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Problems that attract smart people
The roller-coaster that is generative AI keeps chugging on, and for those of us sitting in the audience, it is more than entertaining.
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How to evaluate a product roadmap, for engineers
Aka, how do I know if a product leader knows what they're doing? There are thousands of articles, courses, and guides on how to build a roadmap for product managers. Even with all these resources, roadmaps often become a point of contention between product managers and their stakeholders. There
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Manage like an engineer
If issues, pull requests, and project boards are the best way to develop software, should they not also be the best way to manage software development?
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What the interns have wrought, 2023 edition
We’re once again at the end of our internship season, and it’s my task to provide a few highlights of what the dev interns accomplished while they were here.
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Grokking big unfamiliar codebases
A blog about game engines, graphics, C++, and more.
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Tech Workers Deserve a Union: An Interview with Ethan Marcotte
Ethan Marcotte's book, "You Deserve a Tech Union," provides a mix of practical guidelines and steps that tech workers can take to form a union.
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What happened after I left my software engineering career (2022)
It’s been over a year since I wrote Fetch the Bolt Cutters. Or, as it was called in Technical.ly Philly,… Read more > What happened next
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Conway’s Law (2022)
Systems are constrained to follow the communication patterns of their designers.
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“Yes, if”: Iterating on our RFC Process
RFCs, also called Design Documents, let us describe software designs before implementation. But how do you make sure that RFCs get deep review and are seen by the right people? How do you help reviewers catch problems in a system’s design? We’ve been iterating on our RFC review process and here’s wh
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I don’t buy “duplication is cheaper than the wrong abstraction” (2021)
Note: If you disagree with what’s expressed in this post, I encourage you to also take a look at my more nuanced and comprehensive post on the topic of code duplication, which gives a more thorough refutation of some of the popular ideas around duplication. “Duplication is cheaper than the wrong abstraction” is a…
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Why I chose OpenAI over academia
Part 2 of a blog post about my time on the computer science job market in 2021-2022, in which I discuss my personal decision-making process between offers.
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Risk management is not project management
Why shifting full accountability for high-risk tasks to third parties increases rather than decreases project risk.
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New responsibilities
As part of the same process outlined in Matthias Clasen's "LibreOffice packages" email , my management chain has made the decision to stop a...
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Measuring an engineering organization
For the past several years, I’ve run a learning circle with engineering executives. The most frequent topic that comes up is career management–what should I do next? The second most frequent topic is measuring engineering teams and organizations–my CEO has asked me to report monthly engineering metrics, what should I…
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Emotions: A Code Book
What I write about my own personal journey is intended as just that—my personal journey.
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My favorite coding question to give candidates
A coding question, from the viewpoint of an Google/Amazon/Microsoft interviewer
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When Work Didn’t Follow You Home
In a recent article written for Slate, journalist Dan Kois recounts the shock his younger coworkers expressed when they discovered that he had, earlier in ... Read more
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Be sceptical of your own work (2009)
An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes, which can be made, in a very narrow field. (Niels Bohr) If you unexpectedly find a problem solving itself almost effortlessly, and you can’t quite …
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Growing from engineer to manager
Your success is now determined more by the success of your team than by your individual contributions.
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Lessons from a Pessimist: Make Your Pessimism Productive
On the topic of life lessons from a born pessimist.
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What I wish someone had told me
Optimism, obsession, self-belief, raw horsepower and personal connections are how things get started. Cohesive teams, the right combination of calmness and urgency, and unreasonable commitment are...
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Creator of Vue.js Evan You's Journey from Google Engineer to Open Source Pioneer
In this episode of "Just Ship It," Evan You, the creator of Vue.js and Vite, discusses his journey to becoming an independent open source developer. His dedicat
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Amazon Mandating 3 days back in office come May first
The message below on return-to-office plans was shared by Andy Jassy with Amazon employees today.
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Reflections on quitting my job
Programming lessons I’ve learnt over the last 7 years.
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It's companies' fault we don't want to return to the office
It wasn't appealing to begin with
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Cucumber maintainer has been laid off
Well, this is new. After ten years building a company around the Cucumber open source project, I suddenly find myself out of a job. I...
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Zoom fatigue unpacked
Zoom fatigue is a real phenomenon, resulting from prolonged virtual meetings. This post explores its causes, including cognitive overload and lack of movement, and provides practical tips to combat it. Learn how to improve your virtual meeting experience and increase productivity.