Welcome

Welcome to Leading with Spoons, adriennefriend‘s new home.

Leading with Spoons picks up where Coding with Knives left off, telling the story of a developer turned leader of developers.

I started Coding with Knives in 2014 to share my story of learning to code, and it helped me launch my career as a developer. In 2017 I became Director of Engineering at Juice Analytics, where I lead our platform and ops teams. I’ve been able to put what I learned as an engineer to work building high-performing teams with trust, transparent processes, creative freedom and ownership, and a strong sense of purpose. My goal is to enable, empower, and inspire developers to do the best work of their lives.

Why spoons?

First, the obvious: to keep the theme going. (Coding with Knives… Leading with Spoons…). It’s also a reference to my roots: I’m a career-changer chef turned developer who got her start at tech conferences talking about learning to code with cooking metaphors. And as much as I love a knife, my secret favorite utensil is the gentle, versatile spoon. Spoons deliver ice cream, corn chowder, crème brûlée and curry in equal measure. And besides, you can’t eat off a knife. (Except when you do, and you look terrifying.)

If you’re familiar with Spoon Theory–the disability metaphor that describes how chronic illness and disability depletes energy available for daily life and work–you’ll absolutely hear resonance here. Many of us in tech have already lost a number of spoons before we even sit down at the keyboard. As an engineering manager, my goal is to help my engineers retain spoons at work by offering practical people-focused leadership, guidance, and support. At Leading with Spoons, I’ll help you learn how.

Topics to come include:

• Strategies for efficient meetings, from standup to sprint planning
• How to create a sense of shared destiny on your team
• Effective 1:1s
• Inclusive hiring processes
• Mentoring engineers of all experience levels
• Repairing relationships between teams
• Career conversations
• Onboarding new engineers
• Features of psychologically safe teams
• Performance reviews, improvement plans, and other hard conversations
• The on-call experience
• Celebrating successes

And hey, maybe I’ll even share a few recipes along the way.

Welcome to Leading with Spoons. I’m glad you’re here.