Marco Rogers has been an engineer and manager of engineers for 20 years. In this post he shares some short, practical (but not always easy to follow!) advice for engineers. A few of my favorites:

• Learn what the true scope of the project needs to be. Back away from “story points” and understand what the project needs to accomplish. More context about the goals will help you negotiate what’s in and what’s out of scope.
• Collaborate on designs. Designs never have the level of detail that matters. When you run into UX problems, work with people to develop a solution. Don’t just ask for more mocks. Own the details of what you’re building.
• Don’t just write code. Solve problems. Make sure you understand the value of your work and you talk to people about that. Not just “features”. For example, “this needs to ship by Fall because it’s our big strategic bet for the year.” Tell people how to achieve the strategic goal.

Read the rest of his post for the others.