Developer Experience in the AI Era — Helping Engineers Stay Competitive

While teaching a Claude workshop, an engineer in the room asked me: how do you think about improving Developer Experience (DevEx) in the AI era? I answered on the spot. This post revisits that as a fully remote CTO. What DevEx used to mean, what AI changed, how leadership provides the environment. The goal: growing engineers who stay competitive in the market, the kind people call excellent even after they move on.

Benefits of Allowing Side Jobs ~ Improved Hiring Power, Skill Enhancement, Turnover Prevention

How allowing side jobs helps engineer hiring, skill growth, and turnover prevention, from an Engineering Manager's view.

The Best Time for 1on1s is Thursday 3-5 PM

Why the book Yahoo's 1on1 recommends Thursday 3-5 PM as the best slot for 1on1 meetings.

Reading Notes: 'Earning is Everything: B.League as the Ultimate Business Model' by Ashihara Kazumasa

Reading notes on Kazumasa Ashihara's book about B.LEAGUE's business model.

Reading Notes: 'Corona Shock Survival: Japan Economic Recovery Plan' by Kazuhiko Toyama

Reading notes on Kazuhiko Toyama's 'Corona Shock Survival.'

Reading Notes: 'Corporate Transformation: Remaking Japanese Companies' by Kazuhiko Toyama

Reading notes on Kazuhiko Toyama's 'Corporate Transformation.'

Reading Notes: 'Where Entrepreneurs Go Wrong — 9 Dilemmas Every Startup Must Face' by Noam Wasserman

Takeaways from Noam Wasserman's 'The Founder's Dilemmas' on co-founding, title inflation, and specialist vs generalist hiring.

Reading Notes: 『爆速成長マネジメント』(High Growth Handbook) by Elad Gil

Takeaways from Elad Gil's 'High Growth Handbook' on executive hiring, board management, and org structure during hypergrowth.

Reading Notes: 'I Am No Longer President: 7435 Days with Y-Cube' by Yoshio Yasuda

Takeaways from Yoshio Yasuda's memoir of running Y-Cube into the ground — a cautionary tale on founder priorities.

Reading Notes: 『岩崎弥太郎と三菱四代』(Iwasaki Yataro and Four Generations of Mitsubishi) by Kawai Atsushi

Takeaways from four generations of Mitsubishi leadership — vision, talent development, and the social responsibility of the wealthy.

Reading Notes: 'リーダーの仮面――「いちプレーヤー」から「マネジャー」に頭を切り替える思考法' (The Leader's Mask: How to Switch from 'Player' to 'Manager' Mindset) by Hirohiro Ando

Reading notes on Hirohiro Ando's 'The Leader's Mask' and the Shikigaku view of management, with quotes and comments.

Reading Log: 'Learn or Die: Shi nu Ki de Manabe Purifādo Nettowākusu no Chōsen' (Learn or Die: Learn with Deadly Determination - Preferred Networks' Challenge) by Toru Nishikawa and Daisuke Okanohara

Reading notes on Preferred Networks' 'Learn or Die,' with quotes on values, hiring, and organizational philosophy.

Reading Notes: 『絶望しきって死ぬために、今を熱狂して生きろ』(To Live Passionately Now in Order to Die in Complete Despair) by Kenjo Toru

Notes from Toru Kenjo's sequel about strategic communication, management intuition, and living without regrets.

Reading Notes: 'You Can Only Be Serious About What You Love: Survival Work Skills for the 100-Year Life Era' by Akiyuki Minami

Career notes from the Coconala CEO's book on surviving and thriving in the 100-year life era.

Reading Memo: 'Creating Management Teams that Co-create the Future' by Yoshiyuki Suzuki

Reading notes on Yoshiyuki Suzuki's book about sparking real dialogue inside a management team.

Reading Notes: 'Managers Must Not Flee to Profits' by Susumu Fujita

Reading notes on Susumu Fujita's HBR interview about exit decisions and resisting the comfort of profits.

Reading Notes: 'Let's Talk About Failures. What We Learned by Pushing Forward Through 'Not Knowing Anything'' by Yosuke Tsuji

Reading notes from Money Forward founder Yosuke Tsuji on weekend startups and finding committed teammates.

Reading Notes: 'ＮＯＩＳＥ　組織はなぜ判断を誤るのか？' (NOISE: Why Organizations Make Wrong Decisions) by Daniel Kahneman

Notes on Daniel Kahneman's 'NOISE' and how to reduce noise in organizational decision-making.

