_ Case studies and best practices for engineering leaders

Engineering Leader’s blog

Learn from some of the most accomplished engineering leaders. This blog brings you key insights from fellow engineering managers and tech leaders to level-up your management skills and to take your developer team to the next level.

How to Develop a Cordova Android Plugin

by László Csele `Lacka` / September 27, 2017

I decided to make a plugin, which is more advanced than showing just a native toast message on a device, so I chose the acceleration sensor access from a cross-platform app. In this blog post, I show you how to develop a native Cordova plugin for Android.

A Scientific Way to Prioritize Software Development Requirements

by Tamás Török / September 19, 2017

Requirement prioritization is one of the biggest challenges a software team faces. Actually, 25% of tech leaders said prioritizing software development is their biggest challenge. It turns out there are many different ways a software development team can do it. Each requirement prioritization decision should be influenced by customer needs, always following the business’s needs. From this post you will learn a hypothesis-driven way to prioritize software development.

How to Easily Set-up Node Config Following These Best Practices

by Ákos Szokodi / August 7, 2017

When building any kind of server side app, you will eventually have the following thoughts:

  • I would like to bind my app to a specific port.
  • I would like to enter a connection string so I can connect to my database.
  • I would like to use a third-party service through a provided API key or credentials.

Given values to these kinds of parameters will yield a configuration. It is a crucial part of the system as our application will have lots of configurable elements, so it must be handled properly throughout the codebase.

In this article, we will look at the DOs and DON’Ts of Node config handling.

Beginner’s Guide to Serverless Architecture (Config, Deploy, Advantages)

by Dániel Vincze / August 1, 2017

Serverless is a software architecture where the code runs in the cloud but we don’t really know the OS and the hardware it uses. Everything is managed by the provider except the functions we upload.      

Serverless is not just an architecture. It is also a powerful framework we can use to develop and deploy serverless applications. After reading this guide, you will be able to deploy infinitely scaling NodeJS web application in minutes. Other supported languages are Java 8, Python 3.6 and 2.7, .NET Core 1.0.1 (C#)

10+ Startup Tech Leaders Reveal How They Prioritise Software Development

by Tamás Török / July 18, 2017

One of the biggest challenges startup tech leaders are facing is prioritising software development. In fact, 25% of the respondents said this is their biggest challenge, according to the State of Software Development report. We decided to ask more than 10 tech leaders (mostly CTOs) about the practices they use to prioritise software development. The goal of this post isn’t to select one best way but rather to show different approaches you can select from or gain inspiration from as you come up with your own method. If prioritising software development is a challenge you’re facing then this post is for you.

7 Things You Need to Do Before Building an App

by Tamás Török / July 4, 2017

Building an app is a pretty exciting thing. It’s tempting to just jump on it and start creating it. Well, no matter how tempting it is, slow down a bit. You need to be clear about these basic things before you start building your app. You don’t want to build something no one wants to use, right? Which is why it requires some planning, validation and prioritisation before you even start coding. In this post, we put together 7 things that you should do before coding your app.

App Engagement: How to Create Habit-Forming Apps

by Tamás Török / June 6, 2017

We all want to create an app people love to use, and it’s really heartbreaking when you build something and no one cares about it. The biggest challenge is not building your app and getting new users. The challenge is to keep them engaged and coming back. App engagement is the key. 

This is why we should start with user engagement and retention. In this post, we created a guide that will help you increase app engagement no matter if it’s mobile or web app.

Node 8: Five New Features You Need to Know

by Ákos Szokodi / May 29, 2017

Node 8 is out on May 30th and packed with new ES features along with performance improvements. Version 8 is important as later this year (in October) Node 8 will be LTS, so it's worth checking out its new features compared to the previous LTS (v6) and the previous stable (v7) release. In this post we collected every new features you need to know.

20 Easy-to-use Mockup Tools to Design Your Next App

by Tamás Török / May 16, 2017

Sketching up the frames of your app is a great way to make it a bit more realistic. This is a step that can’t be avoided when building any kind of application.

But, you can take this to the next level. 

Using some of the mockup tools mentioned below, you can create even interactive mockups that can be exported and run on any device working like a real application or a prototype. 

This is an efficient way to test your assumptions about your app; it also provides detailed instructions for developers, making their job much easier and faster. 

How to Minimize Risks in Software Outsourcing

by Tamás Török / May 4, 2017

We all have heard horror stories about software outsourcing involving stealing ideas, delivering crappy quality, misdelivering product and broken dreams. Some horror stories usually distort the picture, but indeed, there is a level of truth to them. The good thing is most of these horror stories could have been avoided by careful outsourcing partner selection, better work and collaboration coordination. We identified potential risks you can face when planning to outsource software development and actionable tips on how to handle them.