Ben Balter
Engineering leadership, open source, and showing your work
Articles
100 articles
Reorgs happen
AI-first program management: amplifying judgment, not replacing it
The brag doc
How to one-on-one
No agenda, no meeting
Agentic workflows and the future of software development
I've worked remotely at GitHub for thirteen years: here's what actually works.
How to run LanguageTool on macOS
The "I don't like what they're saying, so they shouldn't be allowed to say it" approach to crisis management
Cathedral vs Bazaar People Management
How to communicate like a GitHub engineer
Transparent collaboration is the andon of knowledge work
Remote work requires communicating more, less frequently
Pull requests are a form of documentation
Practice inclusive scheduling
Meetings are a point of escalation, not a starting point
Intro to GitHub for non-technical roles
How to write a great extended leave document
Manage like an engineer
Helpful 404s for Jekyll (and GitHub Pages)
Why you should work asynchronously
The seven things a corporate Chief of Staff does
Leaders show their work
Using GitHub Actions to get notified when an API response (or web page) changes
How I re-over-engineered my home network for privacy and security
Advice for managing open source communities at scale
Moderating open source conversations to keep them productive
Five (and a half) practical tips for governing your open source project
Nine things a (technical) program manager does
Octoversary - eight years of optimizing for developer happiness
What to read before starting (or interviewing) at GitHub
Analysis of federal .gov domains, pre-Biden edition
The top 10 posts of the past 10 years
Trust and safety is not a product edge case
Budget for the hidden "internet tax"
Seven trust and safety features to build into your product before someone gets hurt
How I manage GitHub notifications
Tools of the trade: How I communicate at GitHub (and why)
Automate common open source community management tasks
Seven ways to set open source contributors up for success
Eight tips for working remotely
User blocking vs. user muting
10 lessons learned fostering a community of communities at GitHub
Resolutions for sustaining and growing open source communities
A community of communities: Empowering maintainers to grow communities around their code
Go near, go far, meet in the middle
What lawyers can learn from open source
Problems, not solutions
Yes, No, Maybe
Why you probably shouldn't add a CLA to your open source project
Everything an open source maintainer might need to know about open source licensing
Twelve tips for growing communities around your open source project
How not to prioritize a feature
Seven ways to consistently ship great features
Your project's README is your project's constitution
Using protected branches to empower non-code contributors on GitHub
Three easy ways to show employees they're appreciated
Bikeshed honeypots
How I Atom (for prose)
Eight things I wish I knew my first week at GitHub
The seven habits of highly effective GitHubbers
How to make a product great
Why you shouldn't write your own open source license
Removing a feature is a feature
Books for geeks
Twelve things a product manager does
Moderating a controversial pull request
The missed opportunity that is the White House Open Source Policy
Optimizing for power users and edge cases is the easy part
How to derail any meeting
Open source as Yelp for software
The six types of pull requests you see on GitHub
Why open source
Four characteristics of modern collaboration tools
Why everything should have a URL
The three biggest challenges in government IT
Bringing open source workflows to the enterprise
How to add an "improve this content" button to your GitHub Pages site
How GitHub uses automated testing to empower developers to write less-corporate blog posts
Five principles to guide any government IT effort
The Zen of GitHub
Speak like a human: 12 ways tech companies can write less-corporate blog posts
Open procurement: procurement in an increasingly open source world
Merge by committee
Using GitHub Pages to showcase your organization's open source efforts
Copyright notices for open source projects
Test your content
Analysis of federal .gov domains, 2015 edition
Eight lessons learned hacking on GitHub Pages for six months
The difference between 18F and USDS
19 reasons why technologists don't want to work at your government agency
Five best practices in open source: external engagement
Five best practices in open source: internal collaboration
Explain like I'm five: Jekyll collections
Why your agency's first open source project is going to be a flop
Diff (and collaborate on) Microsoft Word documents using GitHub
The fine print nobody reads: what to do so government can use your service
Hacking GitHub: 14 simple tools to help introduce open source to the uninitiated
Why you should care about HTTPS, even if you have nothing to hide
Geeks and suits