Reading Log: 'Ōkina Uso no Ki no Shita de ～Boku ga OWNDAYS wo Keiei shinagara Kangaete ita 10 no Uso.～' (Under the Big Lie Tree ～10 Lies I Was Thinking About While Managing OWNDAYS～) by Shuji Tanaka

Reading notes from the OWNDAYS CEO on money as exchange, trust, and professional preparation.

Reading Notes: 'Genius of Entrepreneurship! Hiromasa Ezoe: The Man Who Created the 8 Trillion Yen Company Recruit' by Yasuyuki Onishi

Notes on the Recruit founder's story: intrinsic motivation, PSM, and a proto-teal organization.

Reading Notes: 'Think Big, My Way: The Masayoshi Son Story - Definitive Edition' by Atsuo Inoue

Reading notes on the Masayoshi Son biography — belief in technology, the hunter-vs-cook philosophy, and more.

Reading Notes: 'Sustainable Capitalism: How 5% of 'Thoughtful Consumption' Changes Society' by Masanori Murakami

Reading notes on 'Sustainable Capitalism' — mission-driven management and consumers as key supporters.

Reading Notes: 'Trinity Management: Management That Enriches Managers, Employees, and Shareholders Together' by Koji Nakagami

Reading notes on 'Trinity Management' — business economics types, risk-taking, group decision-making, and M&A.

Reading Notes: 'User First: Yoshiteru Akita and Kufu Company - The Man Who Developed Tabelog and Cookpad' by Tsuneyoshi Noji / ユーザーファースト　穐田誉輝とくふうカンパニー

Reading notes on the Yoshiteru Akita biography — user-first philosophy, organizational design, and product thinking.

Reading Memo: 'Keep Asking Until You Break Through: The Trajectory of Struggles, Efforts, and Growth of Giant Startup Visional' by Satoshi Ebitani

Reading notes on the Visional story — problem decomposition, hiring, and the grass venture approach.

Reading Notes: 'Visionary Company ZERO: Creating Business from Scratch and Becoming a Great and Enduring Company' by Jim Collins

Reading notes on 'Visionary Company ZERO' — leadership, discipline, the hedgehog concept, and innovation.

Reading Notes: 'Working with Others: Organizational Theory Starting from Inability to Understand Each Other' by Motokazu Udagawa

Reading notes on Motokazu Udagawa's 'Working with Others,' capturing quotes on narrative gaps and dialogue.

Reading Notes: 'The Young Talent Development Textbook: CyberAgent's "Promotion Method" for Growing People' by Tetsuto Soyama

Reading notes on Tetsuto Soyama's book on CyberAgent's promotion method for growing young talent.

Reading Notes: 'Zero to IPO' by Frederic Kerrest

Reading notes on 'Zero to IPO' by Okta co-founder Frederic Kerrest, spanning team, sales, culture, and leadership.

Business books recommended by a fashion e-commerce startup CEO

Business book picks on leadership and transformation, recommended by a fashion e-commerce startup CEO.

The role of Engineering Lead

Mapping the Engineering Lead role from The Manager's Path onto my actual day-to-day work.

Reading The Great Engineering Leader Career Break Through Metabolism and a New CTO Role — A Response to Six of Pragmatic Engineer's Reasons

Pragmatic Engineer's Headed for the Exit dissects the wave of CTOs and VPEs stepping away from high-status roles into ten reasons. I largely agree that the reasons are real, but treat the choice to leave or stay as an individual life decision. Here is my response to six of those reasons, framed around organizational metabolism and a new CTO role that does HR for AI agents and humans.

Books I'd Recommend to Engineering Managers

Books I recommend to Engineering Managers, gathered as I handed off the EM role.

Consultation and Response from Someone Who Became an Engineering Manager for the First Time

Answers to a first-time engineering manager on 1on1s, mentoring, coaching, and recommended books.

The Stance and Moves of Incident Response — Don't Blame, but the Owner Leads

If you operate systems, incidents are unavoidable. The question isn't whether you cause one, but how you move when it happens. I ask three things of my team. Don't blame the fact that it happened. But have the person closest to the cause take responsibility and lead the response. And let anyone in the room show leadership, regardless of title. Guided by blameless postmortems, Just Culture, and incident command, I work down to the concrete moves.

Leadership Anti-patterns

Five leadership anti-patterns I identified from a real workplace experience.

The Type of Person Who Doesn't Want 'Friendly Relationships' at Work

Why an engineering manager might not want 'friendly relationships' at work, sparked by a passage from The Manager's Path.

