Christian Payne

Since John Allsopp mentioned the View Transitions API at Web Directions Code 2023 in Melbourne, I've been closely tracking its progress. Experimenting with it in Angular Spotify has been a joy. While my PR is still a work in progress for a single-page app like Angular Spotify (https://lnkd.in/gY6zQnBi)), it's exciting to see the View Transitions API advancing to a W3C Candidate Recommendation. Moreover, it now supports multi-page apps (MPAs), with the draft for cross-document navigation currently in public working draft status. This breakthrough means transitioning between pages in traditional multi-page apps, including those built with server-side rendering frameworks like ASP.NET MVC, PHP, Ruby, or static site generators such as Jekyll or Hugo, feels incredible with just @view-transition and view-transition-name in CSS! I've detailed my experiments with the View Transitions API for cross-documents. Check it out 👉 https://lnkd.in/gkRprFxt

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Thanks to everyone that came to see my talk at ServerlessDays ANZ yesterday! Here are the slides. For those that missed it, here are the main lessons I shared: ✨ LLMs are not magic, they're just another useful tool in a builder's toolkit ✨If you want to be build with LLMs quickly and cheaply, see how far you can go with prompts and RAG. ✨If you need more control than you can achieve with those, you'll likely need to do fine-tuning, tuning or even training, all of which are much more expensive comparably. ✨Plan for your models to change all the time - use Artificial Analysis to navigate the changes ✨Plan for your prompts - version your prompts and construct them independently of inference ✨Getting LLMs to behave consistently for your use case is super challenging, but there are tools like the Seed and Temperature features to help ✨Hacking LLMs to behave outside the intended behaviour is easy, but you can architect around this using techniques like prompt proxies (thanks to Tomasz Tunguz for sharing great design patterns) If you have any questions about building using these tools, feel free to reach out!

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Permie Dev -> Contractor Truth Bomb: Your term is an estimate. Do not bank on it. It could be extended (GREAT!) or it could be cut short - and not because you've done a bad job, quite the opposite! It could be cut short if you do a good job, as happened to me a number of years back. You get the job done, you could be let go. Permies - do not make your decision to "go contracting" on term alone. It isn't set in stone. Want to talk contracting? DM me! I got some truth bombs to drop! #contracting #devcontracting #softwaredevelopment

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Atlassian underperforms on this metric. ARR per employee. It's a nice comparison metric across companies. helps us to understand the efficiency of the business. Atlassian has done a good job improving this metric over the last 7 years but they still lag behind the majority of companies I follow. The median across the businesses is $403,000 in ARR per employee. As a direct comparison,  Monday is at $436,000 per employee Snowflake is at $442,000 Palantir is at $651,000 Zoom is at $617,000 Atlassian beat out Hubspot, Sentinel One, Veeva and Procore - but still a bit of work to do to become best in class here. 

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I've seen clients waste millions on overcomplicated software before partnering with MEV. It can be hard to recognize wasted spending when you're in the middle of a process, too. We had a client who was facing this scenario: • A $2 million system, bloated with features • Complex workflows no one needed • Unfriendly user interface What did they really need? Much simpler requirements. The truth hit hard when we stepped in. We stripped it down. Focused on the essentials. Delivered a solution at a fraction of the cost – just $100,000. The result? A system that did exactly what was needed. Quick, efficient, and without the unnecessary frills. The lesson was clear: Saying "no" to good ideas can be tough. But understanding and focusing on what truly matters saves money, effort, and time.

