Engineering Enablement by Abi Noda

Jonathan Biddle, Director of Engineering Effectiveness at Wayfair, shares the story of how his team found repeat success and subsequently grew in size and scope. He shares lessons they’ve borrowed from startups, including understanding the adoption curve and knowing your core users, and offers advice for other platform teams looking to move to the next stage.

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Discussion points:

(01:15) How Jonathan moved into his role

(05:30) Why Platforms teams are in a position of leverage, but also ambiguity

(07:18) The initial work Jonathan’s team focused on

(10:07) Creating transactional versus recurring value

(11:36) The difference between startups and platform teams 

(14:12) Expanding the team’s scope and rebranding to Developer Acceleration

(18:20) What drove the platform team’s success

(21:05) Three adoption concepts to understand

(24:41) Knowing your core customers

(27:36) Adoption metrics and feedback gathering mechanisms

(33:37) When to mandate adoption or rely on organic adoption

(38:38) A story of when adoption fell short
(45:35) Advice for how other teams can go from zero to one

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Mentions and links:
Follow Jonathan on LinkedIn
Diffusion of Innovations by Everett M. Rogers (and the Wikipedia page for the book)
Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore
Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia