Work loudly
6 min read
In an office, some visibility is free. Go remote and it's gone. Working loudly shows your impact as you do it, not in a status update nobody reads.
I'm Ben Balter, and I write here about developer platforms, product and engineering leadership, open source, and showing your work.
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How to one-on-one
5 min read
Most 1:1s waste your team's only protected synchronous time on status updates. Here's how to run ones worth showing up for.
How I over-engineered my book
24 min read
My book has a linter, ~5,500 automated checks, and a Pandoc pipeline that rebuilds five formats (EPUB, Kindle, paperback ×2, and web) on every git push. For a book one person wrote. Here's how I built and published it the way I ship software.
The Zen of GitHub
3 min read
Call it taste, culture, or zen. Every organization has shared assumptions that guide decisions and resolve ambiguity in pursuit of its mission.
15 rules for communicating at GitHub
15 min read
How GitHub used issues and chat for async communication: fifteen rules that eliminate the 'you had to be there' problem in corporate workflows.
GitHub for non-developers: a beginner's guide
10 min read
No coding required. A plain-English guide to GitHub issues, pull requests, Markdown, and notifications for product managers, designers, legal, and ops.
How I re-over-engineered my home network for privacy and security
18 min read
How I used Docker Compose, Ansible, and Caddy to re-over-engineer my network setup for easier maintenance, treating my Raspberry Pi like cattle, not a pet.
Why everything should have a URL
15 min read
When knowledge lives in people's heads and inboxes, it doesn't scale. Giving decisions and processes URLs makes context discoverable, async, and opt-in.
Why you should work asynchronously
5 min read
Async is what makes remote work actually work. It produces better outcomes, improves work-life balance, and makes room for flow by moving past Cold War-era workflows.
Out now
OpenandAsync
The collaborative software development playbook for remote and distributed teams. Drawing on over a decade at GitHub. On Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo & more.
Buy it for $9.99 (opens in a new tab)Recent Posts
The rule of no surprises
7 min read
Surprises break trust faster than setbacks. If something would surprise someone when they find out later, tell them now, not once you have a fix.
Your documentation quality is your AI quality now
7 min read
AI tools are only as good as the docs you feed them. Bold text isn't a heading to a model. Here's the fix, plus two free converters.
Accessible by default: writing a book like software
9 min read
The ebook meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1 Level AA): Markdown won't let me fake a heading, and a browser audits every build. axe-core under Playwright catches what Markdown can't check, like color contrast, and nobody had to schedule a week for it.
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Older Posts
Reorgs happen
6 min read
In thirteen years at GitHub I was part of 25 reorgs, almost one every six months. Reorgs are a constant in tech, not a crisis. Here's how to navigate them.
AI-first program management
10 min read
AI-augmented program management grows out of async-first, engineering-inspired workflows. It amplifies human judgment instead of replacing it.
How to keep a brag doc (without the cringe)
5 min read
Nobody's tracking your wins for you. How to keep a brag doc in five minutes a week, what makes a good entry, and how it builds your promotion case.
No agenda, no meeting
2 min read
Announcing noagendanomeeting.net, a single-page site arguing that every meeting deserves an agenda and most meetings should be a document instead.
Agentic coding workflows run on pull requests
9 min read
I asked Copilot to add agentic workflows to my repo. It wrote this post instead: AI coding agents work best through pull requests and code review.
Thirteen years remote at GitHub: what works
6 min read
When I joined GitHub in 2013, I found a company that had rethought how work happens. Thirteen years later, those lessons still shape how I work.
How to run LanguageTool on macOS
5 min read
Set up LanguageTool as a free, open-source Grammarly alternative that runs locally on your Mac. No subscription required.
Silencing dissent isn't crisis management
4 min read
Silencing dissent erodes trust, invites negativity, and stifles learning. The best leaders embrace transparency instead.
Cathedral vs Bazaar People Management
5 min read
What if we applied open source's cathedral vs. bazaar metaphor to management? Cathedral managers control; bazaar managers empower.
How to communicate like a GitHub engineer (external link)
1 min read
How GitHub turned its guiding communication principles into prescriptive practices to manage internal signal-to-noise ratio.
Transparency is the andon of knowledge work
6 min read
Like Toyota's andon cord, transparent collaboration lets anyone stop the line when they spot a problem in knowledge work.
Remote work: communicate more, less often
2 min read
Async communication is like gzip compression for humans: more processing up front, but greater throughput with fewer packets.
Pull requests are a form of documentation
3 min read
Pull requests record what changed, who changed it, why, and what else was considered. Treat every PR as a time capsule for future contributors.
Practice inclusive scheduling
1 min read
Write dates unambiguously, include time zones, and build in breaks. Small scheduling choices make distributed teams feel included.
Meetings are a point of escalation, not a starting point
3 min read
Most meetings are just information downloads that could've been a doc. Treat them as an escalation based on complexity, not the default starting point.
How to write a great extended leave document
5 min read
A battle-tested template for handing off your work before extended leave, so your team stays unblocked and nothing falls through the cracks.
Manage like an engineer
8 min read
If issues, pull requests, and project boards are the best way to develop software, should they not also be the best way to manage software development?
Helpful 404s for Jekyll (and GitHub Pages)
3 min read
How to build 404 pages for Jekyll and GitHub Pages that suggest the closest valid URL, using Levenshtein distance and your sitemap.
Seven things a corporate Chief of Staff does
12 min read
Seven core responsibilities that define the corporate Chief of Staff role, from tactical office management to strategic advising.
Leaders show their work
10 min read
Great leaders don't just communicate decisions. They explain how and why. Without that context, every decision sounds like "because I said so."