a team. Sure you might get lucky on a few hires but hiring in isolation does not scale and will set you up for failure. A better option is to build a team to help you hire, here’s what I’ve done at Big Nerd Ranch.

If you have an HR department, then start there. Our Director of HR, Katie Torres, has been one of if not the leading reasons we have a lot of success in hiring here at Big Nerd Ranch. Katie is our first line of defense when it comes to scheduling, phone screens and being an ambassador for the culture and values we hold dear. Finding out what each other’s strengths allow us to set up a process that succeeds.

The next place to look is to your leaders within your team. Who are the people on your team that can test character and skill in others? For my team, I like to involve Senior leaders who either lead people or projects. Some have past hiring experience or specific experience in the skill we are looking for.

Instead of asking one person to carry a lot of outcomes, split it up amongst 3-4 people. Each receives a specific goal when interviewing to focus his or her conversation. The more exposure the candidate has the better. If you find the majority of your team saying the same thing about a candidate then it is likely true, good or bad.

Build a Process

When hiring, you want to have a process that is reproducible so that you can duplicate hiring great people without reinventing the wheel each time. Now that you have a solid team to help you, let’s look at the process we use at Big Nerd Ranch and how you can adopt a similar one to be successful.

Pre Team Phase

• First, build an application that gets a lot of information up front. Our application includes a resume, cover letter, and a questionnaire. This information allows us to identify the right candidates without a lot of time invested.
• Next, I vet applications that come through and rank them for phone screens.
• After that, Katie will phone screen them asking specific questions that help us identify value fit that builds off our initial application. Once Katie documents her call, we pair on who the right candidates are to move forward.
• Last, I meet with each candidate that makes it past the phone screen with a video call to continue our assessment and help them understand

Team Phase

• Assign outcomes to each team member. We focus on leadership, culture and technical skill during these phases. We are looking for people who lead themselves well, fit within our values and have the problem-solving ability we are looking for.
• Collect interview feedback from each team member. You are not looking for notes that talk about what happened during the interview. You are looking for indicators that your criteria are being met and the gut feelings for each interviewee.
• Our last phase is to collect personal references for character and a writing sample. Once again, when you find people saying the same things about who you are hiring that is a good sign. Also, written communication is so important to what we do that validating writing not only throughout the process but especially at the end confirms if we are identifying for the right candidate.

Final Thoughts

There is a lot more I can share, but hiring for character, with a team and a clear process are a few steps that will ensure the team you are building will be great. We did not touch on sourcing candidates, that’s another blog for another day, but I will say this goes a long way to ensure you are building a diverse and talented team.

Hiring is tricky, you will not get it perfect but you can set yourself up for success by deploying some of these steps. Take a look at your process today, how healthy is it? Is there a process? These should be indicators about what you need to work on next.

In Part 4 we are going to look at retention. Now that you are working on yourself, building from the team you have today and hiring great additions, you will want to keep your team. In this competitive industry, this can be hard, but there are a few things you can begin doing today to ensure the team you build will last.

The post Building a Great Engineering Team: Part Three – Hiring appeared first on Big Nerd Ranch.

In Part 2 of our series, we are going to look at building our team with the team you have today. When I joined Big Nerd Ranch in 2016, I inherited a tremendous team and odds are you probably did as well. The difference between where we were then and where we are today is what I want to explore together.

Start with who you have

When you inherit a team you inherit not only the people but you also get the culture and any baggage that comes along with that. It is imperative as leaders inheriting a team that we assess where we are so we can know where we need to go. One mistake a lot of leaders make when inheriting a team is forcing their culture and vision onto a group of people they do not know or understand. This is why you must get personal.

Get Personal

As a leader, it is impossible to lead people you do not know. I am not suggesting you have to be best friends with all of your team members, but you need to know the stories of your people. Who are they? What got them here? Why are they here? These types of questions will go a long way in informing your next steps.

When I joined Big Nerd Ranch, part of my first 90 days was making sure that I spent quality time with everyone on my team. I first prioritized time with my existing leaders who I would be directly responsible for but soon made my way through the entire team. Schedule 30-60 minutes, whatever your time allows, which each team member and listen. Did you get that? Listen. Come in with questions but ultimately let those questions guide the conversation so that you can hear from them. The goal in these conversations is not to make them hear from you, trust me, they will get that soon enough.

Assess Strategic Direction & Systems

Most teams do not lack strategic direction, they actually have too much of it. I would wager that the team you are inheriting is not underwhelmed by the prior leader but overwhelmed by all they have to deliver on. The typical team commits to too many things, under delivers because of poor systems in place to support.

At Big Nerd Ranch, we say “yes” to very little as an Engineering Team and that is strategic. If you could only say “yes” to one thing as a team, what would it be? The answer to this for you and the team you inherit should be clarifying. For us the answer is multiple but it all rolls up into one idea: leading ourselves well.

At Big Nerd Ranch, my team commits to three things that accelerate our ability to lead ourselves well.

