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Career & Management
The most popular blog posts about career & management on Hacker News. 6,086 posts.
Building personal and organizational prestige
Most months I get at least one email from an engineering leader who believes they’d be a candidate for significantly more desirable roles if their personal brand were just better known. Similarly, when funding is readily available during periods of tech industry expansion, many companies believe they are principally…
The Ambiguity of Real Work
All ambiguity is resolved by actions of practitioners at the sharp end of the system.Dr. Richard I. Cook, How Complex Systems Fail There’s a wonderful book by the late urban planning professo…
What happened to all the non-programmers? (2015)
As I looked around and realized for the hundredth time that I was surrounded by people exactly like me, something inside me snapped. I downloaded the latest American Community Survey microdata, fired up R and started calculating feverishly.
Limitations and pitfalls of the job interview
Better hiring leads to better work environments, less turnover, and more innovation and productivity. When you understand the limitations and pitfalls of the job interview, you improve your chances of hiring the best possible person for your needs.
The Evolution of Developer Salaries: Looking Back 20 Years
There's a lot to consider when charting the rise and fall of developer salaries over the years. Let's dive in!
Casey Muratori: I can always tell a good programmer in an interview
How to reliably understand if a candidate is a good programmer, inspired by Casey Muratori
The Next Mission
Slides for the brief talk that I gave at a Harvard seminar on privacy and user data organized by John Taysom last week.
No more rock stars: how to stop abuse in tech communities
Content note for discussion of abuse and sexual violence. In the last couple of weeks, three respected members of the computer security and privacy tech communities have come forward under their ow…
Things nobody told me about being a software engineer
My dad started teaching me Basic when I was about 7 years old, and since about that age I knew that I wanted to build software for a living. It was obviously a fun and useful thing to do, and something that I could do well. But there is a big — and I mean Grand Canyon-scale BIG — difference between “programming” and…
The Demoralization of the White-Collar Worker
The implicit contract — work hard, stay employed, build a life — is broken.
Layoff Thinking
Were you recently laid off? I have some, hopefully, helpful thoughts to survive the maelstrom of self-doubt and pain that's swirling around inside your head.
The Daily Standup Is a Waste of Time
Daily standups feel like a waste of time. I will teach you two new techniques the will make every minute count.
"My boss says we don't need any engineering managers"
"I'm a VP Engineering at a 40-person startup. My CEO (former engineer) won't let me hire engineering managers. He says we can't afford such luxuries, all hands should write code. How do I make the case for managers?"
My experience at community college
It feels a lot of developers online either went to a prestigious computer science program in university or are self-taught. However, not many talk about community college in those communities. It’s very much a different experience, and I was in… Continue reading →
How not to answer the salary question
Before you read a single line more, I will give the usual but still important caveats – this blog is my opinion, based on my experiences. Take it with a big ol’...
Investing in Startups by Passing the Series 65
From studying for the exam to registering with the SEC — my foray into investing in startups and venture capital by passing the Series 65 and becoming a licensed investment adviser representative.
Now A No-Evil Zone
As of this morning I work for Google. The title is “Developer Advocate”. The focus is Android. Fun is expected.
Internal RFCs saved us months of wasted work
And how to fix it with RFCs