Last Lectures

Way back in my year end review for 2021 I wrote,

As part of that effort I’ve worked to build a culture in engineering where people coming and going is normal. We’ve started doing “Last Lectures” for all engineers who leave the company, and it’s been a good way to express our appreciation and also normalize shifting staffing.

The setup is pretty simple, each person is given an hour to talk about whatever they want to. That’s it. Managers across the company are invited, and all of engineering. We record it and send it around to anyone who wants to see it. So far they have all been great!

and having just had one for a truly extraordinary engineer on my team today I thought it would be worth writing about them a little bit more.

A book that was really impactful for me when I read it for the first time was The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. It's a great book, but I actually watched the video of his actual "Last Lecture".

At the beginning of the lecture he explains:

this lecture series used to be called "The Last Lecture: if you had one last lecture to give before you died what would it be?"

Hold on to that for later.

So one of the things that every organization experiences is the departure of talented people. The days of spending your entire career at a single company are gone. According to one study in 2021, nearly 70% of all software engineers have been at their current job for 2 years or less¹. This may have changed some since then but probably hasn't changed much.

As a leader, some of your team members will leave your team. It's going to happen.

As I started my time at Osmosis, I realized that normalizing this, for a team that had had nearly 0 turn over for many years, was going to be important to keep it from feeling like the world was ending every time someone left. So I realized that this idea of a Last Lecture could serve a couple of purposes for our organization.

The first, is the obvious normalization of departures. When you celebrate the voluntary departures, honoring the work that those team members had done, and thanking them, it changes the tone of the departure. They are leaving but they aren't dead to us. They were honored team members when they were here, they are leaving as honored team members. Show them, and your team.

The second, is that it provided a great opportunity to express gratitude as team members, and leaders. People sacrifice for their work. They give up time and other opportunities to work with your team. They occasionally sacrifice time with their friends and family, hopefully not often, to make sure that incidents are responded to, and deadlines are met. Show them as they walk out the door that you recognized that.

The CEO at Osmosis, Shiv Gaglani made a point to attend each one, and reflect on his experience with the team members where he had them. The CTO, Ryan Haynes did the same, having worked with many of our engineers for longer than I had been at Osmosis. They was truly great at creating a culture of gratitude by example.

Showing them also helps your existing team know that you are paying attention to the work they are doing as well.

The third, is to establish a pattern of learning from each other. We rarely get to learn from each other, specifically we rarely get to learn from the lived experiences of others. When I ask someone departing to give a last lecture I ask them to share the things they have learned in their career, and in their life. Relevant to work or not.

With that explanation of the ask they come up with the most amazing lectures. They talk about what they have learned in their field, what they have learned in their life, and what they wish they had learned earlier. It's magical. I could watch them over and over, because the richness of the life lessons is fantastic.

I've now carried this to two companies, and will carry it to others in the future. Partly because I am selfish and want to learn from the people around me. Partly because it really does become a strong cultural touch point that helps teams as they work through departures.

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