Why Narcissistic Leaders Resist Remote Work — A Reflection from Running a Fully Remote Organization

A Wharton team has published evidence that the more narcissistic a leader is, the more they resist remote work. The reason isn't productivity or culture, but the loss of the power and status that in-person work supplies. From the seat of an executive and CTO running a fully remote organization, I reflect on this uncomfortable finding a step removed: auditing your own motives, the hidden costs of return-to-office mandates, and remote work as a governance mechanism.

The Origin of Software Engineer Culture: 'Personal User Manual / Public User Guide'

Tracing the origin of the Personal User Manual culture back to Urs Hölzle's A Guide To Urs and beyond.

Praise in public, scold in 1-on-1

A management note from The Manager's Path: praise in public, scold in 1-on-1 — and ask first.

Articles and Books I Referenced for Setting Qualitative and Quantitative Goals

Articles and books I referenced for setting qualitative and quantitative goals.

Reading Notes '起業家の勇気　USEN宇野康秀とベンチャーの興亡 / The Entrepreneur's Courage: USEN's Yasuhide Uno and the Rise and Fall of Ventures' by Hiroshi Kodama

Notes on Yasuhide Uno's biography — Intelligence's early hiring, the 30-person management limit, and hearing out complaints.

Reading Notes: 'AMP IT UP: Leading for Hypergrowth' by Frank Slootman / AMP IT UP 最高を超える

Notes on Frank Slootman's 'Amp It Up' — drivers over passengers, direct talk, calibration, and adjacent-market expansion.

Reading Notes: 'The Startup: Internet Entrepreneurship! Let That Fool Give It a Try'

Notes from 'The Startup' on the commando/general/bureaucrat archetypes and the turning-point gambles founders make.

Reading Notes: 'Japanese Dream - E-Revolution Declaration by a 26-year-old Listed Company President!' by Susumu Fujita

Notes from Susumu Fujita's 'Japanese Dream' on eliminating person-dependency to build a strong organization.

Reading Notes: 『エンジニアリング組織論への招待 ~不確実性に向き合う思考と組織のリファクタリング』(An Invitation to Engineering Organization Theory) by Hiroki Daichi

Notes from 'An Invitation to Engineering Organization Theory' on empiricism, information asymmetry, and technical debt.

Reading Notes: 'The Uber War: How It Rose, Dominated, and Became Hated by Society' by Mike Isaac

Notes from Mike Isaac's Uber book on the Frugality value and competitor intelligence (COIN).

Reading Notes: 'Org Design for Design Orgs' by Peter Merholz / デザイン組織のつくりかた

Notes from 'Org Design for Design Orgs' on focused leadership and the centralized partnership model.

Reading Notes: 'Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow'

Notes from 'Team Topologies' on cognitive load, team APIs, and the four team types and three interaction modes.

Reading Notes: 『HIGH OUTPUT MANAGEMENT』by Andrew S. Grove

Notes from 'High Output Management' on managerial leverage, one-on-ones, and task-relevant maturity.

Reading Notes: 『Who You Are（フーユーアー）君の真の言葉と行動こそが困難を生き抜くチームをつくる』(What You Do Is Who You Are) by Ben Horowitz

Reading notes from Ben Horowitz's 'What You Do Is Who You Are', focused on culture, priorities, and decision-making styles.

Reading Notes: 'Implementing the Future - Four Principles for Social Transformation Through Technology' by Takaaki Umada

Reading notes on Takaaki Umada's 'Implementing the Future', covering rebundling, demand, narrative, and over-communication.

Recommended Books for New Employees

Recommended books for new employees covering onboarding and the purpose of 1on1s.

Before Engineer Hiring, Consider the Approach of Reducing Work by Terminating Services and Features

Before hiring more engineers, consider sunsetting services and features to shrink the workload first.

After Reading 'Building Trust with Team Members: Recommendation for Regular One-on-One Meetings,' I Tried 1on1 and It Was Great!

Tried a 30-minute 1on1 after reading Cookpad's article, and it opened up topics we normally never discuss.

The Debt of Being Unable to Decide

A short note on the debt that piles up when a startup can't decide who owns each call.

What I want you to do if you're aiming to be a supportive type of leader

A prioritized to-do list for supportive-style leaders — hand off work, catch up on the team, join meetings, own cross-team coordination.

Article summary explaining Tech Lead roles clearly

A reading list of the articles and podcasts I used to understand what a Tech Lead actually does.

Recommended Books for Directors/Executive Officers/Management of Tech Startups

Four book recommendations for tech-startup directors and managers, each linked to my reading notes.

I want to know the know-how for building good teams

Looking for team-building know-how as the product team grows to around 20 engineers.