Eric Merritt

Eric Merritt

Seattle, WA
CTO and engineering leader. Self-taught from books. Co-author of Erlang and OTP in Action. Creator of the Dao of Delivery. Writes at The Desk Reference.
06
Mar
Doctests for Ocaml

Doctests for Ocaml

You can test in the small, validate the code in your documentation, encourage testing, and get better documentation by leveraging MDX, a doctest-like tool for OCaml.
3 min read
29
Oct
Coding is a bad habit

Coding is a bad habit

Don't fall back on your engineering skills when you face challenges. You can't code your way out of organizational issues.
4 min read
22
Nov
Magic in the Mundane: Compounding Interest For Organizations

Magic in the Mundane: Compounding Interest For Organizations

There is magic in mundane processes applied with discipline. Use RCAs and processes to massively improve your world.
7 min read
08
Feb
Productivity Plow, Clear a Path to Success

Productivity Plow, Clear a Path to Success

Organizations build out teams around 'Engineering Productivity.' It takes fundamental changes to the organization's structure and a management to improve productivity.
8 min read
04
Dec
Get Your Teams to Estimate Well

Get Your Teams to Estimate Well

Technologists hate estimating. They know that any estimate they give is wrong, and that makes the team look bad. That is our fault. We ask the team to provide us with estimates that are both precise and accurate.
8 min read
23
Nov
Set up Your Engineering Teams for Success

Set up Your Engineering Teams for Success

Organizations need to be comprised of agile, autonomous teams that can deliver with minimal coordination with other teams. Those teams must plan work, solve problems, make decisions, and review progress in service of a specific set of projects and services.
8 min read
16
Nov
Happy People Know What's Going On

Happy People Know What's Going On

You must communicate change for it to be effective. Randomly mentioning it to a direct is not enough. Learn to communicate change effectively with low overhead.
6 min read
09
Nov
Use Job Descriptions to Build Great Culture

Use Job Descriptions to Build Great Culture

Job descriptions can be culture carriers. Done right, they give your team a concise nugget of culture that is both actionable and useful — a razor for day-to-day decision-making, hiring, or any area where you need a guide for behavior.
15 min read
03
Nov
How to Decide to Fire

How to Decide to Fire

Firing is easy when someone is misbehaving. It is much harder when they are performing inconsistently. How do you know when to fire?
6 min read
26
Oct
Use the Right Lever for Successful Change

Use the Right Lever for Successful Change

Successful change requires doing the right thing, in the right place, at the right time. It requires the using the right lever with the right pivot point.
11 min read