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Not something I would normally shout about, but really excited to see this from Atlassian bringing together different #projectmanagement styles under one system allowing us to go from business objectives to roadmaps and delivery. At Counterpoint Technologies one of the first things we do with everyone we work with is review their approach to project management all the way through the organisation to ensure connected thinking. https://lnkd.in/gvNSPjAv

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Moving jQuery => React, wasn't easy for me... React fitted well in many of my use-cases but not all projects needed npm, configs, compiling etc. I felt bloated with the effort I need to do, to get myself coding the project. I wanted a lightweight plug-n-play solution, which I found in form of AlpineJS. I used Alpine for many side projects, or wherever I wanted to start SUPER SIMPLE... Some of the things I love the most about Alpine: ➜ Super simple to setup ➜ Small bundle size <10kb ➜ Good rendering performance ➜ Very simple learning curve ➜ can fit with any CSS framework (even Tailwind) Off course there might be some drawbacks compared with React, like no routing etc. But it serves the purpose well. P.S: Just a Monday attempt to share some experiences, What you use for your side-projects btw? #softwareengineering #javascript #js #mondaymotivation

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Are you sure you want to hire a CTO?    I often get Founders/CEOs approach me to help with hiring a CTO but when we get into the finer details they are describing the responsibilities of vastly different roles.    Here are the four most common roles advertised incorrectly as CTO.   Technical Architect:    The company are looking for someone to design and guide the development team during the implementation stage. This role might be more hands-on in designing and implementation rather than the broader business and leadership responsibilities associated with a CTO.   Head of Engineering:    Instead of a CTO, a company might need a Head of Engineering who can lead and manage the software development team, drive technical excellence, and ensure timely delivery of projects. While there may be some overlap with the CTO role, the primary focus here is on the engineering aspect rather than the broader strategic and business concerns.   Product Manager with Technical Background:    The company is looking for someone to bridge the gap between technical teams and product development whilst being involved on the ground daily. In this case, they might advertise for a CTO but a Product Manager with a strong technical background who can guide the development process and prioritise features based on technical feasibility and market demand may be more suited.   Chief Innovation Officer (CIO):    Instead of a CTO, a company might be seeking someone to spearhead innovation initiatives, drive R&D efforts, and explore emerging technologies. This role might involve less day-to-day involvement in technical decisions and more focus on long-term strategic planning and innovation.   So before hiring a CTO, consider whether what you’re looking for actually fits into a different role.   This will eliminate any confusion.   #CTO #Recruitment 

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I know, I know... Your attention span is about 3 seconds 🙄... That's why I condensed my PURE Manifesto in an easily digestable slide show. What is it? Some ground rules for an Ultra Light, Web Standards based Design System. Apply them to developing your PWA, and your Lean SaaS Startup can actually stay LEAN and deliver value soon! #puremanifesto #lean #designsystem #webdevelopment #webcomponents #lit #purepwa #html #css #progressiveenhancement #webstandards

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Contractors aren't just temporary hires, but vital cogs in the larger machine of your permanent team. Here are 5x reasons why 👇 1. Flexibility and fresh perspectives Tech contractors bring a wealth of experience from a load of different environments, injecting fresh ideas and perspectives that can drive innovation within your permanent team. 2. Skill gaps They are the perfect solution to quickly filling skill gaps, ensuring your projects don't miss a beat and your team continues to operate. 3. Testing the waters Ever wished you could 'try before you buy' when it comes to hiring? Contractors offer just that, allowing you to evaluate fit and expertise with your team's culture before making a long-term commitment. 4. Cost-effective agility With contractors, you have the agility to scale your workforce up or down based on current needs without the financial burdens of permanent staffing changes. 5. The ripple effect The presence of contractors can foster a learning culture among your permanent staff, encouraging them to upskill and stay competitive. I feel like the goal is to create a seamless blend where contractors and permanent staff complement each other, driving your business forward together. we are djr 🔵⚪ #tech #techcontractors #contractors

