/Career Advice

Preferring Throwaway Code Over Design Docs

- Doug Turnbull tl;dr: Instead of relying on detailed design docs before coding, the author advocates for "coding binges" - creating messy prototype code in draft PRs to explore solutions, getting early feedback, and then gradually refactoring into clean, production-ready PRs. Design docs still have their place, but hands-on coding often reveals problems and solutions that design docs can't predict.

featured in #576

How To Send Progress Updates

- Slava Akhmechet tl;dr: 15 tips, including: (1) Understand your role, and with each update add to the body of evidence that you’re a good steward in that role. (2) Add a little randomness to the cadence. (3) Know what your next update will be and work toward it. (4) Always start with a one sentence TL;DR and a 2-4 sentence recap of the overall goals of the project. (5) Within reason, deliberately engineer pleasant surprises so you can include them in your updates. And more.

featured in #576

Productivity v Impact

- Jessica Kerr tl;dr: “A friend pointed out: The “Important & Urgent” quadrant is hard on our brains. In urgency lies stress. The more time we spend there, the more we need rest. Rest is in “Not Important & Not Urgent” quadrant, like video games. In “Important & Not Urgent,” we do the things that matter, without stressing ourselves out. Here, we write. We create. We grow and improve the world. This is the quadrant of impact.”

featured in #575

How To Grow Professional Relationships

- Tejas Kumar tl;dr: “This spectrum is how I measure professional relationships and where I stand in those relationships. It outlines seven states moving from a competitive, zero-sum mindset to one of shared identity (which is equally problematic). Tejas shares each state. 

featured in #575

How To Think Like A Growth Engineer

- Ian Vanagas tl;dr: “Growth engineers discover and capture these gains through their unique way of thinking and working. Luckily, you don't need to go to growth engineer school to learn their secrets. It all starts by learning to think like they do – here's how.”

featured in #575

A Bunch Of Programming Advice I’d Give To Myself 15 Years Ago

tl;dr: “I finally have the feeling that I’m a decent programmer, so I thought it would be fun to write some advice with the idea of “what would have gotten me to this point faster?” I’m not claiming this is great advice for everyone, just that it would have been good advice for me.”

featured in #575

Networking For People Who Don't Network

tl;dr: “I think I’m a pretty good networker, but not any sort of natural networking savant – I’ve just been able to find good results by following a few easy habits. Networking is kind of like working out: It’s easy to get started and a relatively small amount of effort gives you significant benefits. If you follow some incredibly basic rules and aren’t lazy, you can build a great network with ease.”

featured in #575

Networking For People Who Don't Network

tl;dr: “I think I’m a pretty good networker, but not any sort of natural networking savant – I’ve just been able to find good results by following a few easy habits. Networking is kind of like working out: It’s easy to get started and a relatively small amount of effort gives you significant benefits. If you follow some incredibly basic rules and aren’t lazy, you can build a great network with ease.”

featured in #574

Contemplative Reading

- Subbu Allamaraju tl;dr: “I realized that I forget more than 99% of what I read, and only a few ideas stick in my head. That’s sad. Why spend so much time and energy acquiring and reading books to gain just a few ideas or just the memory of having read a book? That changed this year. About a year ago, I stumbled upon contemplative reading to increase the quality of my reading experience.”

featured in #574

Contemplative Reading

- Subbu Allamaraju tl;dr: “I realized that I forget more than 99% of what I read, and only a few ideas stick in my head. That’s sad. Why spend so much time and energy acquiring and reading books to gain just a few ideas or just the memory of having read a book? That changed this year. About a year ago, I stumbled upon contemplative reading to increase the quality of my reading experience.”

featured in #573