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Career & Management
The most popular blog posts about career & management on Hacker News. 6,086 posts.
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 …
From Prison to Programming
I believe that getting underrepresented groups into software development is a good thing. This is not a controversial opinion until you start talking about felons. Today's guest is Rick Wolter. He's an iOS developer who served 18 years in prison for second degree murder. Rick killed somebody and for some that's all…
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.
Resignation
Today I’m resigning from The New York Times. Those are not words I ever wanted to write. Growing up, I never even imagined that I would get the chance to live in New York City or to work in media -- let alone at the paper of record. I’m from a tiny town of a thousand people in the middle of the corn fields of…
Academia, Love Me Back
My name is Tiffany Martínez. As a McNair Fellow and student scholar, I’ve presented at national conferences in San Francisco, San Diego, and Miami. I have crafted a critical reflection piece that w…
What non-technical users don’t understand about your software
If you are writing consumer software you have to understand that you and your average user have a very different level of understanding of computers. When you first start doing support it can be a …
What we get wrong about meetings, and how to make them worth attending
I rely on Google Calendar to tell me where I am supposed to be, when and with whom. When the service collapsed for an afternoon last month, it felt like a teachable moment. For a few seconds, I pan…
Conway’s Law (2022)
Systems are constrained to follow the communication patterns of their designers.
On Scaling Mental Models
No Newsletter Next Week I'll be on vacation in the Caribbean, sipping drinks and juggling for Hermit crabs. The Actual Thing I'm a vim user. I've used Vim...
How I was failing to find time for life while working remotely
Since the last March, like a lot of other people, I was forced to work remotely. It was not the first time, but somehow it went different. I quickly found out that not having a context switch between the office and home forced me into non-healthy behaviors like giving work all the available time.
Work Can Wait
On top of making Basecamp, we write books about what we’ve learned running our own business. They’re filled with practical advice you won’t find anywhere else.
Doing a Machine Learning PhD While Working in Japan
An American MEXT scholar shares the pros and cons of doing a PhD in Japan, from funding and part-time work to university life and career options.
A portentous reunion
I just attended my thirtieth college reunion, and there were some clear trends among my mid-life peers. First among them: grave concern for what AI means for our future and for the future of our (broadly young adult) kids.
Behind the scenes: the struggle for each paper (2021)
The start of my sabbatical has given me a moment to reflect on my publications. But my CV only shows a list of neatly cataloged papers: title, authors, conference. Each one appearing no different from another. But how each paper ended up published is its own story, a story about people and opportunity.
How I stopped procrastinating, learned to code, and launched my first product
I discuss the six major barriers that I had to break through in order to go from lurker to launcher.
Tips for Interviewing over Zoom
Don’t let these videoconferencing mistakes be a stumbling block for a potential employer.
The technical interview practice gap
Access to technical interview practice matters more than raw technical ability, and without it, we won't fix representation in tech.
Friction Between Programming Professionals and Beginners
In this article I want to talk about negative aspects of the programming community, regarding beginner programmers. This is a touchy topic. I will try to explain both sides to the best of my ability, but I’m not endorsing either side. My only hope is that some readers will gain more empathy for the people they are…
If you had to start over, what technologies would you learn in 2014?
I got an email recently from a long-time programmer who had to step out of the ...
The Academic Pipeline Stall: Why Industry Must Stand for Academia
The Research Pipeline is Stalling The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) froze all outgoing funding, including new awards and scheduled payments on active grants. Over 1,000 NSF research projec…
Working and Communicating with Japanese Engineers
Working on an international tech team comes with communication challenges that go beyond just language. Here’s some practical advice I’ve gathered in my ten years of working in Japan.