Paola Ducolin: Building Trust and Communication in Engineering Teams

In this episode of Maintainable, Robby chats with Paola Ducolin, Staff Engineer at Datadog. Paola shares her insights on the characteristics of well-maintained software, the common struggles teams face, and effective strategies for working with stakeholders to prioritize refactoring.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Characteristics of Maintainable Software: Paola explains the importance of well-documented code and having tests that automatically detect breaks.
• Challenges in Maintaining Software: The impact of business pressures on maintaining code quality and how teams can navigate these challenges.
• Working with Stakeholders: Strategies for communicating the importance of refactoring and measuring the impact of technical debt on business objectives.
• Role of Staff Engineers: Paola’s journey to becoming a staff engineer and the responsibilities that come with the role, including coordination and networking.
• Documentation and Design Systems: The power of documentation and how design systems can serve as a model for well-documented and maintainable code.
• Observability and Monitoring: An overview of Datadog's tools for observability and monitoring, and how they help in maintaining software quality.

Resources Mentioned:

• Datadog
• My Path to Staff Engineer
• Sarah Drasner: The Art of Code Comments

Book Recommendations

• Radical Candor
• Crucial Conversations

Be sure to follow Paola on LinkedIn and stay tuned for more insightful conversations on Maintainable.

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