Thoughts on Engineering. And Coffee.
Let’s take a few minutes and talk about communications in the business world. As the team I work with knows, I strongly believe that communication is one of, if not the most important element of having a strong team, a strong organization, and a happy and fulfilled role. Communication is how you get through the clutter, provide clarity around objectives and status, and avoid the messiness of office politics.
Before I embark on this Engineer value post, let me try and explain why I am explaining this information. While it is very possible that I simply didn’t pay attention to these topics in school, I am also of the opinion that the US educational system does a pretty poor job of preparing people for the real world. But instead of going down that rabbit hole – instead, let me focus this advice from an older me to a younger me. These topics are things that I wish I had known as a young Engineer. There are a LOT of things I did not pay attention to that would have set me up better for things down the road. I wish I had had someone explain things to me, so it is my hope that these posts to a younger me may help some other young Engineer in some way.…
One of my most important goals with this site is to provide advice to all Engineers. One of the ways that I have decided to do this is to maintain a list of Rules for Engineers however, the plain rules list on that page simply states the text of the rule, not the context behind it. I would like to take the time to explain each rule and why it is important for success to give people the context behind it and how they might be able to use it in their daily lives. So to start, I decided to pick one at random. I would like to take a tiny aside here and let you know about an awesome function, let’s call it an easter egg, in good search. If you need a quick random number you can get one through search by rolling dice. For those familiar with…
Co-Ops, interns, fresh-from-bootcamp developers lend me your keyboards…. I have been very fortunate in being able to build a co-op program in conjunction with the engineering program at a local university. Both in targeting hiring entry level developers and during the time that this program has been running I have had the great (mis)fortune to read hundreds of entry-level resumes. Through the reading of so many resumes I would like to give some direct feedback to new and entry level people. First of all try and remember this: resumes suck. There is no getting around it. This will be a common theme from me on this blog. The main reason I don’t like resumes is very simple. How old are you while reading this? You may be in your early 20s. Let’s say that today is your birthday and that you are turning 20. You have now lived 7,300 days…
It is time I added this final category topic. Way back in the intro to the # category topics I mentioned that I wanted to provide an area to give new Engineers advice. Welcome to #EngineerAdvice. For any new Engineers first you need to know that working in a professional setting is new, different, and often hard. There are unwritten rules to follow, your responsibilities are greater, and the challenges are different than what you have experienced in the past. While in school or training you are responsibly for yourself and your knowledge. Sure – you may work on some smaller teams and share some responsibility but now you are working for an organization and you are just one piece of the puzzle. There are minefields around working with other humans, office politics, and project expectations that you will have to learn about and navigate. The fist and primary thing…
