Paola Ducolin: Building Trust and Communication in Engineering Teams

Maintainable

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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