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Customer Data Platforms wreak havoc on your code. I've seen this pattern in Rails apps again and again. 1. Deliver feature 2. Add business events (if you're lucky) 3. Add observability (if you're really, really lucky) What do I mean by a "business event"? Examples: * Customer Charged * Lead Depleted * Invoice Paid * Search Performed They're the *lifeblood* of the business. They determine whether a feature is a success... ...or a massive flop. Usually they're tied to revenue or profitability goals. How do you add them to your app? Usually it's through a library - think Segment, Posthog... lots to choose from. And what do you have to do? 1. Agree with marketing what data they want (optional) 2. Design the event (if you can be bothered) 3. Add the event into your code (hack it in) I've seen this happen many, many times. I've seen brittle, poorly thought through events without enough data. I've seen these events obscure the meaning of the code. I've tried to abstract them away in lots of different ways. But no matter what, I always look at the code with this nagging sense... ...this is so messy... and unreliable... and what if the event changes? What if bad data is sent? Now the business are making their decisions based on faulty information. Huh. Not so great. OK. Pause. Let's look at observability. What do I mean by "observability"? If you're going old school: * Traces * Metrics * Logs But if you buy into observability 2.0? * Wide events * Nothing else * No, really, that's it I recently watched a video that demonstrated the power of business events. And FINALLY... it all clicked for me. These "business events" can be the SAME as observability events. Woah. What does this mean? * Instrument your business events * Add every single piece of data you can think of that's vaguely relevant * Send to Honeycomb, Datadog, New Relic * Do NOT sample this. It's critical data that you cannot throw away. Ever. Now for the kicker. Ready? * Create an OpenTelemetry collector that sends this data off to a CDP Boom. OpenTelemetry is laying the foundation for technology agnostic delivery of events... ...to pretty much any platform we can imagine. One set of events to rule them all. Imagine being able to see how outages correlate with sales. Or how an overrun background queue impacted signups. The beautiful thing here? You're sending a TON of data (remember - it's a WIDE event with hundreds of dimensions)... ...so in your CDP (Segment, Posthog, whatever) you just filter out the attributes marketing doesn't care about. Send the attributes they do care about. And keep the rest. I'm seriously excited about this vision for observability crossing over with business events. ✍️ And let me know what you think ♻️ Repost if you want to share my personal nirvana of events

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Help your clients pay their debt. I'm not talking cash. I'm talking human debt. See, I was in IT for 15 years. Deadlines, ignorance and greed often made my engineers give up. Brilliant people overlooked or flat out broke quality standards to code something that works. For now. A.k.a technical debt. The trouble with technical debt is that it breaks an entire system, when God forbid, you change the system. And, ironically, we all have human debt: • Work we hate, but do - we've bills to pay. • Goals we fail to chase - we can't find the time. • Content we don't publish - we let doubt and fear in. Debt that breaks us when we want to change. Debt that makes us miserable and stops us from taking action. Dreams are great for marketing. (or so I've heard) But showing a client how to pay their human debt is essential in sales. Be curious about your clients' human debt. It pays.

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A reorganisation won't fix a broken system design. This should be a warning on every book about software team management. https://lnkd.in/g8rqGBAN

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I met with 200+ Australians in San Francisco and was so impressed. But 1 thing became clear... We all have the exact same challenge. Job rejections in the US. Over and over. Even if you have big name brands on your resume like Google. Even if you're in the most in-demand roles like Software Engineers. Why? Because companies don't know about the E-3 visa. You know what's crazy? Companies in the US have a hard time finding great talent. The E-3 visa is $315 USD to hire Australia's brightest people in the US. A simple process that's totally unlike the H-1B. A bridge needed to be created between these talented Aussies and companies struggling to hire. That's exactly what I did in 2019 and formed Aussie Recruit. Everyday we help Australians get jobs in the US. 🇦🇺🫶🇺🇸 Join 6000+ Australians in our talent network and hear about jobs in the US at companies hiring Australians! Get Started: https://lnkd.in/e-C9z63N

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OpenAI scandal around clawing back vested equity if employees don't sign non-disparagement is a good time to talk about similar bad behaviour at *Australian startups* -- expansive "Bad Leaver" clauses that claw back vested equity for all sorts of reasons that aren't justified. I've seen template ESOP docs by prominent Australian VCs & law firms that absolutely shocked me. Idea that employees have their vested equity forcibly bought back, for anything less than the most egregious violations (e.g. crime) is completely unacceptable. Startup employees: read Bad Leaver clauses closely. Push back on anything unreasonable. DM me if you're not sure. Founders / Employers: if you have expansive Bad Leaver clauses, get rid of them. Your employees *work* for equity, and its wrong to claw it back on a whim. I'll happily call out companies and their supporters (e.g. VCs, law firms) doing this, because it needs to go away, to protect Australian startup employees and the innovation potential of our startup ecosystem.

