Thoughts on Engineering.

Published 2019/10/22

Workplace Haiku

When you are able to work someplace where you can have some fun with the people you work with you usually end up coming up with inside jokes and other fun things to do. Along with the previously discussed “pop time” one of the things that we did in my first full engineering job was to write workplace haiku. I am still searching for the lists of haiku that we wrote those many, many years ago and if I find them then I will work on posting some of the better ones. However, this blog gives me an ability to resurrect my haiku skills and attempt to create a couple of haiku per week. Now you may be asking yourself – why haiku? Actually, let’s take a step back and first cover: what is haiku? According to wikipedia, haiku is a form of Japanese poetry that is structured over 17…

Published 2019/10/20

First Resumes

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…

Published 2019/10/16

What’s Your MDI?

Many, many years ago I worked with a wonderful group of people. This is the type of group that you will always look back at fondly and miss spending time with them during the day. One of the activities that we would partake in nearly every single day was something we called “pop time”. Pop time was where we would walk down to a small kitchen area where there were vending machines and a coffee maker and everyone would get an afternoon drink and chat for a while before heading back to finish up the day. We usually had pop time between 2-3pm. There was one individual in this group, Todd, that was just an all around great guy. He would usually have something fun to talk about. I would also state that he was usually on the glass half empty side of the fence. There were many rants about…

Published 2019/10/06

When Is The Best Time To Drink Coffee?

Oooohh! Another coffee post. Honestly, when I started this blogging effort I secretly felt that while it sounded good in my head, putting coffee in the blog tagline was a bad idea. How much mileage can I get from coffee? I pretty much had to force myself to create the initial post about coffee because I felt like the blog was inauthentic if I didn’t at least have one post reflecting the tagline. But heavens be praised! Due to the magic that is Google and their all-seeing eye, searching for coffee for that post has caused more coffee articles to show up in my feeds! Awesome! It looks like that tagline won’t be in vain after all… So… more coffee! And to get everyone in the mood, let’s reference one of the all-time great skits calling for more of something! So as you watch the following, just imagine that instead…

Published 2019/10/03

Secret Weapons: Candy Edition

Like I have said before, one of the reasons I started this blog is to try and share experience and wisdom with other people. While the topic for today is something that I have definitely thought about before, it is not something that was on my radar as a topic until I was walking back to my desk earlier today. So let’s digress for a moment as it is so easy, and for me at least, fun to do. Today’s rabbit hole that we are jumping down is brought to you by candy! Yummy, sweet, sugary candy. If you are one of the lucky ones like me, you will agree that the best, most perfect, and most amazing all-around candy is…. Reeses Pieces. The crunchy candy shell. The smooth peanut butter taste. The colors that remind us of cornucopias in the fall… *drool*. I mean come on, the perfect candy.…

Published 2019/09/29

#EngineerAdvice

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…

Published 2019/09/29

Why Do We Measure Things?

Yesterday was frustrating. We attended a competition that one of our kids was participating in and the end results of that did not go as we expected. At the end of the day I think the parents were more frustrated by the outcome than the kids were. And it all came down to a scoring, or measurement system that some faceless people (faceless to us) compiled somewhere else and that led to results that we did not agree with. Think about that for a second. This type of measurement happens ALL THE TIME. Your daily life is a result of these hidden measurements. The speed limit that you drive is a result of someone measuring and stating a result that is estimated to be safe for that section of road. At work it happens all the time. Statements of “you are doing a good job” are a form of hidden…

Published 2019/09/28

“Professional” is a Funny Term

The term “professional” is one that I have always found to be very interesting. The definition of the term “professional” (noun) is: “a person engaged or qualified in a profession”. As an (adjective) it can mean “relating to or connected with a profession” or “engaged in a specified activity as one’s main paid occupation rather than as a pastime”. As I am writing this I am not yet 40 yet I have been a paid “professional” in one form or another in working with computers and development for 20 years. So why are there times that I don’t I feel like I am a “professional”? I really need to explain what I mean here. Some weeks back I remember seeing an article that was talking about a study regarding self perception in younger people and how it was up to 30% more positive when they were living at home or…

Published 2019/09/27

It’s Project Time!! #Project-WPC

Let’s get this ball rolling. I want to start learning something new, so it is time to create my first project! For some reason when I started thinking about this post this morning the old school Batman TV show (WPC Score: 24) theme song popped into my head. So just because I can, here are the lyrics: Batman, Batman, Batman, Batman!Batman, Batman, Batman!Batman, Batman, Batman, Batman!Batman, Batman, Batman!Batman, Batman, Batman!Batman, Batman, Batman!Batman, Batman, Batman!Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, naBatman! source: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/batmanlyrics.html I would love to know that this has now caused the hopefully dozens of people that might read this to get that tune stuck in their heads… but let’s be realistic here. I am getting old and the population of people that might get this reference is shrinking. *sigh* Oh well – let’s get to the project. This will be the first project…

Published 2019/09/25

#EngineeringMgmt

The next topic to tackle from a post category standpoint is in regards to Engineer Management. This is an important topic for me as it describes what I do every day. My current role has a title of “Director of Engineering”. As someone who leads and manages others, especially Engineers, the role can be fun, exciting, challenging, and sometimes frustrating. I would like to use posts in this category to talk about this role, the methods used, and most likely the many ways that I get things wrong. While looking on Unsplash for a good image to use for this post I came across the puzzle picture above and it jumped out at me as a good talking point. Sometimes managing people and projects can feel like you are trying to complete a puzzle while blindfolded in a dark room and the pile in front of you contains a dozen…

Thoughts on Engineering. And Coffee. Posts