Accidentally in Code

Tag: writing

  • How I’ve Been Using AI

    How I’ve Been Using AI

    By Ralf Steinberger from Milan, Berlin + Munich, Italy + Germany – 21st century robots. Seen from the future, they will just look cute., CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=110354735

    I feel like the whole AI conversation is dominated by two extremes. Those who believe in AGI, and AI skeptics. I’m trying to approach it as a tool that may or may not be useful. Here are some things I’ve found so far.

    Useful as an editing partner. For things where I have a clear point of view, I produce a first draft and then use AI to refine and clarify. It will just go on endlessly though, so I have been telling it “I have limited time to spend on this, please stop once the feedback is chasing diminishing returns”. I think this works for me because I am quick to write and slow to edit.

    ➡️ For similar reasons, I’m enthused about AI feedback on PRs.

    Helpful for generating feedback. If I’m reviewing something, I can use a similar process to refine my feedback. So I will put in the doc, my initial thoughts, and ask it what else – again being judicious about what I include. Or the doc, the additional clarification I wrote, and then use the combination of those to generate a feedback. It means that I can read something once and query it, rather than reading multiple times to check my thoughts – the longer what it is I’m reviewing, the more useful that is.

    ➡️ Like all women in tech, I’m continually walking the tightrope between being a b*tch and being a pushover, so I’m trying to offload any overthinking of “tone” to AI. My current workflow here is to tell it: “You are a busy engineering leader, who wants {team|person|whatever} to get their shit together”, and then “Now soften it a bit so people don’t think you’re mean”.

    Mixed for structuring things. I’ve also been trying to use AI to create structures or plans, typically for things I don’t know much about (if I know about it, the structure is normally very clear to me). Here, I’ve had mixed results.

    • For example, I tried to use it to generate a book promotion plan for me. It was okay, but initially gave me a full time job’s worth of work. After a few rounds I got something that is more doable, but I’m still not sure how good it is (also I have failed to do it, suggesting the lack of plan was not the only problem).
    • Another example, I tried to use it to create a structure for a proposal around professional development. I put in some bits and pieces – a conversation with a colleague about it, some disjointed thoughts, and got something out that I only have the expertise to tell is bad, and I’m not sure how to make it better. (Although telling the AI “this is bad, try again” has been surprisingly effective).

    Both of these examples were places where I have some amount of expertise, but a relatively narrow point of view, deeply anchored in my own experience. As a result, I was struggling to move something forward or know how to prioritize, I wanted AI to help me get from half formed idea -> plan, but perhaps I need to add an interim step of half formed idea -> deeper understanding -> plan.

    All in all, this I think supports a theme of what I’ve been hearing about AI, for example on the impact on senior devs (good for productivity) versus juniors (destroying their learning).

    • For things you know well, it can be a productivity boost.
    • For things you don’t know, it can give the illusion of knowledge. This is dangerous for knowledge workers, as it can result in wasting time and going down the wrong path. Also, if you submit it to someone who does have that knowledge, an excess of nonsense will be judged more harshly than a gap.
    • It tends to be overly comprehensive and includes excessive low value information.

    For my own takeaways:

    • As a writer, it’s a productivity tool not a generator. I am clear on my voice and despise reading obviously AI generated content so I would not do that to others.
    • As an overthinker and procrastinator, it’s good to offload some things that I might spend disproportionate time on or not do.
    • As a leader, who spends more time reviewing other’s work than creating, I need to adjust my approach to filter out noise and validate structure first.
  • What Comes Next?

    What Comes Next?

    I have had a beautiful summer. Bookended by two epic trips either side, Hong Kong -> Sydney -> Bali before, and India (Dehradun, Chandigarh, Delhi) after, the summer was peaceful. I prioritized neglected parts of my life. My spine – finally went to the chiropractor, got into yoga, finally learned how to enjoy it. My community – expanded my social circle, prioritized time with friends, including starting a book club (where we just get together and read whatever we feel like reading).

    My book came out in April, and when I didn’t feel like doing anything other than the day job, when I just wanted to hang out, have fun, I told myself that it was okay. I thought if I enjoyed the summer, made the most of it, whatever would come next would just arrive. I told myself that it didn’t matter if I couldn’t muster the energy to blog, if the single talk I gave felt so exhausting I never prioritized the other talk idea I had. I knew that a large project takes time to recover from.