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What is an IG really? FHIR is a modern Rest API standard for healthcare systems. HL7 (the body behind this standard) has recently released an Australian version of it which is really needed. But if you look into it, you might be wondering what is this IG (Implementation Guide) that they keep talking about? What is the difference between "AU Core" and "AU eRequesting" for example? Hesam Rezayi who is one of our awesome engineers at Whitefox Cloud Consulting has recently published an article to explain it in depth: https://lnkd.in/gnpPhSSA

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Are you raising? Whether you're a startup seeking an Angel or VC or an established company with your eye on that sweet PE pie, something is missing from too many pitches. Your TDD. 💸 Your cash flow can be as clear as crystal and fat as a hilarious cat. 💪 Your tech stack can be as resilient as burnt-on lasagna. ⏹ Your market fit can be as perfect as the Tetris piece you've been waiting for. But how's your talent looking? TDD, or talent due diligence, looks at your key players' strengths, weaker points, and potential. If you don't do it, you can bet your bottom (or is that last?) dollar that your potential investors will. Do you know how to iterate a product front and back? Do you have BIG team leadership experience? Have you scaled before? If not, then you have some options. NEDs: Non-Executive Directors provide the strategic oversight and industry insights you need to plug those leadership gaps. Fractional C-Suite: Hire part-time executives with a wealth of expensive experience without the full-time commitment. Talent Development: Invest in coaching to turn your promising team members into powerhouse leaders capable of taking your company to the next level. The most important bit is... Put your talent due diligence into your pitch! Talk about who's on your team and how they will get you where you're going. I'd love to hear from you if you'd like more info on the above.

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New Business Architecture Document Template Sean here from Klariti. Hard to believe it's almost May. This year is really shooting by. We're working on a series of business-related templates at the moment. If you're involved in the developing the business case for a new project or looking for funding for a new product, you might find this template useful. FAQs This template will help you answer the following questions: - Why do I need business architecture? - Who is responsible for business architecture? - What is an example of business architecture? - What is the aim of business architecture? Purpose Use this 27-page MS Word Business Architecture Document template to serve as a blueprint outlining the structure, components, relationships, and processes of your organization’s business architecture. This MS Word template provides a detailed understanding of how your business operates, its objectives, strategies, functions, and capabilities. Benefits The Business Architecture Document will help you with: Alignment: It aligns business strategy with operational capabilities to ensure that all components of your organization work towards achieving its goals. It helps stakeholders understand how various business elements contribute to overarching objectives. Communication: It helps facilitate communication among stakeholders, including executives, managers, employees, and external partners. It ensures everyone shares a common understanding of the organization’s structure, processes, and goals. Decision Making: It provides insights for decision-making processes. By presenting a holistic view of the business, it enables informed decision-making regarding resource allocation, process improvements, technology investments, and organizational changes. Change Management: The document helps manage organizational change by providing a baseline for assessing the impact of proposed changes. It identifies dependencies, potential risks, and areas where adjustments may be required to achieve desired outcomes. Continuous Improvement: It helps in identifying areas for optimization, streamlining processes, and enhancing efficiency. By understanding the current state of the business and its desired future state, stakeholders can identify opportunities for innovation and growth. Each section in the document contains sample text you can modify for your project. Download MS Word Template You can download the template here: https://lnkd.in/dkHceNAT Q - What templates are you looking for right now? Let me know and I'll add them to our Jira board. Cheers, Sean

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