/Career Advice

How I Plan My Week As A Senior Engineer In Big Tech

- Jordan Cutler tl;dr: Today, I’ll share the system that has allowed me to: (1) Finish nearly everything I set out to achieve each day. (2) Plan the most important work to accomplish my goals. (3) Have a record of what I accomplished to reflect, update my manager, and add to a brag doc. 

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My Programming Beliefs As Of July 2024

- Evan Hahn tl;dr: This is a collection of things I believe about computer programming as of today. It’s based on my own experience. Evan discusses: (1) How to approach tasks. (2) How to design software. (3) Nitty-gritty coding details. (4) Interpersonal dynamics. (6) High level / career topics. 

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The Gifts Of 40

- Julie Zhuo tl;dr: Life lessons learned: (1) For whatever action scares you, remember this surefire way to eliminate the fear: do it 100 times. (2) Taking advantage of youthful invulnerability is like taking out a loan. Over decades, your body eventually comes to call the debt. (3) The dimension of time explains why you are not your thoughts, your emotions, or your capabilities. None of these persist against the ticking of the clock.

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I Finally Figured Out How To Take Notes!

- Sam Rose tl;dr: “I had some requirements in mind: (1) I want to tag notes, track things like date, who was there, what the key topics were, and be able to search based on tags. (2) Create action items, and be able to ask “what action items have I not yet done?” (3) It has to be super easy. I want to be able to jump into a meeting and have my meeting notes ready to go.”

featured in #528

I Finally Figured Out How To Take Notes!

- Sam Rose tl;dr: “I had some requirements in mind: (1) I want to tag notes, track things like date, who was there, what the key topics were, and be able to search based on tags. (2) Create action items, and be able to ask “what action items have I not yet done?” (3) It has to be super easy. I want to be able to jump into a meeting and have my meeting notes ready to go.”

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The Programmer's Brain

- Felienne Hermans tl;dr: “Your brain responds in a predictable way when it encounters new or difficult tasks. This unique book teaches you concrete techniques rooted in cognitive science that will improve the way you learn and think about code.”

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The Case Against Morning Yoga, Daily Routines, And Endless Meetings

- Andrew Chen tl;dr: Daily routines are comfortable but add no new information, and contain no risk. Andrew shares his plan for 10x work. (1) Remove / delegate / automate the 1x work. If it doesn’t matter much if it’s done well or not, then just get it done. (2) For the 2-5x work, keep doing it — it is “work” after all. But perhaps figure out how to align it towards your plan for work and life? (3) For 10x work — we need to remind ourselves that our careers are defined by the highest moments of the biggest swings. Embrace more serendipity, talk to more interesting people, take more swings, and go deep on your craft. Andrew shares what this looks like. 

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The Programmer's Brain

- Felienne Hermans tl;dr: “Your brain responds in a predictable way when it encounters new or difficult tasks. This unique book teaches you concrete techniques rooted in cognitive science that will improve the way you learn and think about code.”

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How To Create Software Quality

- Will Larson tl;dr: “This observation is the underpinning of my beliefs about creating software quality. Expanding from that observation, I’ll try to convince you of two things”: (1) Creating quality is context specific. There are different techniques for solving essential domain complexity, scaling complexity, and accidental complexity. (2) Quality is created both within the development loop and across iterations of the development loop. 

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The Trough Of Despair

- Kent Beck tl;dr: “That initial dip is the price you inevitably pay for improvement. If you built a factory you’d expect to pay first, see widgets later. How much you pay & when, how many widgets you see & when, those are the parameters that determine whether you’ve made a good investment. So with software design — how much you pay & when & how many features you see & when, those are the parameters that determine whether you’ve made a good software design investment.”

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