    At the end of the summer I have to question whether that was true. The truth is, that like any large project, my book had multiple endings.

    Nearly a year ago, I finished writing.
    In January, I locked myself away to do the big edit, submitted it, and let it go.
    In April, I concluded the final copy edits, and it went to print.

    In a big project the prospect of the ending is so appealing. It kept me going. “I’ll be so happy when this is done”. Yes. And. I will also miss it. Miss the concrete goals and the certainty. Coming out of a big project I am changed both by the doing of the project, and by being the person who did the thing, rather than the person who thinks of doing it maybe some day. I believe in myself more but also I know what it costs.

    The other truth, and maybe this is true of any creative work, putting something out in the world, is not the end of it. It is the beginning of two new phases.

    One phase, where you talk about what you’ve done. Try and convince people that it’s worth their time and money to read it.
    A second phase where you have to ask – what’s next?

    I have been a dillitant at the first phase, at talking about it. Told myself, my partner, my coach, various other people, that what I need to do is get back into blogging. Thought about ideas, sporadically, and executed on them, almost never. Some topics I feel like I am out of things to say anything about – a colleague asked me about hiring, and I just told them they would need to read chapter 8 because I wrote down everything and have nothing more to say.

    The other truth of a large project, for me at least, is that whilst it anchored me in a sense of purpose, I was able to hide in it. It kept me safe, gave me good reason not to do anything else – focus is important, after all! But two years is a long time to hide. Writing, I felt like I was living under a rock, excavating a piece of my soul. And then, it’s out in the world. I think I’m supposed to dance on the rock, but it feels too high, too overwhelming, too different.

    I wanted to believe that creativity would be a product of recovery, but increasingly I think that recovery is about finding the energy to go searching for creativity again, the next proximate objective of my purpose. It is great to prioritize adventure – adventure is so core to my being, my spine – it holds me up and I need it to be healthy, my community – I love my friends and the experiences we create together. But if that’s not enough, if I want more – well then I need to go and find it.

    So – after a rough day, where I deeply felt the lack of purpose that had kept me grounded, stayed with me for two years, anchoring me on other rough days, I went looking for what’s next, and randomly took a course. It’s possible the specific course was the perfect thing, or perhaps I just needed to do something, anything, to create some momentum.

    So here I am, writing about having nothing to say. Or, more hopefully, about feeling ready to find what comes next.

  • 2021 in Writing

    2021 in Writing

    In 2021, I committed to publishing each Monday. Aside from a couple of narrow misses in October, I kept at it, making 52 posts over the year, up from 20 in 2020 (I wrote more about what this looked like in my retrospective: The Year of Habits). I had 4 articles on LeadDev. I sent 9 WTHIC letters from three countries (Ireland, France and the Netherlands).

    This blog was seen by nearly 39K visitors for over 63K views. This is up from just over 25K visitors for a little more than 41K views in 2020.

    Most Popular Posts 2021

    1. 5 Signs It’s Time to Quit Your Job – a late entrant (published at the end of November) but clearly a timely topic during the Great Resignation. Also one of the most popular 2021 articles in the LevelUp newsletter.
    2. Being the DRI of Your Career – what it means to be the DRI (Directly Responsible Individual) of your career. This post breaks it down into five lines of thinking: expecting less from your job and more from your career, learning from feedback, owning your professional development, distinguishing what your employer rents versus what they buy, and building your support system. This was a relatively quick post but it resonated with people, and I ended up breaking it apart and expanding on each idea within it.
    3. The Return of the Office – on the “Remote Work Debate”, why the pandemic experiment was not set up for success, and the disconnect between what engineers want and think works versus how organizations function.
    4. Three Core Ideas to Make Remote Work, Work – three core principles of remote work: Embrace async, Enable autonomy, Build connection.
    5. The Rent Versus Buy of Career Growth – by far the DRI point that resonated with people the most, understanding what your employer rents, what they buy, and tradeoffs that impact your market value and career decisions.
    6. Expecting More from Your Career (and Less from Your Job) – thinking long term; your job is just a moment in your career, what do you want to get out of it?
    7. On Being “Strategic” – musing on the “she’s just not that strategic” trap, and tactics I use to (try) and avoid it.
    8. Pandemic Burnout; Now What? – how living through a pandemic hits all 6 causes of burnout (only one is overwork) and some thoughts on how we can take the control we have to try and be a little happier.
    9. Coachability++ – slides and commentary for a talk I gave at Qz on being more coachable.
    10. Your Action Plan to DRI Your Career – a summary of the collection of DRI posts, along with a step by step plan to take control of your career.

