How "f(l)at" is your organization?
Learn about problems with many layers of management, must-have skills for senior+ positions, and get useful 2024 recaps.
With changing macroeconomics in 2022, many layoffs have hit the Tech industry. A lot of organizational “trimming” happened in 2024 as well.
One of the motivators is making organizations more flat and more effective. If you want to understand what problems can arise with bloated organizational structures there is a great article on that below.
Also, like in the previous issue, there are some great 2024 recaps as well.
VOD
introduces VOD/HOD (Vertical/Horizontal Organizational Distance). He describes the communication problems that arise with “fat” organization structures, where top-down executive decisions get distorted and bottom-up insights struggle to reach the executive level. Both lead to less agile organizations. Advice on improving organizational communication is paywall-ed, but even simply googling those strategies is a good starter. This great article will get you thinking about how these large-scale communication networks function💡.
Audience: Organizational Leaders
Value: Learn about organizational structures
ToT Rating: ⭐⭐🌟
3 Critical Skills You Need to Grow Beyond Senior Levels in Engineering
As you grow beyond senior levels in the organization, you start facing more challenges you haven’t faced before. The “there’s only 24h-in-a-day” limit becomes super clear, and both ambiguity and the amount of people you need to influence grows.
gives you three skills that will help you navigate this part of your career.Audience: Senior+ Engineers/Managers
Value: Learn how to operate at senior+ levels
ToT Rating: ⭐⭐
The Best of Refactoring in 2024!🎄
reflects on the 2024, and Refactoring newsletter. At the bottom of the article, you will find a great digest of the best Refactoring articles in 2024.Audience: Software Engineers/Engineering Managers
Value: Top articles of 2024
ToT Rating: ⭐
Wrapped: The Pragmatic Engineer in 2024
Another 2024 recap 🎄. If you are looking for the best articles from one of the best tech newsletters on Substack check out this one.
Audience: Software Engineers
Value: Links to articles about the most important things in Tech in 2024
ToT Rating: ⭐
13 Christmas Deals to Boost Your Learning in 2025
The end of the year offers discounts on all kinds of learning sources (coding/system design platforms, courses, text-based learning, etc.). This newsletter gives you a list of great learning deals you can get so you don’t have to spend time Googling for those yourself.
Audience: Software Engineers
Value: Discounts 🤑
ToT Rating: ⭐
Best Low-Cost Low-Tax Countries for Fully-Remote Devs In Europe
already talked a lot about the advantages of doing remote work in low tax/cost of living areas. In this article, he gives a great overview of countries with low tax rates. If you are considering doing remote work and looking for low-tax areas, this is a must-read for you.
Audience: Fully remote engineers
Value: Learn about low tax rates
ToT Rating: ⭐