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Career DEI women in computer science

From Visibility to Representation – Rethinking DEI

When I talk about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), I’m typically coming at it from an angle of systematic change. The purpose of DEI, as I see it, is to dismantle a rigged system and move to something more equitable. This is why the concept of “no politics at work” is seen as antithetical to […]

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Career

Dimensions of Engineering Growth

One of my coaching clients and I developed this framework to help him think about the kind of impact he wanted to have as a Staff+ engineer, and since then I’ve taken it to other clients and direct reports in a way to think about engineering growth outside of any particular job ladder. The four […]

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Career

Tracking When It’s Time to Quit

The wonderful Tanya put together this spreadsheet that helps you track where you are on the 5 Signs It’s Time to Quit Your Job. I love this idea, because it pushes us out of the moment into the long term, which makes it easier to be rational. There’s the risk in the short term decision, […]

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Career management

7 Suggestions for Writing a Good Self Review

Originally shared internally and lightly edited for external readability. Note that this comes from a context where the self review is not part of the promotion packet so focuses on it as a tool to help the manager put together the review. Goal of a self review: None goals of self review: Your self review […]

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Career management

LeadTime – How teams work: DuckDuckGo’s engineering team

I did an interview with Range, talking about how the fully distributed teams I lead at DuckDuckGo work. Read it here

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Career

Co-Active: Synergy

The last course in my coach training journey – for now – was Synergy. This follows Fundamentals, Fulfillment, Balance, and Process. The final course, this tied everything together. We learned about the attributes of a coach (fierce courage, aliveness, and connection), worked on range (including silent coaching!) and the idea of “stories”. Going into it, […]

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Books Career

Book: Woman of Influence

Woman of Influence (Amazon) is about building your brand as a leader and taking charge of your career. It’s full of actionable strategies for understanding how you’re perceived – and how to change it. My personal favourite is a long time favourite tool of Jo’s – the shadow org chart. This is the map of […]

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Career

Sometimes you have to choose between being right and being effective

My latest in Quartz… My partner and I had a hellish move recently. We were lucky in that our landlords are nice, reasonable people, and unlucky in that they were quite disorganized and hadn’t done everything they needed to, like ordering furniture and thoroughly cleaning up after the last tenant. So as this played out, […]

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Career

Your Action Plan to DRI Your Career

Step 1: Review Being the DRI of Your Career Expecting More from Your Career (and Less from Your Job) The Rent Versus Buy of Career Growth How to DRI Your Professional Development Coachability++ DRI Your Support System 5 Signs It’s Time to Quit Your Job Step 2: Plan Assess if it’s time to quit (this […]

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Career

5 Signs It’s Time to Quit Your Job

By now, we’ve all heard of the great resignation. Over the past 18 months or so, many people have had more time to think about what they want from their jobs, and the kind of conditions they are willing to accept. Of course, the great resignation often glosses over the number of people who died […]