/Career Advice

7 Strategies To Cope With The Stress Of Career Uncertainty

- Bryan Robinson tl;dr: (1) Focus on what you can control: concentrate on actionable tasks. (2) Exercise self-care: prioritize mental and physical health. (3) Look for the opportunity in the difficulty: view uncertainty as beneficial for cognitive growth. (4) Keep a curious mind: embrace an open mindset. (5) Cultivate optimism: stay positive for better career outcomes. (6) Turn unknowns into adventures: see challenges as opportunities. (7) Take chances: venture outside the comfort zone for career growth.

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The Top 7 Software Engineering Workflow Tips I Wish I Knew Earlier

- Jordan Cutler tl;dr: Jordan delves into the following areas: (1) Git & terminal workflow. (2) Coding, notably tracing code down or up a stack, navigating between locations & typing. (3) Saving what you learnt in accessible ways. (4) Offloading ideas and tasks immediately so you don’t carry them in your thoughts. (5) Communicating through visuals. (6) Using a password manager. (7) Window management.

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Forty Years Of Programming

- Fabien Sanglard tl;dr: “I am about to turn forty-six. This means I have been programming for forty years, half of them professionally. During most of that time, I used a "standard" setup with 104 keyboard, a flat mouse, and a sitting desk. Things evolved ten years ago when I started to experience pain in my forearms and shoulders when I programmed. Here is what I did to solve my problem, it may work for someone else.”

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Making Hard Things Easy

- Julia Evans tl;dr: When you face a topic that’s hard to understand, you are likely not alone. Julia talks about how to move folks from the "I really don't get it" column, to the "okay, I can mostly deal with this” column using some of the following tricks: sharing useful tools, sharing references, telling a chronological story of what happens on your computer, turning a big list into a small list of the things you actually use, showing the hidden things, and demoing the tool. Julia gives examples of how these have made learning for her easier.

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Lessons From Bootstrapped Companies Founded By Software Engineers

- Gergely Orosz tl;dr: “Bootstrapped companies tends to get little coverage across the media. This can be by design, as many of these companies prefer to fly under the radar, and focus on building a sustainable, profitable business, and don’t seek a bigger profile.” Gergely profiles five  companies, discussing: (1) Taking the leap to bootstrap a company. (2) Tech stack and engineering approaches. (3) Growing the company. (4) The contrast to working at a large company. (5) What works.

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Working At A Startup Vs In Big Tech

- Gergely Orosz Willem Spruijt tl;dr: Willem, who Gergely met at Uber, share his experience and insights working as a developer, transitioning between startups and big tech companies. Willem recalls the "rapid skill development" and "direct influence" at startups, juxtaposed with the financial uncertainties and heightened stress. Big tech provided a platform for deep domain expertise, financial perks, and expansive networking, albeit with potential bureaucratic hurdles and diluted individual impact. “Doing work that results in a great performance review is not always the same work that best helps the company. And this can create pretty twisted, political situations.”

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Lessons From Debugging

- Matt Rickard tl;dr: (1) Reproduce with the smallest example. In the simplest environment. (2) Read and re-read the error statement. Read the stack trace. Add more logging if you don’t know where the error is thrown. (3) Change one thing at a time. (4) Divide and conquer. Sometimes that means binary search on good/bad commits. Other times isolating the problem. (5) Be open to debugging in different environments. (6) State your assumptions. (7) Get a second set of eyes on it. (8) If you're debugging some stateful code, think about \_how\_ you ended up at that state. A recipe that (reproducibly) gets you to that state is often the path to fixing it. (9) Look at the logs, all the logs. (10) When in doubt, start with the most recent changes, especially dependencies changes.

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How To Opt Out Of The Career Ladder

- Jean Hsu tl;dr: Jean explores the career ladder, particularly its alignment with definitions of success. “Working full-time? Strive to level up through promotions and checking off the leveling system’s boxes. Working as an IC? Climb the IC levels and then try to move into a leadership position.” Many individuals, especially those further in their careers, find the traditional ladder less appealing. Jean encourages readers to introspect on their values, understand the role they want work to play in their lives, and notice what genuinely sparks their interest. She shares personal experiences and emphasizes that the conventional career ladder doesn't have to dictate one's path.

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5 Rules That Will Drive A Long, Healthy Career

- Nikhyl Singhal tl;dr: From the VP of Product at Facebook, each of the following is discussed in detail : (1) Product manage your career like it’s a product. (2) Ensure each transition is career additive. (3) Whom you know will matter as much as what you know. (4) Find a strength area and try to build a superpower in it. (5) Bet on yourself.

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Don’t Cross The Beams

- Kent Beck tl;dr: Kent discusses the nuances of code refactoring, emphasizing the difference between "horizontal" and "vertical" refactorings. "Thinking of refactorings as horizontal and vertical is a heuristic for turning this situation around – eliminating risk quickly and exploiting proven opportunities efficiently." Kent also introduces the concept of "Succession," which deals with breaking down the refactoring process into manageable, efficient steps.

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