Categories
management WISE women in computer science

The Reaction

Since that article on Uber dropped, I’ve been watching people’s reaction. There was the shock from people who should know better, and the lack of surprise from many women but there was also something that I can only describe as a PTSD reaction from many technical women I know. I saw it on Twitter. I […]

Categories
Career job hunting

Cate’s Career Coaching Process (AKA A Process for Finding Your Next Job)

I know a number of people who have been laid off recently – the market is on a downturn and this is more common than seems to be being talked about. I’ve spent timeĀ helping a few people try and find their next thing lately, and after some iterations I now have a process. 1. What […]

Categories
Career job hunting management

Interviewing as a Manager

The final part of interviewing for my last job involved coming to Colombia for 3 days and having 21 1:1s. FYI, this is the kind of thing that immigration finds very suspicious and resulted in me being detained and searched for drugs in Canada. But I digress. I firmly believe that people should interview their […]

Categories
Career WISE women in computer science

Real Talk: Women in Tech and Money

This post comes from multiple requests from friends with whom I have talked about leaving tech, and returning to tech, and the way that I started to think about money relating to that. Money is a loaded topic, and I want to be up front here that this is written from a place of financial […]

Categories
Books

Book: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There (Amazon) initially irked me because it fell under a class of book that I call “Advice for White Men” (my blog post on this topic). It’s about how you can be oblivious to certain characteristics, and never receive feedback on them – and of course all but […]

Categories
Career WISE women in computer science

Big Co. vs Small Co. & Job vs. Career Stability

I gave a talk at Self.Conference the other week called “Some Things I’ve Learned About Color”. There’s no video, and I haven’t shared the transcript – I will eventually share this content, because people have connected with it and because I think it’s important. But I’ve yet to figure out how to do that. It’s […]

Categories
Career life

2015: Ship

For 2015, I chose the word ship. I did this for a couple of reasons: Taking some ā€œtime outā€ can easily turn into achieving nothing. It was important to me that I had something to show for my time. I wanted to bias towards putting stuff out there. I am very achievement oriented, and this […]

Categories
Career management

The Hardest, Shortest, Lesson Becoming a Manager

There’s something we all talk about in becoming a manager – and that’s the process ofĀ writing less code. We bemoan it because it’s hard to let go of that part of our identity. But also because it’s so quantifiable. Today I wrote X lines of code. Today I deleted Y lines of code. Today I […]

Categories
Career women in computer science

Diversity is an Attention Economy and the Economics Suck

A while ago there was an article about how women got more RTs when they talk about diversity than when they talk about anything else. This wasn’t that surprising to women, I don’t think, although it may have been news to some people. Well before this was news, I had been trying to balance what […]

Categories
Career Networking

Advice, Mentors, and Questionably Helpful Emails

Let me start by saying: I hate giving advice and I try not to do it. Typically my “advice” falls under two categories (in that order, often deployed together): Telling people that whatever their reaction (stress, sadness, fear…) is understandable. Suggesting books or lines of thinking that I have found helpful in relatedĀ situations. Of course […]