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Software Mise En Place
I am really, really into cooking. In the heady days of 2016 I regularly threw dinner parties for 30+ people. These days I don't hate myself that much, but...
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 6,086 posts.
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The Curse of Systems Thinkers
Somewhere between 15 and 20 years ago, I worked for a company. It was a very prestigious company, and it was a glorious and frustrating time. The company did amazing things. Literally unbelievable achievements - from my point of view anyway. But this was coupled with levels of chaos that led
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I stopped working on black hole information loss
Science News, Physics, Science, Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
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Managing mental health while running a startup
Okta co-founder Frederic Kerrest explains why all startup founders need to stay mentally, emotionally, and physically fit.
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The best engineering interview question I've ever gotten
It’s been a while since I was on the receiving end of a software engineering interview. But I still remember my favorite interview question. It was at MemSQL circa 2013. (They haven’t even kept their name, so I assume they’re not still relying on this specific interview question. I don’t feel bad for revealing it…
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When hiring developers, have the candidate read existing code
When hiring developers, there are many things we are looking for, but over the years I have found that raw coding ability is easily the most important quality to look for. I can quickly…
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Why is selling software so weird?
Building software looks a lot like building a house, but selling the two couldn't be more different.
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Job hunting while day-jobbing (2021)
Interviewing is stressful enough, but interviewing while doing your day job?1 Yikes! Well, I just did it,2 and I’m here to tell you that it’s totally …
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Is my advice too mercenary?
A criticism of some of my writing is that it’s too mercenary. Some see my advice as coldly calculating, too focused on individual outcomes over collective ones, and implicitly distrustful of others. I think this is fair criticism! It’s not exactly what I’m going for, but it’s a fair reading. However, there’s more to…
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How did I get so unhappy working in tech?
Click to read Mr. Chan's guide to substitute teaching, a Substack publication.
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Your competitor wrote the RFP you're bidding on
I think it was due to overwhelming boredom with the RFP process that I once partnered with my sales leader to say Yes to every single requirement on every RFP bid during the summer of 2020. We called it The Summer of Yes.
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From Belonging to Burnout, Five Years at Airbnb
Airbnb brands itself as creating community and fostering belonging. Today, former Airbnb software engineer Sahil describes how “Airfam” ignores internal inequi…
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Exit interviews are a trap
It’s tempting to air your grievances at your exit interview. Don’t. There’s almost no upside to speaking up, and tremendous potential downside. Avoid exit interviews if you can. If you must go, be totally bland; say nothing negative.
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Why I'm in the Army Reserve – an explainer for my friends in tech
Outside my day job doing compiler research at Shopify, I lead the Cheshire Yeomanry , a squadron of British Army Reserve light cavalry . I spend about a hundred days a year of my spare-time in evenings, weekends, and holidays, training my Squadron.
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The tech interview prep industry
Before I got into tech, I worked at a tutoring company in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., doing a mix of schoolwork-related tutoring and standardized test prep. From a business perspective, it made so much sense - you have kids taking standardized tests and parents who wanted their kids to do well…
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Strategy and criteria decision matrix: A framework for decision making
I attended a talk by Evan Moore a while ago, where he described a framework the early team at Doordash used to make decisions and prioritize growth strategies. I was impressed by the systematic way of listing strategies and assigning them weights based on possible impact + predicted effort it would take to execute…
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My macOS keyboard shortcuts
*Not literally all, but certainly those which I find most useful, and which also might not be all that widely known.
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We analyzed 100K technical interviews to see where the best performers work
We’ve hosted over 100K technical interviews at interviewing.io. Here are the companies whose engineers are really good at technical interviews.
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Hard to work with
Managing teams has taught me a lot about my own behaviors and motivations. For example, I overworked for a long time. This left me continually teetering on the brink of burnout, and I had no energy left to absorb the typical sorts of organizational changes that happen at any company. Despite doing good work, I handled…
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Developers spend most of their time figuring the system out
I am often asked what I mean when I say that developers spend most of their time figuring the system out. Let’s unpack the statement.
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How to work with me
A user guide for David Bauer. About this document If you start working with a new person, wouldn’t it be nice if you had some sort of user guide that gives you a basic understanding of how to work with them? This document is exactly that. It captures my guiding principles, how I work as […]
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Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles
Archived MIT Admissions blog post 'We are reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles,' published March 28, 2022. Preserved for historical context; not maintained as current admissions policy.
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Maybe you should do less 'work'
Working in tech, I've observed developers who work as hard as possible when they don't need to. I’m here today to tell you that it's a bad idea and you shouldn't do it.
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