Welcome back to I'm a Software Engineer ~ What Next? The podcast for devs figuring out their next move. Hosted by James Wilson and Matt Sinclair, we talk honestly about what it takes to build a meaningful career in tech.
This week we're joined by Carlton Lane, who has crossed the boundary between hands-on engineering and management more than once, by choice. Carlton grew up in Perth and studied at Curtin University. Apple paid for his trips to WWDC, but it was Microsoft that offered him the job: six years in Seattle on Visual Studio, then Windows 7 and digital TV in Tokyo, then Azure and the Microsoft Commerce platform in Shanghai. After that came a startup as an IC, Prime Video at Amazon in London, content creator tools at Snapchat, and now real-time public safety software at Axon.
In this episode, we cover:
- Why Apple funded his trip to WWDC and Microsoft hired him, and taking advantage of luck when it shows up
- Going back from manager to IC at a startup to reconnect with the joy of writing code, and falling back into management at Amazon
- What working in Australia, the US, China and the UK taught him about leading people from other cultures
- Why some of the best engineering talent he's hired has been in Europe
- Failing English after high school, and why written communication became his most important leadership skill
- Amazon's narrative memos instead of PowerPoint, and the PR/FAQ (now "customer promises and FAQs")
- Leading on the bad days: protecting the team, the umbrella, and bringing your senior engineers into the real picture
- Why failure is a better teacher than success, and why you should write down what you learn as you go
- Building real-time public safety software at Axon, where the target is five nines
- Gall's Law: every complex system that works started out as a simple system that worked
- What he'd tell his 25-year-old self: invest in yourself, because the company gives you 90% of your growth and the last 10% is yours to go and get
⏱️ Chapters
- 0:00 Intro: moving between leadership and hands-on roles, by choice
- 0:47 Meet Carlton Lane: Microsoft, a startup, Amazon, Snapchat and now Axon
- 2:00 Apple paid for WWDC, Microsoft hired him: taking advantage of luck
- 3:15 Back from manager to IC at a startup, for the joy of writing code
- 5:16 A $5 bicycle to the Amazon interview, and falling back into management
- 7:28 Australia, the US, China and the UK: leading people from other cultures
- 9:24 Why some of the best engineering talent he's hired is in Europe
- 12:57 Failing English after high school, and writing as his key leadership skill
- 14:46 Amazon's narrative memos instead of PowerPoint: respect for your audience
- 18:48 The PR/FAQ, now "customer promises and FAQs"
- 20:53 Leading on the bad days: protect the team, then find the "so what" plan
- 24:34 Best people have choice, the umbrella, and bringing senior engineers in
- 28:25 Bottoming out twice, and why failure is a better teacher than success
- 31:13 Write down what you learn as you go: blogs, journals and stories of change
- 33:35 Matt's 15 years of text notes, and querying your own history with an LLM
- 36:35 Axon: public safety software that saves lives, body cams and the Taser
- 39:04 Real-time operations: the "watch me" button and building for five nines
- 43:17 Three fingers: over-engineering, and why LLMs won't displace bespoke systems
- 45:11 Learning through failure in design, and Gall's Law
- 46:43 The magic telephone: invest in yourself, the last 10% is yours to get
- 49:08 Wrap-up: a huge thanks to Carlton
🔗 Links
🗒️ Show Notes
- Axon
- Gall's Law — John Gall
- 2017 Letter to Shareholders — Jeff Bezos, on six-page memos instead of PowerPoint
🗣️ Guest
- Carlton Lane — https://www.linkedin.com/in/carltonlane/
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