Category: #engineeradvice

You Do NOT Have To Code In Your Spare Time To Be Successful

Published 2020/10/17

You Do NOT Have To Code In Your Spare Time To Be Successful

Recently I saw a comment or a tweet about Engineers and Doctors. This is the type of message that I wish I had the forethought to save somewhere because I keep thinking about it. As a follower of the beg, borrow, or steal philosophy, I have co-opted this idea into my own, but it is always best to give credit to the originator. In this case, I did not save it so I don’t have that information, so I apologize in advance, random internet person. Anyways, the message went something like this (as I recall in my own words): Why are Engineers always getting asked what side projects they are working on? Why is there an expectation that a good Engineer always needs to be working on work outside of work? We don’t ask Doctors if they perform surgeries on their days off or over weekend breaks, so why is…

9 Steps You Need To Follow For Good Business Communications

Published 2020/10/13

9 Steps You Need To Follow For Good Business Communications

One of the biggest mantras that my team hears over and over and over again: Communicate, communicate, and then go back and communicate some more. This concept is absolutely critical to everything in the business world. People crave information. People need direction. People desire knowledge. All of these things come from communication. Yet, most of us don’t know how to make this transfer of information work effectively. There is no place that the delivery of news (or lack thereof) drives conflict than in movies. This is an easy and fun game to play. First, pick your favorite movie. Let’s use Back To The Future 2 as an example. Second, determine some kind of communication that would have saved everyone a whole lot of trouble and basically ended the movie right then and there. Ready? Whew that was fast. The new version of Back To The Future 2 is now only…

7 Ways To Gain And Keep Your Manager’s Trust

Published 2020/10/01

7 Ways To Gain And Keep Your Manager’s Trust

The world has changed. Upon first glance that statement seems obvious and almost a little silly. Of course the world has changed, the world changes each and every day. New products come out. More people are The concept that is really on my mind here is the massive changes in the workplace due to the coronavirus. SO maybe a better phrase to use here would be something like this: The workplace has changed. And it will probably never go back to the way that it was before. Yet, even thinking through this idea, this is nothing new. Go watch an episode of Mad Men. The workplace that we know in 2019 looked nothing like that office ideal. While it can be said that any dramatization of workplace culture and etiquette can only present one ruby-lensed viewpoint of a workplace, there are some big differences that can be seen when comparing…

Shut Up And Grab A Whiteboard If You Want To Be a Good Mentor

Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash

Published 2020/07/23

Shut Up And Grab A Whiteboard If You Want To Be a Good Mentor

After recently stumbling upon a commencement speech by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger, I started thinking about mentors and the people that have helped me in my professional journey. The speech that I am referring to is one where the man, the myth, the legend himself, Arnold “The Terminator” Schwarzenegger calls out that there is no such thing as a self-made man or woman. The relevant parts of the speech are captured in this edited video: This got me to thinking. The statement does apply to all of us, no matter what profession we are in. It is double so for Engineers and Developers. If you are ready to argue this point – please step back and listen. Even if you have never set foot in a classroom that teaches code, application development, or logical constructs, you have not learned in a vacuum. We all learn from others. It is…

Forget Emotional Intelligence – Give Me People Skilled In Situational Intelligence

Published 2020/03/28

Forget Emotional Intelligence – Give Me People Skilled In Situational Intelligence

We have all come to know and love Emotional Intelligence. Just in case you have been living under a rock for the past few years, emotional intelligence is the capacity to manage your own emotions as well as recognize and understand emotions in others. I am not knocking Emotional Intelligence. It seems to be an incredibly popular buzzword and there are plenty of articles out there discussing this topic. Practicing these skills as a manager is important, and I do believe in it. I am just tired of every time some CEO makes a decision a companion article pops up describing how that decision reflected his vast reservoir of Emotional Intelligence. My writings encompass a constant quest to define what steps I can take to practice lifelong continuous improvement in my life and career. Part of this effort includes defining what it really means to be an Engineer as a…