    Most Popular Posts Pre-2021

    * indicates that this was also on the pre-2020 list last year.
    ** indicates this was on the 2020 list last year.

    1. Testing Intents on Android: Like Stabbing Yourself in the Eye with a Blunt Implement*. Intent testing was not particularly straight-forward, or well documented, and I shared what I found in a weekend of fighting with it. I think this is one of my best technical posts, and it’s nice to see it still getting the attention it deserves! I want to believe this is because more people are writing tests now.
    2. Unfriending on Facebook*. For some reason, in 2010 this search term was sending a significant amount of traffic to my blog, so I wrote an explainer.
    3. Rest Day – Buffer Day – Focus Day*. A post from 2015 about having different kinds of days and themes to make progress.
    4. The Great DomestiCation**. I did a detailed post about the complete house renovation I did in 2018-2019.
    5. How I Offloaded My Anxiety to Trello**. I wrote about my life admin management system, and how I use Trello to keep track of and make progress on the different areas of my life.
  • The Year of Habits

    The Year of Habits

    black and white image of a narrow suspension bridge
    Shaky Bridge, Cork

    This time a year ago, I felt like my creativity had died of COVID. Died of boredom. Died of exhaustion. Suffocated under the weight of… everything.

    In the struggle of this, I felt caught between the should of, I should be able to do this, and the recognition that the world was on fire. I felt called out by all the people using their extra time to achieve incredible things, and comforted by the people who admitted they too could not create in this timeline.

    And then sometimes, I would just feel overwhelmed by the sense of loss. Loss of this medium, loss of the spark, the loss of connection – I would joke that I could “barely write a text message”, pointing at the emotion that was much too raw to actually touch.

    I used to roam the world and mostly never feel too far from anyone.

    Constrained to a 5km radius, by myself, was the loneliest I had ever been.

    With another person – a special person, my person – was better, but still not enough.

    I could not write. But worst of all, I didn’t want to write. Did not believe I had anything to say. I published just 20 posts in 2020, and my memory is that each one was a fucking ordeal.

    So for 2021, I picked the word Habit. Each month I set myself an intention. In my weekly list I tracked my successes, and failures.

    It took months for me to even try to set myself a goal of writing. But, each week I published. Every Monday (except one, which slipped to Tuesday, and was the better for the extra time). I started writing on Sunday nights, forcing myself to do it to end out the weekend, sitting in a corner on the sofa, at the counter in the kitchen, as my partner went to bed without me. It got worse when I gave in, and started writing on the Monday. Write and publish – normally late in the night. The habit of suffering. The habit of showing up – reluctantly, begrudgingly, at the last possible moment. The habit of believing in a future Cate and trying to support her, even if it’s just by writing something I think is a bit shit, eaking it out just inside the deadline.

    When I was nomadic, people used to find my life so bizarre. They would think that surely all that moving around was disruptive, make it the goto for any sign of stress.

    But, when I was nomadic, I was always grounded by habit. I struggled the most in the places where those habits were hard – this is what I remember about Santiago, and why I hated it so. I would create this frame to exist within – the gym, the cafe, the places to explore. I would orient myself in my habits, and pick up where I left off, from wherever I was before.

    Far more destructive to my habits was the constant change and inflexibility of pandemic life. The first two months, I took the same walk every day. Then, I got a new job. Then things reopened. My partner moved in. Then things closed. Reopened again, bit by bit. Then we got vaccinated, felt more free. Then we moved. Then the world started to close in, again.

    And now I look back over the past year, and I see – the habits were the grounding. They rooted me down, gave me a structure to determine what I cared about, to set my intention. Lowered the bar for myself that I just need to show up, no less, but also no more.

    I’m rounding out the year of habit with a three week break from work. It took me the first few days to work through the life admin, but after that, I felt so free. Each day, I do three things.

