Paul Grenyer

I had to cut down the “Pick Your Battles” chapter for my book - reviewers all felt it was too dense. That left me with some extra content, portions of which I’m sharing here, unedited, alongside excerpts I kept in the final version to provide context. What do Software Engineers Disagree About? Software engineers can, and do, disagree about anything and everything. I won’t even try to list it all, there is just too much. What I do want to do is give a flavour of the breadth of things we disagree about. Often it’s not even the technical details.  Changing Requirements Change is inevitable. I’ve already mentioned that being a software engineer is hard. Software is also complicated, but easy to change. If you compare software development to the mechanical aspects of engine design and development (putting aside that all modern engines use a lot of software), the pistons, cylinder, crank shaft, valves, etc. are relatively easy to understand. You can hold and understand the relationships ...

Sandra A. Crowe ISBN‑13 978‑0399525407 I was recommended this book by a friend. At 260 pages, it is much bigger than the leadership and ‘self help’ type books I’ve been reading and rereading recently. However, it was an interesting title and my friend said it had helped her. Who doesn’t have people they’d like to strangle? I don’t think Sandra Crowe started well. At least not for people like me. In the opening chapters they are very sure that the book is going to solve your problems. It felt arrogant to me, but I persisted. And I’m glad I did. At times I couldn’t put it down. Sandra Crowe describes lots of different, real world situations I often find myself in and gives practical suggestions and frameworks to make them feel better during or after. They helped me reinforce my understanding that you can't change other people, except a little bit sometimes, you can only change yourself or how you feel about them or deal with them internally. You’re responsible for your own happiness....

    From Zero to Deployed:  Building and Shipping an AWS Lambda with TypeScript, Terraform & GitHub Actions When: 1830, 5th November, 2025 Where: ACCU York,  Patch, The Bonding Warehouse, Terry Ave, York, YO1 6FA  RSVP: https://www.meetup.com/accu-york/events/308548806/ Ever wanted to build a serverless function, but felt there was too much boilerplate to write before it gets interesting? In this talk, we’ll walk through creating an AWS Lambda from scratch, using TypeScript, and show just how clean, fast, and repeatable deployment can be when using Terraform for infrastructure and GitHub Actions for deployment. This practical demonstration will cover: Writing and packaging a simple TypeScript Lambda Defining and provisioning AWS infrastructure with Terraform Automating deployment with GitHub Actions Things I’ve learnt using Lambdas And all in the space of an hour. Whether you’re new to AWS or just looking to try serverless, this talk will leave you k...

Parallels is an interesting and enjoyable read. It kept me guessing about what was actually going on the whole time. A sense of  something more I am missing always keeps me engaged, and I wasn’t expecting the twist until it came, or the final twist in the last sentence. As a software engineer who is awkward around people, I could immediately relate to Jeff, and this drew me right in. Conversely I couldn’t really understand Jezz volunteering to go to war and sticking it out. I think these two extremes made it a much better story, for me, than it would have been otherwise. However, I could have done without the constant smoking by the characters, I don’t really see what this brings. James needs to work on his sex scenes, especially the language used. I would have liked to know more about why the platinum blonde was trying to get through to Jeff - maybe I missed it. There were still a handful of unanswered questions, reasons and background by the end; I would have liked to see these e...

  The Great Misconception of Me* I often write about books I’ve read, bands I’ve seen, sometimes films, talks I’m giving, events I’m attending or have attended, technical topics, and more recently, leadership of software teams. Occasionally, I share critical views, whether on people, practices, or how I think software should be designed or written. Beyond the navel gazing tweets and Facebook posts of my younger years, I haven’t really written much about how I feel about myself. This time, I’m going to be a bit more introspective. If that’s not your thing, feel free to skip this one.  In the last couple of years, I’ve become aware of a fundamental truth about myself: I cannot bear to be misunderstood, especially when people believe things about me that I don’t believe to be true. When I am misunderstood, I have to try to put it right. I need to make the other person understand. I expect this has often been to my own detriment and I haven’t always succeeded. I Am Not an Extrover...

by Kenneth Blanchard, Patricia Zigarmi, Drea Zigarmi ISBN-13: 978-0007103416 This one’s a slow burner. I was disappointed at first as The Entrepreneur , who replaces The Young Man from The New One Minute Manager , going around talking to people in the manager’s organisation is getting a bit pedestrian. It got better a few chapters in. The short chapters help pick up the pace and make it easy to digest. There’s a fair amount of repetition from The New One Minute Manager and not all of it is remodelled for leadership. The descriptions of the four development levels and how they determine which of the four leadership styles to use is really good and the key message throughout the book. I can see myself using them, along with the six conversations, with my own teams. There is a clear difference between management and leadership. If you’ve read and mastered the practices in The New One Minute Manager , then it’s probably time to think about leadership to get better results from your team....

I wasn’t meant to be seeing the Pixies (again), I was just meant to be the taxi driver. Unfortunately, someone couldn’t make it last minute so I had to accompany my wife. I haven’t been to the O2 Academy in Birmingham since Lamb of God and Dimmu Borgir played there in February 2009. I didn’t remember the venue at all. There’s a reasonable view from the gallery, but the seating is uncomfortable and unreserved, so we ended up sitting from just after the doors opened at 7pm to 10.30pm when the Pixies went off. Numb bum doesn’t even come close. However, the service at the bar was quick and the staff friendly. An hour after the doors opened, the support band, Big Special , came on. Consisting of  a drummer, a singer, a backing track and a number of samples, they clearly had a talent, but it wasn’t in song writing or performance. They fully embraced what I would describe as some of the worst parts of lad culture, but the songs weren’t good enough to allow for it. Big Special are a local ...