• Weekly, 30 Minute, 1:1’s.
• Weekly, 30-60 Minute, Team Meetings.
• Weekly, 30 Minute, Pair Programming.

1:1’s

Our time in 1:1’s allows each leader to invest in a team member to build a personal relationship. It is amazing how a little bit of personal understanding will allow us to execute better on the professional front. As a leader, you should want each team member to feel seen, heard and valued. The 1:1 allows for so many things, that’s a blog for another day, but if we can provide those three things, add guidance and goal setting into the mix, everyone will begin to lead him or herself well.

Team Meetings

Our team meetings are more gathering than a meeting. The goal for this time is to foster community. Some groups read together, some groups just hang and chat, other still do programming quizzes. The variety is intentional, there is no prescribed approach for how it should be done but there is that goal: community. If our team members feel the support of their colleagues, that wind at their back and safety net when needed will be catalytic towards our goal.

Pair Programming

I hesitate to use the word programming here because not all pairing requires a code editor. This time together is something we prioritize because we place a high value on the ability to problem solve and communicate complex thinking. If you and I can spend 30 minutes together going over something we are facing, ask questions around it and explore it together that is going to make the both of us better. We alternate weekly the responsibility of bringing a question so that we can exercise different muscles. The hat of the student and the hat of the teacher is something we share and that creates a wonderful dynamic.

However you do it, building relationships both individually and collectively through 1:1’s, Team Meetings and Pairing are essentially building blocks of our system to accomplish our goal and strategic direction.

Empower others

You’ve probably heard me say this quite a bit in other forums but I think it is so important that I will say it again here.

“Your greatest contribution to your organization may not be something you do but someone you empower. Identifying, developing and empowering your team members will allow you to dream bigger and achieve more.”

You do not scale, but your leadership can. Be sure that as you begin to get to know the team you inherited that you are identifying who can help you lead. What are their strengths, what could you give them ownership of today that would accelerate their growth and the growth of the team? Asking these types of questions will unlock potential you did not know was there.

Most leaders obsess over the best strategy but the best leaders obsess over their team, who they are developing and empowering. Lasting success for any organization is not built upon a great strategy, it is built upon a great team. Who are you developing and empowering today? If the answer is no one, stop everything and begin, it will unlock you in ways you never imagined.

Final Thoughts

Inheriting a team can be one of the most difficult things we do as a leader. Not only do you inherit people you did not hire, you get their culture, history, and everything that comes with it. Instead of focusing on the problems this can present, focus on the opportunity that is there. Build from the existing team you have, get to know the people and begin identifying who you can empower. As you assess the strategic goals and systems in place, find the wins, use what we do here at Big Nerd Ranch if you would like…but whatever you do, be authentic. The team you inherit will take time to mold into the one you want, but that is true for any new hire as well. Remember, culture is not built on accident it is built intentionally.

Part 3

In the next part of this series, we are going to focus a little more on hiring. How do you add the right people to your team to make sure you are building a great engineering team? In this part, I will share some of my experience having hired 29 people in the last 23 months here at Big Nerd Ranch, our process, how we built a team to handle this and much more.

The post Building a Great Engineering Team: Part Two – Start With Who You Have appeared first on Big Nerd Ranch.

At Big Nerd Ranch, we love helping Engineering teams and their leaders dream big and achieve more. As the leader of our iOS & Web teams here at the Ranch, one of the questions I am always evaluating is “how do we build a great team?” In this series, I am going to share some of my current thoughts around this topic that I believe will make your team more effective whether you are the leader or contributor. Let’s start with one thing we can control and predict, you.

Start With You

Your team’s ability to thrive is directly related to how you are thriving as a leader. Your greatest contribution to the team you lead is leading yourself well.

Why? Because a great team is composed of a diverse group of individuals who are all leading themselves well. If you want to see any behavior in your team you have to first see it in yourself. Be what you want to see.

When I first joined Big Nerd Ranch, I knew I wanted to see our team serve one another and fight for each individual’s common good. To do this, you have to build personal relationships and let those on your team know that you care. And so that is what I set out to immediately do. I wanted to get to know my team, spend time with them, build rapport not for the sake of control but for influence. Great teams are not controlled by its leaders, they are empowered and influenced by them.

Maximize Your Yes

As a leader, there seems to be a never-ending to-do list. It is quite possible to start the day with a set of objectives that have them completely turned upside down due to that day’s events. This is why it is imperative that we make sure the things we are saying yes to are the best things. If 20% of your effort is netting you 80% of the results, do you know what that 20% is and is it maximized?

Most teams and leaders say yes to too many things. As a leader, we need to simplify what we are committing to. If you could only commit to one thing today, this week, this month, this year, what would it be?

By prioritizing our yes we can maximize the thing we are committed to. The level of success your team will achieve is impacted most by what you are willing to say no to. Let your noes inform your yes.

Hall of Fame Basketball Coach John Wooden says it like this, “do not mistake activity for achievement.” As a leader, make sure your day is filled with the right things and not just things. A full calendar does not demonstrate progress, an effective calendar does.