    I exercise. Peloton spin and yoga. The time and breakdown varies, it can be as little as 15 minutes / 10 minutes, but most days it is much more.

    I cross-stitch. I listen to podcasts, and I follow instructions.

    And I write.

    I told myself, that all I expected from myself was to sit in front of a text editor for at least 30 minutes. That producing nothing, producing complete garbage was acceptable, as long as I tried.

    It went better than that – much better – but I realized, that the act of sitting in front of the empty text editor is the hardest habit of all. I realized the problem wasn’t that I couldn’t write – I did write, week in, week out – the problem was that I didn’t believe I could, didn’t believe I had anything to say.

    The first lockdown, I spent alone. So, so very alone. My friend and I used to go to the grocery store at the same time, just to have some semblance of human connection, when none was really allowed.

    When the next lockdown came in, even though I was no longer alone, I realized that that first lockdown had been traumatizing.

    The second lockdown, I got a horrific chest infection. Two rounds of antibiotics and a steroid. I barely remember any of it. I missed the whole thing.

    The third lockdown, I shut down. Did a lot of crafting. Hunkered down to wait it out.

    As we enter into the fourth lockdown, I finally see the spaciousness that can exist when “normal life” is cancelled. Finally, I understand how someone could use this time well.

    But, I also see how what we have endured shapes everything around us. I see the hole that is left in the absence of other people, other perspectives, other ideas.

    I see that for me, creativity has often meant something to push against, and that I have been existing in something of a void.

    I see that I need to come out of the void, sit in front of the text editor.

    I see that when I act as-if I have something to say, I can make it so.

    I see that it can be easier to write an entire article than a text message. That these two things are, in fact, not comparable.

    The way that I existed before the pandemic, there was so little space in my life. I was here and there and everywhere. Working hard in time but perhaps even more so in energy. I used to reclaim space where I could, slotting in a long weekend between commitments for an adventure, making the most of a day before a late flight. Writing in cars, in airport lounges, on planes, in the space between the meetings. Eaking out in bits and pieces, because I needed it, and that is all there was.

    The start of the pandemic coincided with a level of exhaustion so overwhelming, that it made it clear that I needed to leave that job.

    And then, I never really figured out how to recharge. Spent two months addressing the mountain of life debt that constituted my life. Thought that once that was addressed, I would create space for something better to come. Which, I guess it did, but that was a relationship – the last thing I expected in this timeline. The level of creative exhaustion remained, unchanged.

    I kept coming back to the question of what it means to recharge. I did not find a neat answer crafting, on vacation, or in the pool. I could never be sure if the problem was the power source or the faulty battery.

    And so, I committed to the habits. The things that ground in the day to day. The things that I know are good for me, even if they don’t always feel that great. The things that I believe in. The things that have worked before.

    And finally, I started to want to sit down to write. Finally, I believe I have something to say. My creativity did not die of COVID. It just took a break, got some R&R, did some self-reflection, got ready to do something better – or at least from a better place – than before.

    I do not know what changed. But I choose to believe that it is the habits that brought me here. Back above the baseline, ready to expect more from myself – even as the world continues to burn – in 2022.

  • 2020 in Writing

    2020 in Writing

    Credit: Stocksnap

    I sent 13 WTHIC letters from three countries, had five articles in Qz. I was also on the UK Channel 4 News.

    This blog was seen by just over 25K visitors for a little more than 41K views, and I published just 20 posts (many of which just linked out to the proper post elsewhere). This is down from 40K visitors and just under 60K views in 2019.

    In 2019 I wrote that it hadn’t been a great year for writing, but 2020 was worse. I started the year determined to rebuild the habit, with a friend and I meeting in coffee shops on Tuesday evenings, but that came to an end when the pandemic hit, and between the stress and boredom of that, the loss of my usual writing places (planes and coffee shops, mainly), and changing jobs I didn’t feel I had a whole lot to say anyway. I did write some things I’m proud of, a couple of which remain unpublished (working on it). I’m happy that coming into 2021, I am finally coming out the other side of writers block, and focusing on rebuilding the habit of publishing reguarly.