by Dale Carnegie ISBN-13: 978-0091906818  How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie is an excellent book which, in my opinion, everyone should read at least once. I’ve read it twice and bought it four times. I was halfway through the first time and left it on a plane in 2006. I bought it again and finished it, I don’t know what happened to it after that. I bought another copy a few years ago and my wife lost it and this year I bought it again. It has helped form a lot of my opinions and practices related to how people should be treated and what I would like my leadership style to be. The book was published in 1953 and is a book of its time, so some of the language could do with updating, which is hard when some of it is in quotes from people. The book is divided into four sections: Fundamental Techniques in Handling People , Six Ways to Make People Like You , How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking and Be A Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offence or Ar...

by George R. R. Martin ISBN-13: 978-000746606 I’m glad it’s over. I loved the TV series, but the books are awful. Long winded and the amount of unnecessary detail is boring and obscures the story. If George R.R Martin ever completes the next book, I’ll read it, but only to be able to say I’ve read them all. The best I can say about A Dance With Dragons is that there is some story in there somewhere. I can see why the TV series changed so much and they changed it for the better. It was good to see some of my favorite characters go on a different journey and not come to a brutal end. It took me three goes to get through A Dance With Dragons. I read two other books in between the last two quarters of the book. I needed to maintain my interest in reading by finding something enjoyable to read.

So you think you can lead a team? I’ve been talking and writing a lot about leading a software engineering team in 2025. I started thinking about it more deeply the year before when I decided to give a colleague, who was moving into team leading, some advice: 'Doing the work' isn't the only way to add value Remember to delegate Pick your battles Talk to your team every day Out of this came a talk, “So you think you can lead a team?” which I gave at work, at meetups and at conferences in various different formats during the first quarter of 2025. I am also turning these ideas, and more, into a book I hope to release towards the end of 2025. I’ve already explored delegation and you can read about it here: https://paulgrenyer.blogspot.com/2025/04/remember-to-delegate-triangle-of-trust.html Earlier this year, a senior engineer on my team was deeply focused on solving a problem, but it wasn’t the right problem to be solving. Instead of asking how to solve it, they should have be...

It felt good to be back at the AWS Summit . I got a lot out of last year and this year was interesting too. I attended some sessions on interesting topics and some which reassured me I’m doing the right things.  It was good to catch up with some old friends, see my colleagues in person and chat with some of our suppliers at their stands. For an event which boasts 24,000 attendees, most things run extremely smoothly. My only real gripes are not being able to get into some sessions as they were full and the length of time it takes to get a cuppa! Keynote I skipped the keynote last year as I was keen to get on with some hands on labs. This year I thought I’d find out what it was all about. It took place in the 4000 capacity auditorium, but that was full, so I watched in one of the many smaller theatres.  The theatres aren’t exactly small, each one holds more people than the entire nor(DEV):con conference in Norwich. Each is separated by only a curtain and headphones are provided...

by James S. A. Corey ISBN-13: 978-0356504254 After the slow start to Cibola Burn , Nemesis Games was straight back on form. I loved the split story lines which made it feel like a proper space opera again. The bad guys were easy to dislike, the good guys were wonderful. Avasarala was back in all here sweary goodness, but not in it as much as this part of the TV series. The TV series changed a lot of things and I’m not sure it maintains the same story lines sufficiently any more. We’ll see, if they ever pick it up and make more.

Ghost is one of the bands that headlined Bloodstock one year and that I was completely non-pleased about, but then I really got into. The light bulb moment for me was the album Prequelle and its follow up Impera. Tonight, in a 21 song set, which included 4 songs from an album which isn’t out yet, they played only 5 songs from the albums I like. They didn’t play Spillways, my current favorite, the Pet Shop Boys cover or the Genesis cover. There was no surprise appearance from Def Leppard’s Joe elliot.  … but they were still brilliant! I wasn't sure what to expect. The sound at the O2 can be so hit and miss, but it was fine this time. We knew in advance that our phones would be placed in a sealed bag and handed back to us on the way in. This actually worked really well and they had A LOT of people available at the end to help return our phones to us. They wouldn’t let me keep the bag once I had my phone back though. There was no support band, which was odd, but given the elaborate...

by Will Larson ISBN-13: 978-1736417911 Will Larson’s staff engineer archetypes didn’t really resonate with me and neither did the use of the word “staff”, which isn't really explained. Some of the descriptions of operating as a staff engineer were really good. They taught me a few things and reaffirmed some others. I loved the idea of a Right Hand, which is like the Hand of the King in Game of Thrones. Also, the importance of ‘being in the room’ was well explained. The book overplays alignment with seniors to the point of sucking up to get what you want, which I found disingenuous. If you’re operating at that level you should be prepared to challenge authority. I didn’t relate to the suggested guidance for getting promoted to staff engineer, perhaps because I’ve always done it by moving to a new company - which Larson also covers, but only really gets a light touch. Just over half the book is stories from other staff engineers. I wasn’t sure I’d get value from reading those, so I a...

Last week I was back at the ACCU Conference in Bristol, for the first time since I gave an opening keynote in 2019 . In March 2020, COVID hit the UK and I got out of the habit of attending and speaking at conferences. Plus the ACCU Conference, and the organisation in general, took a big step back towards C++ and that hasn’t been relevant to me for nearly two decades. It’s taken until now, 2025 for me to want to talk again, and I was really pleased to be accepted for the ACCU Conference again. It was just a 20 minute session and I only attended for the day I was speaking. There was enough varied content for it to be interesting to me and I’m hoping to be back for the full conference next year. I really enjoyed attending and it was great to catch up with people I hadn’t seen for years. I felt re-engaged and particularly liked being asked if I’d been to nor(DEV):con . Learning to stop writing code (and why you won't miss it) Daisy Hollman I should have read the summary of the openin...