/Career Advice

How To Contribute To A Project You Have No Idea About

- Michal Warda tl;dr: Michael discusses his process contributing to Bun - a new JavaScript / TypeScript runtime, elaborating on the following workflow in this article: (1) Setup and run the tests for an existing codebase and get them green. (2) Write a test that fails. (3) Change the code. (4) Think if you need to add another test. (5) If you found a test to write then go back to 1. If you can’t think of a test you’re done.

featured in #394

The Art Of Knowing When To Quit

- Jim Nielsen tl;dr: Jim is inspired by the following quote and applies it to engineering: “I deeply respect people who have the courage to quit when they feel they have done what they wanted to do, expressed what they wanted to express, created what they wanted to create… It's called being done with something. And that's a good thing.”

featured in #391

Against Overwhelm

- Paulo André tl;dr: “Throughout my entire engineering management career, what percentage of the time did I spend in a state of overwhelm?” Paolo provides the tools to prevent you to become intentional with how you spend your time and energy: (1) Clarify what goals, and how they align with your team and company, so you have a framework to decide how to not spend your time. (2) Use the Energy Audit to create visibility on where your time, attention and energy are going. (3) Given your goals, focus on leverage instead of productivity. Use the modified Eisenhower Matrix to define what’s truly important and a multiplier of your input. (4) With all of the above, design your ideal week and overlay each actual week on top of it. Push yourself to reduce the gap, and use the two as a means to reflect and improve weekly. (5) Whatever you do, focus on that thing only.

featured in #390

How To Find Your Blind Spots

- Charlie Andrews tl;dr: "Reaching the next level” in a skill usually means adding one or two new minigames to your arsenal while making only modest improvements in minigames that you’re already aware of." Charles discusses how to improve your engineering skills with shorter feedback cycles.

featured in #388

Building A Great Relationship With Your Boss

- Paulo André tl;dr: "If I could pick one skill, and one skill only, this would be it - for any relationship, but especially so for the relationship with a manager. So many difficult conversations become a lot less difficult if only you get curious about the other person’s challenges and needs before getting into yours." Questions to ask are: What keeps my manager up at night? What is success for them now and in the long run? What pressures are they subject to? Where do they come from? What do they expect from me? And more. 

featured in #387

I’m Now A Full-Time Professional Open Source Maintainer

- Filippo Valsorda tl;dr: "I now have six amazing clients, and I’m making an amount of money equivalent to my Google total compensation package, which proves the thesis that it’s possible to be a professional maintainer earning rates competitive with the adjacent market for senior software engineers... I’m sharing details about my progress to hopefully popularize the model, and eventually help other maintainers adopt it, although I’m not quite ready to recommend anyone else drop everything to try this just yet."

featured in #387

Corporate Legibility for Software Engineers

- Matt Blewitt tl;dr: "Corporate legibility is the art of making tasks, and their outcomes, easier to understand for those not directly involved. I’ll help you understand why this is an important thing to be aware of and how to use it to help your career."

featured in #386

Start Coding At The Point Of Least Certainty

- Swizec Teller tl;dr: "You know you can build a platform for monkeys to stand on. Plenty exist. You know you can build a flaming hoop for them to jump through. Plenty exist. You even know you can get a monkey. But can you train the monkey to jump through the hoop? Without the trained monkey, you have no spectacle. Nobody's gonna come watch a bunch of monkeys standing around a fire."

featured in #386

What We Look For In A Resume

- Chip Huyen tl;dr: Specific to software engineering resumes, Chip looks for: (1) Demonstrated expertise, not keywords. (2) People who get things done i.e initiative and persistence. (3) Unique perspectives. (4) Impact, not meaningless metrics. Chips discusses each, sharing examples of how they show on a resume.

featured in #385

Contracts You Should Never Sign

- Vadim Kravcenko tl;dr: These include: (1) Any form of a non-compete clause in employee contracts. (2) Confidentiality agreements. (3) Exclusive distribution agreements. (4) A project-based agreement without a clear definition of scope and definition of done. Vadim also discusses clauses to avoid.

featured in #385