Paul Grenyer

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, you can read about it here:  https://paulgrenyer.blogspot.com/2025/04/remember-to-delegate-triangle-of-trust.html  And Seeing the Bigger Picture, you can read about it here: https://paulgrenyer.blogspot.com/2025/05/see-bigger-picture-and-look-around.html When I started writing the material for my talk for...

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 relationship...

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...