    Most Popular Posts 2020

    1. How I Offloaded My Anxiety to Trello. I wrote about my life admin management system, and how I use Trello to keep track of and make progress on the different areas of my life.
    2. Hotfixes for Your Newly Remote Team. The written version of a talk my friend Eli and I did together, put together to help engineering teams adjusting to the new way of working.
    3. The Great DomestiCation. I did a detailed post about the complete house renovation I did in 2018-2019.
    4. #RFRW? #RFRW! Post about a webinar I did at the start of the pandemic with Nicole Sanchez.
    5. Building Alignment with Co-Leadership. I wrote about the Co-Leadership course I took in SF with my then-coworker, Beau.

    Most Popular Posts Pre-2020

    * indicates that this was also on the pre-2019 list last year.
    ** indicates this was on the 2019 list last year.

    1. Testing Intents on Android: Like Stabbing Yourself in the Eye with a Blunt Implement*. Intent testing was not particularly straight-forward, or well documented, and I shared what I found in a weekend of fighting with it. I think this is one of my best technical posts, and it’s nice to see it still getting the attention it deserves! I want to believe this is because more people are writing tests now.
    2. Unfriending on Facebook. For some reason, in 2010 this search term was sending a significant amount of traffic to my blog, so I wrote an explainer.
    3. Rest Day – Buffer Day – Focus Day*. A post from 2015 about having different kinds of days and themes to make progress.
    4. Creating and Comparing Images on Android*. Technical work from Show & Hide (2015) – I replicated my work on iOS to create test images, and compare images against each other in tests.
    5. Mastering New Leadership Styles**. I am fascinated by the different leadership styles, the need to switch between them, and people’s flexibility or lack thereof. An attempt to distill the ~15 page original article in a more actionable way.
    6. Creating Test Images and Comparing UI Images*. More technical work from Show & Hide on iOS (2015) In which I nerd out about UIImages, creating test images, and comparing them pixel by pixel.
    7. Testing Code that Depends on Remote APIs*. A technical post from 2010 outlining the difficulties of testing code depending on external services and how to work around them.
    8. On Improving Diversity in Hiring. I wrote about various tactics to improve diversity in hiring process, considerations of inclusion, onboarding etc. This is from 2017, and I’m still using many of the things outlined and finding them effective.
    9. Honey, I Left the Tech Industry*. Some reflections a year after I left The Conglomerate – what I expected and what I found.
    10. The Disillusionment of the Early Career Engineer*. From 2013, some thoughts on common themes I heard in talking to early career engineers.

  • 2019 in Writing

    2019 in Writing

    Credit: Pxfuel

    I sent 44 WTHIC letters from 14 countries on four continents, and had ten articles in Quartz. I was also interviewed in the BBC.

    This blog was seen by a smidgen over 40K visitors for just under 60K views, and I published 22 posts (many of which just linked out to the proper post elsewhere). This is down from last year’s 45K visitors, just under 73K views and 42 posts published. 2019 was not a great year for writing for me, I mainly focused on writing for Qz, and had multiple multi-month periods of crushing writer’s block.

    Most Popular Posts 2019

    1. The Cost of Fixing Things. I wrote about burnout, again.
    2. Addressing Hiring Gaps Through User Research. A post talking about a research project we were running to understand how technical women navigate their careers, the writeup was shared on the Automattic developer blog.
    3. Mastering New Leadership Styles. I am fascinated by the different leadership styles, the need to switch between them, and people’s flexibility or lack thereof. An attempt to distill the ~15 page original article in a more actionable way.
    4. Phase 1 of Hiring: Getting from 0-30. I shared how we overhauled the mobile hiring process at Automattic, and some of the data that showed the progress we’d made in terms of diversifying the team.
    5. Where do you start when a team is broken? Links out to this post in Qz.

    Most Popular Posts Pre-2018

    * indicates that this was also on the pre-2018 list last year.

