In my previous post on Kotlin package conventions, I discussed how to structure your Kotlin code within a single module. Today, I want to dive deeper into Gradle multimodule projects - how they work, what advantages they offer, and how they relate to package organization.

Kotlin's approach to packages and directory structure can feel Byzantine if you're coming from a language like Ruby. Unlike Ruby, where files are organized by convention and autoloading handles the rest, Kotlin requires explicit package declarations and a more structured directory layout. In this article, we look into how this all works and what the advantages are.

When an associate engineer and intern joined my team (see my previous post), one of the things I noticed was that something shifted in how the entire team showed up. The two new arrivals were visibly enthusiastic, curious, asking questions, and that turned out to be contagious. Engineers who’d been heads down and fairly routine in their habits started engaging differently.

Earlier this year an associate engineer and an intern were added to my team. I have always been in favor of getting junior engineers on the team and letting them “hit the ground running”, as it were, but it had an additional effect on the team that I hadn’t fully appreciated before.

This is a topic that I’ve been aiming to write about for a long time. It’s relevant to me because I’m in a tech leadership role, and have personally seen what works, seen what didn’t, and made most of the mistakes mentioned here at one time or another. And perhaps, because I happen to work at Culture Amp, a company whose bread and butter is the science of employee engagement and performance, I’ve become a bit of a “couch expert” on these topics, as well. At the same time, it’s not a topic I have often written about before, so I’m a little apprehensive about putting this series of posts out there. Having the courage to be vulnerable is a value I like to practice though: no more hedging, let’s get into it.

Kia ora! I am revamping my personal website after a long hiatus from blogging, starting out with a bit about me, and exhuming/republishing some (very) old blog posts of mine from an earlier incarnation of this site.