*Bonus* Optimizing Productivity for Remote Engineering Teams with Doug Gaff, VPE @ Zapier & Emma Tang, EM @ Stripe #24

We were overwhelmed by questions from our event with Doug and Emma! This is a bonus follow up conversation that further digs into measuring productivity through “Waterlining” and Kaplan Meier estimating, hashtags in communication, remote 1:1 best practices, and Doug shows us some of the creative ways he applies Zapier integrations for his personal productivity!

"What it does is it forces a debate as to A what's most important and B do we really want that thing below the line waterline? Because what happens sometimes is people are super excited about this thing. And then when you see this rank list of stuff, you're like, Oh, but wait a second. There's like running the business stuff below the water line. We actually have to get that up and staff that..." - Doug Gaff

 

DOUG GAFF - VP of Engineering @ Zapier

Doug is the VP of Engineering at Zapier, the software solution that helps your other software work together more effectively. As the leader of an organization with over 100 engineers, he has learned a lot about effective management and leadership. Doug currently resides in the Greater Boston Area.

 

EMMA TANG - Engineering Manager @ Stripe

Emma is an Engineering Manager in Data Infrastructure at Stripe based in San Francisco. Her team focuses on building distributed computation infrastructure to support Stripe's business. At Stripe, we believe in investing in our remote culture, and have built out the remote engineering hub, and tripled the number of remote engineers in the last year.

 

SHOWNOTES

• How to Measure Productivity - Waterlining and Kaplan Meier (2:44)
• Waterlining as a tool to discuss priorities (9:10)
• Using hashtags to understand intent and to increase the bandwidth of communication (11:02)
• Best practices for remote 1:1’s when you don’t see the productivity levels you want (17:37)
• Tips for onboarding new grads (23:03)
• Doug’s remote work routine and lifestyle (24:47)
• Doug’s favorite Zapier integrations to increase productivity (29:21)
• Takeaways (33:45)

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