    1. Testing Intents on Android: Like Stabbing Yourself in the Eye with a Blunt Implement*. Intent testing was not particularly straight-forward, or well documented, and I shared what I found in a weekend of fighting with it. I think this is one of my best technical posts, and it’s nice to see it still getting the attention it deserves! I want to believe this is because more people are writing tests now.
    2. Testing Code that Depends on Remote APIs*. A technical post from 2010 outlining the difficulties of testing code depending on external services and how to work around them.
    3. Creating Test Images and Comparing UI Images*. Technical work from Show & Hide on iOS (2015) In which I nerd out about UIImages, creating test images, and comparing them pixel by pixel.
    4. Creating and Comparing Images on Android*. More technical work from Show & Hide (2015) – I replicated my work on iOS to create test images, and compare images against each other in tests.
    5. iOS: Getting a Thumbnail for a Video*. Another technical post from 2015!
    6. Extracting the Dominant Color from an Image in Processing*. An early technical post (2013!) in what went on to become Show & Hide. It’s about determining the dominant color in an image.
    7. The Day I Leave the Tech Industry*. From 2014, and still going.  I wrote about feeling like my time in tech was running out – it resonated with a lot of women, and continues to.
    8. Honey, I Left the Tech Industry*. Some reflections a year after I left The Conglomerate – what I expected and what I found.
    9. The Disillusionment of the Early Career Engineer*. From 2013, some thoughts on common themes I heard in talking to early career engineers.
    10. Rest Day – Buffer Day – Focus Day. A post from 2015 about having different kinds of days and themes to make progress. A nice reminder! I should try this again.
  • 2018 in Writing

    2018 in Writing

    Credit: publicdomainpictures.net

    I sent 48 WTHIC letters from 21 cities in 14 countries on three continents, one post on Medium (which got 5K views) and had five articles in Quartz.

    This blog was seen by a smidgen over 45K visitors for just under 73K views, and I published 42 posts. This is down from last year’s 57K visitors, just under 94K views and 88 posts published.

    Most Popular Posts 2018

    1. Creating Success, Together. The final part of a six part series that was the talk I gave this year. It’s about aligning ideas of success throughout the team and with individuals to create a more functional work environment.
    2. How Do Developers Define Success. The second part of the series for that talk. It’s looking at how developers specifically think about success, based on the StackOverflow survey and some even more biased Twitter research.
    3. After the Toxicity the Toxicity Remains. I wrote about the ongoing effects of toxic work environments, and the many acts of healing.
    4. Whose Expectations are Those Anyway? The first part of the talk on success.
    5. Inclusion is a Hack. Some thoughts on the way we talk about inclusion and the need to address historic issues of structural inequity. 
    6. Managing Up and Down. Some thoughts on “managing up”, why people struggle with it, and what it looks like.
    7. Towards Productive Technical Discussions. Repost from the internal team blog on giving and receiving feedback on technical work.

    Most Popular Posts Pre-2018

    * indicates that this was also on the pre-2017 list last year.
    ^ indicates that this was one of the top posts of 2017.

    1. Testing Intents on Android: Like Stabbing Yourself in the Eye with a Blunt Implement*. Intent testing was not particularly straight-forward, or well documented, and I shared what I found in a weekend of fighting with it. I think this is one of my best technical posts, and it’s nice to see it still getting the attention it deserves! I want to believe this is because more people are writing tests now.
    2. Extracting the Dominant Color from an Image in Processing*. An early technical post (2013!) in what went on to become Show & Hide. It’s about determining the dominant color in an image.
    3. iOS: Getting a Thumbnail for a Video*. Another technical post from 2015!
    4. Creating and Comparing Images on Android*. More technical work from Show & Hide (2015) – I replicated my work on iOS to create test images, and compare images against each other in tests.
    5. Testing Code that Depends on Remote APIs. A technical post from 2010 outlining the difficulties of testing code depending on external services and how to work around them.
    6. The Day I Leave the Tech Industry*. From 2014, and still going.  I wrote about feeling like my time in tech was running out – it resonated with a lot of women, and continues to (especially with the revelations earlier this year).
    7. Creating Test Images and Comparing UI Images*. Technical work from Show & Hide on iOS (2015) In which I nerd out about UIImages, creating test images, and comparing them pixel by pixel.
    8. Android: Touch to Change Image. Technical post from 2016 on having two images and changing the image in response to touch events.
    9. Honey, I Left the Tech Industry. Some reflections a year after I left The Conglomerate – what I expected and what I found.
    10. The Disillusionment of the Early Career Engineer. From 2013, some thoughts on common themes I heard in talking to early career engineers.
  • 2017 in Writing

    2017 in Writing

    leave_paint_child_toys_play_colorful_kindergarten-1118275.jpg
    Credit: Pxhere

    I sent 40 WTHIC letters from 17 countries on four continents, and published two posts on Medium (one of which got over 33K views). I also wrote up my set up for Uses This which was pretty cool!

