And now it’s time for our patented #sydtechleaders Q&A panel! We’ve already had questions about distinguishing good vs bad productivity; how to respond when you ask someone if they’re okay and they say “no”; how to respond when the request is for YOU to do something differently…

Ultimately avoiding burnout is not about minimising stress; it’s about figuring out how to recover in a way that allows you to get stronger (like an athlete). That’s how you stay in the game long term. #sydtechleaders

It’s not always easy for people to ascertain how they feel (if they have trauma, if they are neurodivergent, etc). It’s important to keep in mind when having conversations about stress and mental health. #sydtechleaders

So what is effective recovery? Move (rather than exercise), create (and play), connect (with people and places and yourself), reflect, rest… and repeat. #sydtechleaders

Everybody knows how to talk about stress; what they struggle with is effective recovery. Drinking too much, doomscrolling, signing up to expensive gym memberships you won’t use… these are not great ways to recover. #sydtechleaders

Bodies don’t differentiate between paid and unpaid work. Stress in your personal life contributes too. You do your best to manage it, but the tank never manages to get topped up. With burnout, you’re always drawing down. #sydtechleaders

Our second speaker for the night is Navin Keswani talking about burnout - a topic really important to most of us in the room. The pandemic hit many in tech hard. #sydtechleaders

To have meaningful mental health conversations, you need to make sure you’re in the right space yourself. Then ALEC - Ask RUOK?; Listen; Encourage action; and Check-In. #sydtechleaders

This year, over half of Australians say that rising cost of living is having a big impact on their mental health. This is very real, and there’s probably someone you know who is not okay. #sydtechleaders #ruok

Our workplaces don’t always lend themselves to kindness. We have to make the effort to pause and remember to see our teammates as human beings, check in with them, and really listen. #sydtechleaders

Tonight’s talks are obviously going to be a bit more personal than usual, so social media posting will be restricted to high level topics. ❤️ #sydtechleaders

Our first speaker is Saliya Kutungu-Moran talking about leading with kindness and creating space for mental health conversations. She’s an RUOK ambassador with lots of experience in tech, and we’re so glad she’s here. #sydtechleaders

Reminder that we are still looking for Lightning talk speakers for our Nov. 6 meetup. Great for first timers, and we’ll even give you some mentoring if you like! #sydtechleaders

Tonight’s STL is kicking off at Atlassian! Nice big crowd for an important topic - mental health. Thanks as always to Atlassian for hosting! #sydtechleaders

Engineers like to focus on their little patch of the code base and getting it just right, but leaders need to remind them of the bigger picture. And sometimes you have to make a trade-off, and it just sucks. #sydtechleaders

Right into the AI questions! Jeroen thinks that smaller teams might struggle to take advantage of agentic coding assistants because they will quickly run out of the expertise to review all the suggestions appropriately. #sydtechleaders

It’s time for the patented #sydtechleaders panel!

Really the goal for teams that want to tackle tech debt is to ESTABLISH TRUST. You want leaders to let you do this again! #sydtechleaders

And at the end of that project, you need to validate the impact and tell the story of the improvement. Data and graphs can really make that story clear (if they are accurate!). #sydtechleaders

When you get the refactor project approved, don’t rush to get started too quickly. You need to establish some metrics and a baseline to show the improvement! #sydtechleaders

The lead engineer needs to be able to SELL the tech debt problem to the manager. Some suggestions are hiring challenges, velocity and cycle time, risk of vulnerabilities and incidents… #sydtechleaders

“I’m telling y manager that this code is 💩 but they won’t even listen!”

Final talk - Alberto and Fernando from Atlassian talking about how to actually deal with the tech debt that’s been accumulating. Apparently there will be role play!

Jeroen venturing a hot take - he’s a big fan of AI and how it can help ensure code quality! #sydtechleaders

There are so many ways a project can go wrong and incur debt. Wrong conclusions, optimisation trade-offs, evaluation defects… and especially when bad info ends up in the sales brochure! #sydtechleaders

Tech debt takes on a different weight when you are shipping code on chips or physical devices. Once it’s out there, you can’t really push updates. It has to work. #sydtechleaders

Next speaker is (Dr.!) Jeroen Vendrig from Prooftec. He’s talking specifically about technical debt from R&D. #sydtechleaders

There are metrics you can track related to your tech debt too. It’s okay, Inga says, to kill the zombie tickets. If no one’s championed it in 3 months, kill it. Saying “This doesn’t matter anymore” is super powerful. Code you don’t write can’t introduce bugs!

First speaker tonight is Inga Pflaumer talking about the graveyard of tech debt. How do you know what to save or bury? Does it block customer revenue? Does it get worse if you leave it? Will it unlock speed elsewhere?

Breaking news - #sydtechleaders will be hosting lightning talks ⚡️ in November! 5 min talks perfect for first time speakers. We can even provide you some mentorship. Reach out via the new channel on our Slack. Meetup is Nov. 6.

The amazing Jack is kicking off today’s #sydtechleaders at Atlassian. Great to see so many managed to register via our new home at Luma!

Another book recommendation from Ben: “Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change.” #sydtechleaders www.goodreads.com/book/show/14...

Lots of great questions tonight about how leaders can better support remote teams, personal superpowers and growth areas, and overcoming resistance to change #sydtechleaders

By the way, we hit a milestone at #sydtechleaders tonight - an actual queue at the women’s restroom! It’s exciting to see such a diverse group in the room, and it’s a credit to the organising team! 🏆💪🚽

It’s time for the world famous #sydtechleaders Q&A panel! Sugendran is very excited about throwing the Atlassian microphone cube at people…

It’s a hard lesson, but sometimes the best thing a leader can do is stay silent. Just be careful restraint doesn’t become avoidance. #sydtechleaders

Remaining unflappable and wise is hard. Amen to that. #sydtechleaders

It’s very tempting to think of leadership as taking ACTION, as always having the right answer. But that can put a lot of pressure on you… #sydtechleaders

And our final speaker for the night is ⚡️Dave Bolton (speaker at the very first ever #sydtechleaders!). Dave is sharing what he’s learned over the years about the emotional burden of leadership.

This is such a good principle- bring the work to where the people are Ben Mendosa Sosa

A couple suggestions from Ben: bring the work to where the people are; simplify to reduce cognitive load (don’t bury the lede!); consider adding some friction to slow things down, manage the timing of your nudges and prompts, and AUTOMATE! #sydtechleaders

Willpower is limited, chasing your team is tiring, and leading by mandate doesn’t scale. So how can leaders help nudge their team to success, rather than giving them the Paddington stare? #sydtechleaders

A recommendation for the book Nudge. It’s not a silver bullet, But there are some useful ideas we can take from it in tech… #sydtechleaders en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_(...

Next up is Ben Meneses-Sosa talking about how willpower isn’t enough, leaders need to design their team’s success. #sydtechleaders

At @sydtechleaders.bsky.social tonight for the first time in a while, great turnout! Also if you want to come to the next ones then here’s the schedule

Glue work needs to be recognised as valuable, shared appropriately among the team, and used as opportunity for growth and improvement. #sydtechleaders

Who should be doing glue work? And who actually IS doing glue work? It falls disproportionately to juniors and especially to women. #sydtechleaders

Our first speaker is @jadeedward.bsky.social talking about glue work. Every team has someone that fills this role, but it’s often not recognised or rewarded. #sydtechleaders

Your dedicated social media team hard at work! Big crowd tonight… #sydtechleaders

We are kicking off tonight’s meetup on the invisible work of leadership! Thanks so much to Atlassian for hosting. #sydtechleaders