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Topics /
Career & Management
The most popular blog posts about career & management on Hacker News. 311 posts.
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The Broken Microsoft Pact: Layoffs and Performance Management
The unspoken agreement that made Microsoft's lower pay tolerable has fundamentally broken.
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Love your customers
There were many reasons why I left Oracle shortly after it acquired Sun, but first among them: I could not stomach the disdain that Oracle had for its own customers. Sun — for all of its (many!) other faults — loved its customers.
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When a team is too big
What signs to look for and how to increase productivity with all-round skillset
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The reality of working in tech: We're not hired to write code (2023)
"So, is everyone losing their minds yet?" My ex-coworker asked me over yahoo messenger. He quit after getting enraged by new work policies that specifically targeted him. I looked up from my screen,
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The vibe coder's career path is doomed
Let me get one thing out of the way immediately: LLMs are helpful. This isn't about whether LLMs can write code. They can. It's about why vibe coding might be the worst career investment you'll make.
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You should write "without bugs"
Why and how you should write "without bugs"
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A case study in bad hiring practice and how to fix it
In this day and age of cybersecurity professionals crying out for roles, we're still seeing companies complain that there is a skills shortage and a lack of talent. A quick scan through your LinkedIn feed will show this is absolute nonsense: there is a mass of experienced, capable talent out there l
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Code Is Debt
I like to answer this frequent question by way of an example. An example of two companies. It goes something like this:
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Things managers do that leaders never would
Simon reveals the subtle but powerful ways leaders set themselves apart from managers—and why those choices matter most in times of crisis.
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Breaking computers taught me to build them
My 12-year journey in software: how breaking computers taught me to build them.
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From engineer to manager: A practical guide to your first months in leadership
A practical and thoughtful guide for new engineering managers. Learn how to build agreements, avoid micromanagement, run effective 1:1s, and navigate your first months with clarity.
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New junior developers can’t code
Something’s been bugging me about how new devs learn and I need to talk about it. We’re at this weird inflection point in software development. Every junior dev I talk to has Copilot or Claude or GPT running 24/7. They’re shipping code faster than ever. But when I dig deeper into their understanding of what they’re…
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My takeaways from DjangoCon EU 2025
Here are some of the most interesting things I learned at DjangoCon EU 2025 in Dublin, Ireland, partially written with the help of AI: link to talks
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You can't git clone a team
Mastering the full stack isn’t just a technical feat: it’s a human challenge, and no, you can’t git clone your way out of it.
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Ratchet effects determine engineer reputation at large companies
Why you can't skip to the top (but you can skip to the bottom)
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How I Choose What to Work On (2023)
A reader, "Moo", asked me to write about my process for entrepreneurship and how I choose what to write on. Despite being a lifelong entrepreneur and being relatively successful at...
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Conscious unbossing
Conscious unbossing - 52% of Gen-Z professionals don’t want to be middle managers
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Rust, C++, and Python trends in jobs on Hacker News (February 2025)
How are Rust, C++, and Python trending on Hacker News in the job market? As a proxy measure for programming language trends, let’s analyze the frequency of programming language mentions in the mont…
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Things that have a bigger impact than coding assistants
Here are 5 factors that make a bigger difference to software development outcomes than “A.I.” coding assistants, but teams don’t address because they’re “old news, gra…
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In defense of shallow technical knowledge
Whenever a new piece of technology comes out (these days, mostly AI) I go to some effort to understand it. Usually I end up writing a post about it, so I can be…
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Data engineering and software engineering are converging
The official JS client for connecting to ClickHouse.
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Organize your Slack channels by "How Often", not "What"
A few weeks ago, I changed my Slack channel sections. I’m now more responsive and engaged, while also feeling less stressed. How? By sorting my Slack channels by urgency, or how often I want to read them. Versus Sorting by “how often” lets me read my most urgent messages first, focusing my energy on what
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I speak at Harvard as it faces its biggest crisis since 1636
Every week, I tell myself I won’t do yet another post about the asteroid striking American academia, and then every week events force my hand otherwise. No one on earth—certainly no one who reads t…
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Questions to ask when you think need to finish something
When a pursuit becomes a drag, here's some questions to help you figure out why, and what to do about it.
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Teaching a new way to prevent outages at Google
Read how Google is using System Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) to analyze pure software systems and discover risks.
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Indie, alone, and figuring it out
Going indie looks like freedom from the outside. But once you’re in it, you face loneliness, pressure, constant decisions, user feedback, and all the invisible work no one warns you about. This is what the journey feels like, and why it’s still worth it.
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Two and a Half Years in GameDev
About 3 years ago, I joined a GameDev company, without any prior experience making games or hands-on exposure to this industry. Statistically, this time is not even enough to release a single game. But during that window, I was lucky to meet many talented people deeply involved in modern GameDev, who shared with me…