    This blog was seen by a smidgen under 57K visitors for just under 94K views, and I published 88 posts. This is down from last year’s 77.5K visitors, just over 124K views and 134 posts published.

    It’s nice to see so much of my writing on management in the top posts of this year, and my technical posts having such longevity.

    Most Popular Posts 2017

    1. All the Shades of Unsurprised. Like everyone, I was annoyed about the Uber thing. I wrote about how it wasn’t surprising, either, but extremely prevalent and happening at the companies we like as well as those we hate.
    2. On Improving Diversity in Hiring. Building a diverse team is not hard in the way rocket science is hard, it’s hard in the way math is hard – with sustained effort, most people can do it. It’s just hard work, which I broke down in this post.
    3. Running a Manager Feedback Cycle. I wrote up the process I followed to do a full feedback cycle for the managers on my team. I’ve gone through this twice now, and it’s been super helpful.
    4. No Technically Speaking in 2018. I wrote about ending Technically Speaking (a three year project), but also about community work and burnout.
    5. Things to Figure Out as a New Manager: Part 1, Your Schedule. The first in a five part series for new managers. I plan to build on these ideas in a talk for 2018.
    6. Things to Figure Out as a New Manager: Part 2, Social Support. Part two of the same series! I really enjoyed writing it, and was glad to see so many people reading it.
    7. Most Productivity Advice is Bullshit. I wrote about the implicit assumptions in most productivity advice, and how they don’t apply for everyone.
    8. Sponsorship Can Start Small. Moving from mentor to sponsor is about moving from passive (advice) to active – I wrote about some small ways to start.
    9. Speaking and Nerves. I wrote about how nerves around speaking are normal, and some things I do to manage them.
    10. Things to Figure Out as a New Manager: Part 5, Trust. The last post in the series. Excited to build on this in 2018!

    Most Popular Posts Pre-2017

    * indicates that this was also on the pre-2016 list last year.
    ^ indicates that this was one of the top posts of 2016.

    1. The Day I Leave the Tech Industry*. From 2014, and still going.  I wrote about feeling like my time in tech was running out – it resonated with a lot of women, and continues to (especially with the revelations earlier this year). I am starting to figure out how to follow it. I gave an interview this year to a writer working on a book about tech (which should be out in 2018, will be interesting to see what he uses), and wrote about the environment I was in when I was in that place emotionally – That Time I Was an Imposter.
    2. Extracting the Dominant Color from an Image in Processing*. An early technical post (2013!) in what went on to become Show & Hide. It’s about determining the dominant color in an image.
    3. Testing Intents on Android: Like Stabbing Yourself in the Eye with a Blunt Implement. Intent testing was not particularly straight-forward, or well documented, and I shared what I found in a weekend of fighting with it. I think this is one of my best technical posts, and it’s nice to see it finally get the attention it deserves! I want to believe this is because more people are writing tests now.
    4. Creating and Comparing Images on Android*. More technical work from Show & Hide (2015) – I replicated my work on iOS to create test images, and compare images against each other in tests.
    5. The Hardest, Shortest, Lesson Becoming a Manager*. From the very end of 2015, and one of the first things I wrote about management – I talked about letting go of writing code.
    6. iOS: Getting a Thumbnail for a Video*. Another technical post from 2015!
    7. Your Guide To Undermining Women Whilst Being Nice*. From 2014, still – unfortunately – applicable today. A series of techniques that get used to undermine women, with plausible deniability due to “good intentions”.
    8. Unfriending on Facebook. 2010 answers to some search terms about using Facebook… I’m surprised people are ending up on this but it still seems accurate enough!
    9. Creating Test Images and Comparing UI Images. Technical work from Show & Hide on iOS (2015) In which I nerd out about UIImages, creating test images, and comparing them pixel by pixel.
    10. Interviewing @ Google*. From 2010!! My study guide for technical interviews. Still relevant, which I guess you could a take as a statement on how technical interviews are improving — or not.
  • 2016 in Writing

    2016 in Writing

    Credit: Pixabay / AlexanderStein

    2016 was an exciting year for writing! I migrated my website to a new domain (cate.blog)! My first (and maybe last) book chapter was published. I started a new writing project – Where The Hell is Cate – and sent 52 “digital postcards” from 15 different countries.

