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How to give a senior leader feedback without getting fired
There’s a right and wrong way to proceed. Here’s how to increase the chances your leader listens and takes action--while reducing the chance they feel threatened.
New
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 300 posts.
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Lessons from 15 Years of Indie App Development
Exactly 15 years ago on November 9th, 2009, I got my first MacBook and started learning how to build apps. I was fascinated with the idea that you can build something that other people will find useful and enjoy using. I also heard about those "indie developers" on Twitter who
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Oncall shift should be Tuesday to Tuesday
Hacker News comments Reddit comments
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When did estimates turn into deadlines?
Tip: In complex software modernization projects treat estimates as guidelines, not deadlines.
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Writes large correct programs (2008)
A good programmer is someone who can write large programs that have a high probability of being correct.
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Against Best Practices
I have come to believe that by and large “best practices” are doing more harm than good. Not necessarily because they’re bad advice as such, but because they’re mostly pounded by either 1) various types of zealots, idiots, and assholes who abuse these kind of “best practices” as an argument from authority, or 2)…
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Good Software Development Habits
Zarar Siddiqi: engineering leader and consultant in Toronto. Building products with care, and helping teams do the same with AI in the loop.
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Please stop the coding challenges
Let’s talk about tech interviews – specifically, the ones that go overboard with unrealistic coding assignments. If you’re a developer who’s been asked to de...
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On Building Git for Lawyers
Building git for lawyers at Version Story (YC W21) — versionstory.com
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Looking for a Job Is Tough
Since the beginning of September, I've been searching for a job after being laid off from my previous role at the end of June. The market is tough, lot’s of fake jobs, so it’s been pretty challenging to even land an interview. Still, I managed to get a few, and, well, not all of them were great — though not…
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Francois Chollet is leaving Google
Today, we're announcing that Francois Chollet, the creator of Keras and a leading figure in the AI world, is embarking on a new chapter in his career outside of Google.
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Rim/Blackberry tales – reply all
Names and emails (even Sumit’s) have been redacted to protect the innocent and the guilty. But you know who you are. Who is Sumit B? I...
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Defensive Communication (1961)
I provide this HTML version of a historical article because it was not easily available but was central to my article: Reagle, J. (2010). “Be nice”: Wikipedia norms for supportive communication. New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia (Special Issue on Web Science) , 16(1), 161–180…
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How I ship projects at big tech companies
What I think about when I'm lead engineer on a project
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Procrastination and the fear of not being good enough
A personal piece about writing, self-doubt, and the quiet ways perfectionism can stall creative work.
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Salary expectations questions – How should you answer them? (2020)
Don't panic! Here's how to tactfully answer salary expectations questions without costing yourself a ton of money
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What Is a Staff Engineer?
"I've worked with a couple of Staff Engineers on different teams in the past and I've seen them do different things, but I've not been able to pin down exactly what they do." I get this question quite frequently. Sometimes from engineers looking to elevate their roles.
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A counter-intuitive guide to better leadership
Intuition works from the shadows. Look at it directly and you get rationalization, not explanation—the verbal brain fills the gaps with a plausible story.
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How to delegate effectively as your responsibility grows
I’m gearing up, like some kind of power washer, to spray new productized services into our operations group so they can SOP those services at scale. And because I’m doing that, this seemed like a good moment to draw on my experience, both in leadership roles and as a management consultant, and lay out a…
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Programmer in Berlin: Culture
This is part 4 of a 5-part series detailing what I wish I had known as an American programmer moving to Berlin. This page details cultural differences and things I wasn’t aware of until I stumbled on them. Politics One thing about Germany, and Europe in general, is that it’s relatively left-wing when compared to the…
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If you need the money, don't take the job
Money: how to get people to give it to you, how much to ask for, and how to be worth what you're asking. Some real talk about the challenges you’ll face as a newly independent worker.
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My Time Working at Stripe
Jon's personal site.
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Get me out of data hell
It is 9:59 AM in Melbourne, 9th October, 2024. Sunlight filters through my windows, illuminating swirling motes of dust across my living room. There is a cup of tea in my hand. I take a sip and savor it.
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The carefulness knob
A play in one act Dramatis personae EM, an engineering manager TL, the tech lead for the team X, an engineering manager from a different team Scene 1: A meeting room in an office. The walls are ado…
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Dropbox announces 20% global workforce reduction
Today, our cofounder and CEO Drew Houston shared the difficult news that we’ll be making reductions to our global workforce. Here's the email he sent to all employees.
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Steve Ballmer was an underrated CEO
There's a common narrative that Microsoft was moribund under Steve Ballmer and then later saved by the miraculous leadership of Satya Nadella. This is the dominant narrative in every online discussion about the topic I've seen and it's a commonly expressed belief "in real life" as well. While I don't have anything…