How to hire normal engineers and help them do great work with Charity Majors from Honeycomb

About this episode

Rebecca talks with Charity Majors about engineering productivity and the importance of supporting normal engineers.

In this episode of Engineering Unblocked, Rebecca talks with Charity Majors, CTO of Honeycomb, to explore the myths of engineering productivity and the importance of building systems that enable “normal” engineers to succeed. Charity Majors tears down the myths of engineering exceptionalism — challenging the tech industry's worship of “10x developers” and advocating for systems that empower everyday engineers. She reveals how true organizational effectiveness emerges from resilient teams and a genuine connection between technical work and business strategy. Find the transcript at: https://www.swarmia.com/podcast/charity-majors-honeycomb/ Timestamps (0:00) Introductions (1:26) Hiring normal engineers over the '10x developer' (4:40) The fundamental attribution error: looking at individuals over the system (6:24) What non-engineering leadership need to know about engineering (7:28) The ingredients of a normal-engineer optimized system (8:40) Why diverse teams are resilient teams (9:26) What creates 10x leverage? (11:42) Developer productivity metrics and what actually matters (14:20) Charity's take on the 'sh*t umbrella' school of management (16:30) How Honeycomb creates space for…

People in this episode

Host: Rebecca

Guest: Charity Majors

Topics covered

• engineering productivity
• hiring practices
• team resilience
• organizational effectiveness
• developer metrics
• managerial roles

Keywords

• normal engineers
• 10x developers
• engineering systems
• team dynamics
• developer productivity
• management

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Honeycomb

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