Category: #engineeradvice

Your Idea Of A Dream Job Is Wrong – Here Is How To Adjust Your Thinking

Published 2021/10/21

Your Idea Of A Dream Job Is Wrong – Here Is How To Adjust Your Thinking

Have you ever sat back and considered how strange, weird, and often times dumb humans are?

This isn’t about looking up whatever craziness Florida Man has gotten into lately.

What I am referring to is how hard it is for the human brain to recognize and understand the current world around us each and every day.

Think about it using that big, wrinkly brain of yours.

We build and create some amazing and wonderful things. We hope for the future. We even have a word, nostalgia, that defines looking back at the positives in our past.

Yet, if you were to ask any random human what they would call their dream job, how would they respond?

Oh, How Your Goals Will Change

Published 2021/09/26

Oh, How Your Goals Will Change

There are a few things that have become rote at certain events in our lives.

These events are not guaranteed for every person. However, they have become so embedded in our culture to have becomes almost cliched caricatures of the original meaning and intent. They are as embedded as decorating a tree at Christmas and finding candy-filled eggs at Easter.

Yet when it comes to jobs, making money, and being a professional there are also some tried and true customs.

These aren’t your familial holiday traditions.

Your Salary And Title At Work Do Not Define You

Published 2021/08/19

Your Salary And Title At Work Do Not Define You

Think back to the last time you met someone new.

The circumstances may end up dictating the conversation – if you are on a sinking boat you probably won’t stop to chat with the person next to you while you are both trying to stay afloat.

However, in many social situations, meeting a new person often goes something like this:

“Hey, Kevin, I would like you to meet my [insert one of the following: friend/co-worker/teammate/acquaintance/random person I just met], so-and-so.”

“Hi, so-and-so! How are you?”

“I’m good. Thanks for asking. So…. what do you do for a living?”

It may not always happen that quickly and it may be asked in different forms, but thinking back over meeting new humans in my lifetime that question comes up a lot.

Which begs an even greater question: why do we insist on defining new people that we meet by their jobs?

We’ve Got Talent, Yes We Do, We’ve Got Talent, What About You?

Published 2021/08/16

We’ve Got Talent, Yes We Do, We’ve Got Talent, What About You?

No, this isn’t a high school football game. Yes, this was channeled in the spirit of cheering everyone on.

However, instead of spirit, we need to talk about talent.

Inspiration comes from many places and will strike when you least expect it. Today, it came in the form of scrolling through one of my daily read websites.

This one was The Verge. While looking over the daily tech news they had a Vox Media careers blub nestled among the regular news about crypto-this and Apple that.

It simply read: “We’re building great things, and we need your talent“

The Cringe Is Strong With The Zoom Wave

Published 2021/08/10

The Cringe Is Strong With The Zoom Wave

That strange, awkward feeling that one gets when you do something that everyone else is doing, but it feels really weird when actually performing the action.

This specific action is one that was never performed in a pre-pandemic world. Walking out of someone’s office or out of the meeting was the final action in the workplace play.

Now, we all awkwardly stare at each other while surreptitiously trying to blindly click the ‘Leave’ button without breaking eye contact. That or we all end up committing the most cringy action of all to end a pandemic video conference.

I am talking about waving.

How High Do Developers Jump?

Published 2021/06/27

How High Do Developers Jump?

How high can you jump? The answer doesn’t really matter – the whole question is theoretical in any case. The real question is – when your boss tells you to jump what initial thrust is needed and at what angle to achieve the desired flight path while sailing through the air. It might also just be the case that your boss doesn’t even want you to jump at all. Sit down. This isn’t about leaping about all nimbly-bimbly here and there. What this is about is a discussion about professional development as a software developer. The jumping metaphor is a great way to describe a transition for any developer from a fresh-faced newbie to a more seasoned next level developer. You know, one of those people that now has just enough information to be dangerous? Let’s take a step back and not jump to any conclusions yet. See what I…

Do You Even Process Bro?

Published 2021/05/30

Do You Even Process Bro?

Yeah the title sucks. That is what I get for having kids and living with teenagers – the constant meme-driven noise that pervades every aspect of home life. The title is a deviation from an older meme about weightlifting that has been co-opted into a simple question about doing things that seem obvious and common. Things that we should all be doing. Which brings us to the topic at hand. Processes. The thought of building and following a process can unfortunately have some negative connotations. Processes almost always carry overhead and paperwork. They take time. They can be tedious. Yet there are processes all around us in the business world. They are, at a deep level, a means of communication. Of structure. Of collaboration. To an Engineer, a finely tuned process is a thing of beauty. But I digress. While the goal is to argue for processes and the value…

Five Reasons You Need A Software Development Portfolio

Published 2020/10/26

Five Reasons You Need A Software Development Portfolio

Greetings prospective employee! Thank you for applying for the job opening that we have posted. Let me take a quick glance at your resume. Hmmm. Nice. OK. Good. A little light over there, but looks like some solid strengths over here. Not bad. What else ya got? It is awesome that I read your resume because that means that you made it past the initial weed-out. Now as a hiring manager I am going to set your resume down in a stack of dozens of other very similar resumes and go on about my day. Let’s get on the same page about one thing right now. It is going to be extremely hard for you to impress me or rise about the rest of the crowd just by what you put down on one or two sheets of paper. Sorry to burst your bubble. There are no magic words, images,…

You Can’t Use The Corner Of Your Desk For Awesome And Successful Projects

Published 2020/10/23

You Can’t Use The Corner Of Your Desk For Awesome And Successful Projects

Before reading any further, stop, scoot your chair back, and take a look around. What does your reading environment look like? Where are you right now? Are you at work taking a few minutes to browse the web? Are you outside catching up on some news and reading while enjoying the fresh air? Have you been sitting too long in the bathroom while glued to your phone? Twenty years ago, if you were reading a blog then most likely you would have been tied to a desk somewhere, looking at a big and bulky CRT monitor with an actual trackball inside your mouse. Now, chances are, you are sitting there swiping with a finger on a 6 inch screen with more resolution than that massive CRT monitor had those 20 years ago. Yet even with the change in technology and habits over the past two decades, the concept of a…