Career
-
The next weight
→: The next weightSomething that comes up regularly in coaching is the idea that you get stronger against the weight you can lift, not against the one you can’t. If your goal is to bench 100kg you don’t get there pushing at that weight on a bar you can’t move. You start lower and work up. You build…
-
What would make next week better?
→: What would make next week better?Just about everyone gets overwhelmed sometimes, and many of us deal with that by working harder. This is a reasonable response to a single unexpected thing, or a bad week, but it’s not the right response to systematic overwhelm. Then you need to stop asking the question “what do I do next” (or worse: “how…
-
The Second Cohort
→: The Second CohortAfter the first cohort of DRI Your Career I wrote that the first time you do something, you can believe in it but you can only really hope. But we just wrapped up our second cohort of DRI Your Career and have two other courses we’ve run full cohorts of. I’m going to call it…
-
Values Aren’t a Moral Imperative
→: Values Aren’t a Moral ImperativeOne of the most impactful exercises in DRI Your Career has been the values exercise (Jean wrote about it here). At first this surprised me, but then I thought about it more. Even when you haven’t named your values, they are part of you. They shape how you see the world, and often feel like…
-
A Season of Learning
→: A Season of LearningThere’s a concept in computer science called explore vs. exploit. Exploitation means using what you know to get reliable returns; exploration means trying new things at the cost of those returns. Most algorithms skew too hard toward exploit. Humans have also been known to do this – including me. The known path is comfortable. My…
-
Wired for Change: When Tech Stopped Being “Safe”
→: Wired for Change: When Tech Stopped Being “Safe”For a long time — especially in software engineering — there was an unspoken promise: if you were smart enough, fast enough, or technical enough, the rest would work itself out. That promise no longer holds. I had the chance to talk with Amy Yee on her podcast Wired for Change about what’s changed in…
-
The First Cohort
→: The First CohortEarlier this year, Jean and I ran the first cohort of DRI Your Career — a course we’d spent the better part of a year building together. We had high hopes. But the first time you do something — you can believe in it, but you can only really hope. I am so happy with…
-
Announcing: The Engineering Manager Survival Guide
→: Announcing: The Engineering Manager Survival GuideOne of the biggest issues I saw running remote teams for the past decade+ was the lack of good engineering manager training. With a global team it’s harder (and more expensive) to get everyone in the same place at one time. With a small team, the cost of doing anything custom is infeasible. To help…
-
Performance Reviews Are the Scorecard of Capitalism (And Why That Should Free You)
→: Performance Reviews Are the Scorecard of Capitalism (And Why That Should Free You)Every review season is an emotional rollercoaster. Anxiety. Self assessments. Anticipation. Disappointment. As an IC, I felt like how much it impacted me was a personal failure. As a manager, I learned that review season trauma is pervasive. The worst thing about all of it, I think, is how much people take it out on…