Medium

Douglas Gresham

he/him

Douglas Gresham

·

Jan 6

Leadership in the fast lane: Lessons from the F1 Pit Wall

I’ve been an F1 fan for as long as I can remember. I’m that guy who always watches live with different screens for live timings and driver…

Leadership in the fast lane: Lessons from the F1 Pit Wall

Douglas Gresham

·

Dec 18, 2025

A Better Way Of Saying No: “Help Me Understand”

In 2020, you may recall we had something of a global pandemic. One of the many consequences of this is travel — especially air travel —…

A Better Way Of Saying No: “Help Me Understand”

Douglas Gresham

·

Nov 26, 2024

Bad metrics drive out good

Impact. The magic word Big Tech uses to describe core job expectations, with Google going so far as to rename its rating descriptors based…

Bad metrics drive out good

Douglas Gresham

·

Feb 17, 2023

Process Has Value; Focus On Process Drives Mediocrity

“No plan of operations can with any certainty reach beyond the first encounter with the enemy” — Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

Process Has Value; Focus On Process Drives Mediocrity

Douglas Gresham

·

Sep 1, 2022

The Problem with Performance Ratings

One of the hallmarks of any performance management system is the performance rating — a single descriptor summing up what the company…

Five stars on a red and blue background

Douglas Gresham

·

Aug 25, 2022

How Staff+ Engineers Frustrate Their Managers

Managing Staff/Principal engineers, or those aspiring to be so, is genuinely a joy. They autonomously solve problems, want to be given…

How Staff+ Engineers Frustrate Their Managers

Douglas Gresham

·

Aug 18, 2022

Interviewing for Conflict Resolution

A friend recently asked me how I interview leaders, especially senior+ engineering managers, on conflict resolution and management. I…

Interviewing for Conflict Resolution

Douglas Gresham

·

Aug 11, 2022

Reward Difficulty, not Complexity

A recurring conversation in performance reviews and calibrations is: “this is good work, but is it <Level> scope?”.

Reward Difficulty, not Complexity

Douglas Gresham

·

Aug 5, 2022

Make performance reviews more useful with written evaluations

If you’re a manager at a company larger than a seed-stage startup, you probably have to deal with a regular performance management cycle…

Make performance reviews more useful with written evaluations

Douglas Gresham

·

Nov 16, 2021

Message Crafting for software engineers

One of the key insights for staff/principal engineers is that the job is at least as much about people as it is about tech, increasingly so…

A person holding up a sign saying “Do not wait for leaders, become them”

Douglas Gresham

Douglas Gresham

he/him

He/him. Currently Director of Engineering @ Trainline; formerly Google, FB and Skyscanner. Views expressed on Medium are my own.

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