Insights
Writing, speaking and thoughts
Deep dives on building software, systems and teams.
Some ideas require more depth than can be captured in a social media post: the nuances of engineering leadership, aligning on what "quality" means for a product that has to ship, and the difference between being busy and making progress. Second Order is our publication for conducting those deep dives and sharing our insights. Talks, podcasts, and pieces published elsewhere are collected below.
Latest From Second Order
Repurposing hackathons in the age of AI
Something old, something new...
Podcasts
The Myth of the Startup in a Large Company with Kevin Stewart
In this special episode, Kevin Goldsmith is joined by longtime friend and peer Kevin Stewart, SVP of Engineering at Splice, to challenge the familiar but flawed narrative: that a team inside a big company can operate like a startup. Drawing on their shared experiences at Adobe and divergent paths This wide-ranging conversation touches on culture, risk, incentives, and why resource contention, not imagination, derails corporate innovation. Whether you lead a startup or a legacy company trying to move faster, this episode offers valuable perspective.
Leading transformation, inspiring vision & empowering teams to operate autonomously
Kevin Stewart (SVP of Engineering @ Splice) joins us to discuss organizational transformation, inspiring vision, and empowering teams! We break down how to tackle root issues in leadership and decision-making, diagnose and prioritize org problems, make a compelling case for change to stakeholders, and override learned helplessness. Kevin also shares how Splice’s concept video became a catalyst for alignment, motivation, and a shared north star for their strategy rollout. Plus, we discuss strategies for empowering teams to operate autonomously—freeing you to focus on business objectives and strategic work.
Short-term Decisions That Need To Be Revisited
Robby speaks with Kevin Stewart, VP of Engineering at Harvest. They discuss fighting ideological battles, why time-to-deploy is one of the most valuable metrics to measure and improve, and why teams should be revisiting their technical stack decisions. Kevin also gives advice to developers and shares some approaches to running internship programs.
Enterprising Node.js with NodeSource's VP of Engineering Kevin Stewart
As open source thinking and open source software goes more mainstream, it heads to the Enterprise. What does that mean for a popular framework like node.js? What features does Node need to thrive in a larger company? Scott talks to NodeSource's Kevin Stewart to explore these questions.
Presentations
Building A Startup Engineering Team
In the fast-paced world of startups, building a solid team is a key component to building a great product. However, experience has shown that there’s more to it than just “hiring the best people”. In this session, we will share practices learned from building startups and dive into pragmatic processes that you can implement in your organization.
Conference Talks
Going (Cloud) Native
Many organizations are racing to adopt cloud native to unlock all of the benefits that microservices, containers, and orchestration tools such as Kubernetes promise to deliver. Kevin Stewart explores the people, processes, and cultural aspects that complement the cloud-native computing technology stack.
Suplexes and superpowers
In this talk, I explore several examples from inside the ring and the big screen that illustrate approaches to building teams and achieving goals. We will also discuss a few real world situations where I have applied these tools. This presentation is applicable to anyone that is part of a software team. No spandex required.
Managing While Black
You are (or want to be) a manager at a tech company. Ideas you present are ignored while the same ideas, when presented by others, are accepted. You deliver on difficult projects time and again, yet deserved promotions and recognition seem to elude you. You build strong teams of talented individuals that other teams want for themselves. Still, you can’t get a seat at the decision makers’ table. Congratulations! You’re managing while black. In this talk, I explore the challenges faced by people of color in leadership positions and explain why we might want to rethink how we approach diversity in the tech industry.
Publications
The Inevitability of Atwood’s Law
JavaScript, JavaScript...everywhere
Why the most advanced technology solution isn’t always the correct one
The right idea might come at the wrong time. Here's why the most technologically advanced solution might not always be the right one.
How engineering, design, and product form the ‘software trinity’
A guide to effective cross-functional collaboration
Should engineering managers write code?
When, why, and how to code effectively as a manager
Fighting the mirrortocracy with inclusive hiring
Four ways to foster inclusive recruitment and help make tech the meritocracy it should be
Want to advance underrepresented folks in tech? Sponsor them.
Why representation and sponsorship can make all the difference
How to make pathfinder soup
Like the parable of stone soup, pathfinders can help development teams deliver complex and ambiguous projects, one ingredient at a time.
Creating open source projects for your community
Different approaches to open source projects
Serverless is the new LAMP stack
Improving on LAMP as the foundation for modern applications.
The thin line between technology advocacy and ideology
Exploring the biases we hold about technologies
Managing technical risk
Understanding the motivations behind an engineer’s desire to affect your tech stack
Onboarding remote, early-career engineers
Asynchronous communication and a structured approach
Navigating conflict between management styles
Are you more Manhattan or Apollo?
The problem with 'the platform'
Kubernetes can lead to over-engineered solutions, but it's a context problem, not a technical one.
How to build a startup engineering team
Advice for when you’re starting from scratch and designing for growth.