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The New Realities of EM Lyfe
→: The New Realities of EM LyfeA fascinating thing is happening. EMs are saying it’s better to be an IC. ICs think being an EM is where it’s at. This is part of the AI shift. The industry seems to be in chaos, and wherever you are, somewhere else seems better. But below that, it’s not just the job that’s changing.…
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Force Multipliers
→: Force MultipliersIt’s harder than ever to be an engineering manager. Fewer resources, higher expectations, and a public conversation actively questioning whether the role should exist at all. Less support than ever, in a job that already often felt hard and lonely. That’s why Jean and I built the Engineering Manager Survival Guide – and I’m so…
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High Throughput, Low Completion
→: High Throughput, Low CompletionI have never been someone who organises things. I have a great memory and a high tolerance for ambiguity, and I evolved to match the era of the internet where searching things by keyword was sufficient. I documented, extensively. But I did not really organize. Not myself, nor – despite my job – other people.…
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Book: Burnout – The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
→: Book: Burnout – The Secret to Unlocking the Stress CycleI first read Burnout – The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily and Amelia Nagoski in May 2019. I was, at the time, pretty fried. I’d recently written The Cost of Fixing Things about three back-to-back team turnarounds – one of them with a fractured shoulder whilst buying and renovating a house. I’d…
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Announcing: Navigating the AI Shift
→: Announcing: Navigating the AI ShiftFor a lot of people, AI started out as a net negative. You’re reviewing documents someone couldn’t be bothered to write themselves. You’re having your time wasted by PRs generated by someone who never tried to understand the problem. The efficiency gains everyone keeps talking about haven’t really shown up in your week – but…
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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…
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Who’s the Admin, Me or Claude?
→: Who’s the Admin, Me or Claude?There’s a lot of conversation right now about “context engineering” for dev work; structuring what you feed an LLM so it can do useful things. It’s fantastic, we use this approach for DRI Your Career – to the point where we moved our course development out of Google Docs and into GitHub. But – Jean…
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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…
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What Does Claude Need to Be My Social Media Manager?
→: What Does Claude Need to Be My Social Media Manager?I have a problem that I suspect others reading this share: my content is spread across too many places, and I have no coherent picture of what’s actually working. I post on Mastodon, Bluesky and LinkedIn. I write a weekly blog post. I have two newsletters — one monthly, one “when I leave somewhere.” I…