Progress > Perfection

I want to land this idea that to build a great engineering team you must start with you by saying where you are is where you are. It is very easy to get discouraged as a leader because we are not at some milestone we think we should have already passed. This can be defeating but please do not stop there.

The goal of every leader should be progress, not perfection. You will not be asking your teams to be perfect, so why expect that of yourself. Recognize where you are and begin to formulate a plan for how to grow into the leader you want. The way I like to say this is that I am trying to become a leader worth following. Every day, decision by decision, I want to become more worth following than I was yesterday. How do I do that? By ensuring that my level of leading does not exceed my level of living.

Here are a few practical steps:

• Avoid living in isolation – surround yourself with people who can speak life into you and provide guidance. It can be lonely at the top but it does not have to be.

• Invite feedback from people who are invested in you – as you surround yourself with people who lift you up, ask them for accountability. Blind spots are called that for a reason because we are blind to them. Do you have someone covering for you?

• Prioritize your physical, mental and emotional health – when I am failing as a leader it often comes back to one of these things. Leaders often eat last as Simon Sinek is famous for saying, but that does not mean we have to de-prioritize our health in the process. Fight for yourself, create a sustainable system for personal growth in these areas and watch your team thrive as a result.

Part 2

Now that we’ve looked at ourselves first, in the next part we will begin with the team we have today. Most leaders are hired and inherit a team. How do you make them great? How do you build from where you are today? If you are starting a team from scratch don’t worry, we will cover that in Part 3.

The post Building a Great Engineering Team: Part One – Start With You appeared first on Big Nerd Ranch.

The eyes of the world are on San Jose as thousands of developers, including half a dozen nerds, gathered for Apple’s annual World Wide Developer Conference. This year’s announcements did not feature any hardware updates but there were several software updates that you will want to keep your eye on. Let’s take a quick look at a few updates your engineering team will want to be aware of in the months ahead for Siri, CoreML, ARKit, and Swift. Finally, let’s also take a glance at a major opportunity in 2019 for bringing your iOS App to macOS with a few musings from yours truly.

Siri Shortcuts

With the advancements of Alexa & Google Home, it was only a matter of time before Apple opened up more of Siri. With Siri Shortcuts, Developers can open parts of their app for users to take advantage of. Apple showed off shortcuts involving ordering coffee and making travel plans. Siri can then suggest these actions, or shortcuts, to the user at a time they are likely to need them.

As you think about how your apps function, we encourage you to isolate core functionality and open up those abilities to your users to take advantage of with Siri Shortcuts.

CoreML 2 & ARKit 2

Machine Learning is evolving quickly and Apple today put another stake in the ground for it on their platforms. CoreML 2 comes with new training scenarios and faster processing for any application. Apple is encouraging us all to use Machine Learning even if we are not an “expert”.

Augmented Reality continues to be a focus for Apple with this update to ARKit. Persistent reality, shared experiences and object tracking are sure to give us Developers lots of toys to play around with.

Apple will also be releasing a new Measure app aimed at allowing you to measure physical objects in the real world using your iOS device. As a user this is a nice to have natively on the device but also gives Developers another hook into the average user’s life to begin showing off what Augmented Reality can do.

Swift 4.2

Xcode 10 will now only support Swift 3.0, 4.0 and 4.2. Apple is encouraging all developers to upgrade their code to 4.2 as 3.0 will be deprecated next year. With Swift 4.2, Apple touts significant improvements to compile times by utilizing various Debug and Release build settings. If you are not already on the Swift train, now is the time to jump to Swift 4.2 and be ready for Swift 5 in 2019.

iOS + macOS?

Uncharacteristically, Apple teased its Developers today with the announcement of being able to bring iOS apps to macOS in 2019. Apple is learning first hand how to do this with 4 App Releases for macOS: News, Stocks, Voice Memos and HomeKit. Apple’s hope is to learn from this experience to bring a better experience for all developers next year.

For now, we can sit back and relax but I would encourage you and your teams to begin thinking now how your iOS Application may work on the macOS so that you can be ready for the 2019 arrival of UIKit to macOS. With the potential of iOS apps flooding onto macOS, this should make 2019 a revival year for Apps on the Mac.

A few final thoughts

Not much changed today for your average user or Developer for that matter. Having installed iOS 12, I was hard-pressed to wonder if my family and friends would even notice it was running an updated version. This is a good thing because Apple wants this release to be all about performance and subtle feature improvements. It is definitely faster. Apple aimed at performance and that already shows.

For your Engineering team, the updates to iOS 12 should mostly be pain-free. I would encourage you to spend a lot of time integrating with Siri and the new Shortcuts features while giving real thought towards CoreML & ARKit. There are several improvements to Xcode, tooling workflow that you will enjoy. Editor improvements like code folding, over-scroll, source control as well as Instruments performance sharing should keep you and your team happy and more productive this cycle.

As always, we here at Big Nerd Ranch will be here to partner with you as you level up and look forward to seeing this week progress during the sessions.

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