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Sabotaging projects by overthinking, scope creep, and structural diffing
I’ll be attending Babashka Conf on May 8 and Dutch Clojure Days on May 9. If you’re attending either (or just visiting Amsterdam), drop me a line!
Topics /
Career & Management
The most popular blog posts about career & management on Hacker News. 4,747 posts.
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Things I’ve learned in 20 years of programming
This year, I’ve become increasingly acquainted with the DEV platform. It’s a refreshingly positive oasis in the large sea of angry Reddit commenters and “well actually” connoisseurs that is the broader software world. One interesting facet of this community is that it seems pretty beginner-heavy. I regularly see posts…
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I'm not burned out, I'm pissed off
(Hey HN/Reddit/Lobste.rs! I didn't expect this to take off, there are a couple of unclear things in here. The biggest seeming to be my ha...
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The Big DevOps Misunderstanding
When the term DevOps came up it was all about a simple idea:
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On Jony Ive Leaving Apple
I don’t worry that Apple is in trouble because Jony Ive is leaving; I worry that Apple is in trouble because he’s not being replaced.
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Writing Is Thinking: Learning to Write with Confidence
Learning to write is learning to think, because writing is thinking. They are two peas in a powerful pod. This article goes over my writing process, focused on minimizing the activation energy to get started.
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An Apology to my European IT Team
In 2008 when we were opening the US office for a European maker of membrane production equipment, we had all of the early IT choices someone has to make when first opening a business. How should we…
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Live coding interviews measure stress, not coding skills
Live coding measure stress, not coding skills
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I no longer care to work on any Ruby gems so I've archived all my repositories
I’ve decided to archive the source code of my Ruby gems to make it clear that I’m no longer working on them; I’ve written this post to link from them in order to explain why.
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Organization probably doesn't want to improve things
Last week, I had a fascinating conversation with a reader around frustration and unhappiness at work. Much of it was totally obvious to both of us, but it occurred to me that this probably isn't to everyone, which is why almost all of my colleagues (in very cushy, non-stressful jobs) nonetheless need therapy. And if…
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We Hire the Best, Just Like Everyone Else
One of the most common pieces of advice you’ll get as a startup is this: Only hire the best. The quality of the people that work at your company will be one of the biggest factors in your success – or failure. I’ve heard this advice over and over
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My Salary Progression in Tech
There was a recent tweet that asked people to share their salary as a means of helping others, so I’ll do that. I don’t think it’s enough, however1. It will give you power in your…
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Resolutions for programmers
It’s important for programmers to continuously challenge themselves in order to avoid creative and technical stagnation.
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The Enterprise Experience
Reflections on working in a large enterprise — culture, process, and what I've learned in a year.
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My positive experience as a woman in tech
Women speaking up about the sexism they have experienced in tech is great for raising awareness about the issues. However, when no positive stories get out, the overall picture painted is bleak, which could scare even more women away .
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You Don't Need to Quit Your Job to Make
The startup storyline being told may not be the most optimal. The mental clarity of separating your lifeline from your projects may be the most thoughtful choice.
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Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong
This is my talk from 2012 Startup School, pretty much exactly as delivered. It's been more than 7 years since we started YC. In that time, we've funded 467 startups so I've seen a lot of patterns....
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If you can’t explain something in simple terms, you don’t understand it
In the early 1960s, Richard Feynman gave a series of undergraduate lectures that were collected into a book called the Feynman Lectures on Physics. Absent from
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Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)
My writing has recently prompted an anonymous commenter to declare that people like me are what's wrong with the world. Oh joy! – finally, after all these years of doing evil, some recognition! Excited, I decided to share one of my battle-tested evil tips, which never ever failed evil me.
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Engineering management lessons (2014)
Welcome to engineering management. It’s fun, it’s exhausting, it’s rewarding — but most importantly it’s new! What worked for you before won’t work now. You’ll have to acquire a new set of skills, and shed some bad habits in the process. Here is a short guide to get you started.
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Please learn to write
There's been lots of buzz on the topic of whether or not you should learn to code. As an engineer, I don't have unbiased thoughts on the matter. I tweeted Jeff
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Transparent leadership beats servant leadership
I spent a couple of years managing a team, and I entered that role – like many – without knowing anything about how to do it. I tried to figure out how to be a good manager, and doing so I ended up reading a lot about servant leadership . It never quite sat right with me, though. Servant leadership seems to me a lot…
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Working quickly is more important than it seems (2015)
The obvious benefit to working quickly is that you'll finish more stuff per unit time. But there's more to it than that. If you work quickly, the cost of doing something new will seem lower in your mind. So you'll be inclined to do more.
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