    Overall stats are a little down on last year – I published 134 posts (vs 189 in 2015), just over 124K views (down from nearly 154K in 2015), 77.5K visitors (compared to 94.5K in 2015). I gave up using Google Analytics, so these are WordPress stats and slightly different from the ones I reported last year.

     

    Most Popular Posts 2016

    1. That Remote Work Think Piece Has Some Glaring Omissions (A Rant). I got annoyed about blog posts evangelising The One True Way of remote work and deconstructed some of the things that get left out.
    2. Advice for White Men. I got tired of all the advice that I see that may work for white men but does not necessarily apply to the other ±69% of the US population (and rather more globally).
    3. The Trouble With Women’s Events. I wrote about how the improvements in inclusivity for general tech events were throwing women focused events into relief. Many of them operate as fundraisers, which means they don’t provide the same level of support for speakers and this skews the perspective presented.
    4. Big Co. vs Small Co. & Job vs. Career Stability. On trying to create career security, which is independent of job security, and how company size can effect that.
    5. All the Leaves are Brown and the Sky is Gray. I got real about projects that fail, and the things we can take away from them – the things we learn, and our relationships with each other.
    6. On 1:1s. 1:1s are hard for new managers, but one of the best uses of time. I wrote about the why and the how.
    7. On Saying No. A story about the most impactful thing I did for “diversity” when I worked at the conglomerate – and why. Saying no as an act of resistance, because refusing obligations and choosing your own priorities is an act of self care and an expression of hope.”
    8. Categories Considered Harmful. Technical post about iOS architecture. I wrote about using Categories and why they create Frankenstein Monster objects.
    9. Bad Interviews are a Company Problem, not a Candidate Problem. On Technical Interviews, and how we have all these strategies pushing that problem off onto candidates, rather on training interviewers to do better.
    10. Real Talk: Women in Tech and Money. The data that indicates women in tech have a career duration comparable to that of a pro-footballer – how can this affect financial planning?

    Most Popular Posts Pre-2016

    1. The Day I Leave the Tech Industry. From 2014, and still going strong.  I wrote about feeling like my time in tech was running out – it resonated with a lot of women, and still does. This is a wonderful thing as a writer, and a damning statement on our industry. I keep meaning to follow up with how I feel now but I have yet to figure out what I want to say.
    2. The Hardest, Shortest, Lesson Becoming a Manager. From the very end of 2015, and one of the first things I wrote about management – I talked about letting go of writing code.
    3. Extracting the Dominant Color from an Image in Processing. An early technical post (2013!) in what went on to become Show & Hide. It’s about determining the dominant color in an image.
    4. It’s Not an Asshole Problem—It’s a Bystander Problem. The last post of 2014. I wrote about how the problem in tech with people (men) who let notice inappropriate behavior, but don’t act on it.
    5. Corporate Feminism and Thankless Emotional Labour. From 2014. I wrote about deciding to stop doing Corporate Feminism, because I’d become convinced that it was at best thankless and at worst harmful.
    6. Your Guide To Undermining Women Whilst Being Nice. From 2014, now something – sadly – of a classic. A series of techniques that get used to undermine women, with plausible deniability due to “good intentions”.
    7. Interviewing @ Google. From 2010!! My study guide for technical interviews. Still relevant, which I guess you could a take as a statement on how technical interviews are improving — or not.
    8. Creating and Comparing Images on Android. More technical work from Show & Hide (2015) – I replicated my work on iOS to create test images, and compare images against each other in tests.
    9. Book: The Truth About Burnout. Review of the book I wrote in 2015, the ideas from this are the foundation of my (deliberately unpublished) talk Some Things I’ve Learned About Color. Includes some points about how these burnout factors can be created or exacerbated for under-indexed folk in tech.
    10. iOS: Getting a Thumbnail for a Video. Another technical post from 2015!
    11. Replacing KIF Tests with XCUI Tests. Technical (iOS) post from 2015!
    12. Some Thoughts On Mentoring. A taxonomy of mentoring, from 2014.