To Truly Understand The Cost Of Something, Learn How To Measure It

Published 2020/03/24

To Truly Understand The Cost Of Something, Learn How To Measure It

Kids do not understand the true value of money. To be honest, most adults don’t understand it well either. Society has dictated that we use a form of currency to exchange effort for value that we in turn give to someone else for something that we deem as an equivalent value. Here is a quick exercise to try sometime. Try and explain to a child what the real value of money actually is. Yes, it is simple to explain that we give a $20 to the nice cashier and they allow us to take the shiny new toy home. Yet, to a 5 year old, the concept of money as a unit of value does not compute. They have no ability to understand what is involved in trading money for goods and services. They have no concept to differentiate between a quarter and a $100 bill. Even with this lack…

The Best Engineer Is A Lazy Engineer

Published 2020/03/09

The Best Engineer Is A Lazy Engineer

Who wouldn’t want to be a couch potato for a living? Imaging, the overstuffed cushions, and piles of blankets and pillows. The softness of the sweatpants. The collection of remote controls arrayed around the empty bottles and bags of chips on the coffee table right in front of you. As fun as it may sound on the surface, many people would have a hard time actually enjoying this lifestyle. Yet the description above certainly checks all of the boxes for the Hollywood definition of the word “lazy”. This image is highly contradictory against the backdrop of a busy office and the flurry of activity around a hardworking and focused Engineer. These two images could not be further apart in terms of activity levels but the people at the center of these two scenes actually have a lot of things in common. The best Engineers excel at being efficient. They achieve…

Using Rick and Morty To Solve An Agile Estimation Dilemma

Published 2020/03/02

Using Rick and Morty To Solve An Agile Estimation Dilemma

Agile is great. Agile is wonderful. Agile is the savior of all things related to Software Engineering. On paper. In practice, classic Agile is difficult, confusing, frustrating, and just downright hard to implement. Because of knowing that many people would argue the preceding statement, we need some contextualization here. Therefore, a clarified statement reads: At a small company with less than 10 software developers and a handful of hardware engineers, where the projects change constantly and the number of people working on any single project can change from week to week, classic Agile is difficult, confusing, frustrating, and just downright hard to implement. Some aspects of Agile are awesome for small teams at small companies. This is doubly true when the current projects closely follow the needs and opportunities for the business. Smaller companies do not have the luxury of buffers between the Engineers and the opportunities. Often new opportunities require…

99% Of Successful Software Engineers Practice These 10 Habits & Skills

Published 2020/02/19

99% Of Successful Software Engineers Practice These 10 Habits & Skills

Engineers are like snowflakes, no two are the same. Every snowflake that has ever formed is constituted from different atoms in a unique configuration. This is similar to Software Engineers where no matter how similar the learning path, no two will ever be identical in their developmental skills and abilities. However, even with different levels of aptitude, the people that rise to the top and can be considered as the most successful are the ones that build solid a foundation of habits and skills that allow them to perform closer to peak efficiency longer and consistently have higher quality output over a longer period of time. Over many years both participating in Software Engineering projects and while managing other people performing this role, the following traits have stood out among the most successful people to hold this title. These are a collection of skills and habits that increase efficiency and…

The Pros & Cons Of Cursing At Work

Published 2020/02/16

The Pros & Cons Of Cursing At Work

What the $#%& are you talking about? The amount of profanity that someone hears on a daily basis has increased even over the past decade. This was nowhere more apparent than sitting at home hosting a Super Bowl party and while watching a commercial hearing a guest exclaim: “can they really cuss in a commercial?“ Cursing and cussing have always been a part of human vernacular. We even have aphorisms describing the use of “salty” language. Saying someone curses “like a sailor” is simply stating that their spoken choice of verbiage is heavily seasoned with terminology that would make people in polite company blush. You peasant swain! you whoreson malthorse drudge! Shakespeare – The Taming of the Shrew, 4.1.62 There are even famous modern pop culture references to specific words that at one point were simply not allowed on television. A famous monologue by George Carlin from 1972, titled “Seven…