BattleSnake Competition

I recently posted about my BattleSnake coding challenge for my developers. Each developer had to write an algorithm to control a snake in the classic video game. Jasmin Baniya's algorithm came out on top for being both aggressive and analytical.



She was up against some really strong contenders like Daniel Mendek's snake which had strong object detection, favored open spaces, and otherwise moved in semi-random directions. It was exciting watching the strategies play out. You can watch it below:

When I told my almost-5 year old daughter about how Jasmin won she was ecstatic and drew a picture for Jasmin to say congratulations.

If you follow Girls Who Code, Microsoft's Girls in STEM program, or seen Cognizant's recent milestone of employing more than 100k women, you'll understand why I'm excited that my daughter is not growing up thinking computers or science is "just for boys" and that she has so many amazing every day role models to look to.

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Let's Clear Up The Ambiguity!

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FAQs for a Software Engineering Hiring Manager

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7 Steps to Writing an Amazing Resume

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7 Steps to Building your Portfolio MVP

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Often when I suggest to coders that they build a portfolio, I'll hear back: "I don't need one..." "With all the effort it takes to apply, where will I find the time?" Simply put, having a portfolio's never going to hurt your chances at landing a job - it can only help. That second question is where a lot of struggle - because applying to jobs can be time consuming. Especially if you're wrapping up a bootcamp, or having to manually type in your resume info after uploading your resume. That's why I made these 7 steps which, when done correctly, can really help you stand out with a hiring manager. And, the best part is, it should only take you 2 days. Being the Agile-Obsessive that I am, it's all about maximizing value while minimizing effort. Fix links to your Resume, GitHub, LinkedIn, etc. at the top where they're always accessible. Link to everything here - and then remove all other links on your Resume except your Portfolio link . It sa
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Work Experience vs Professional Experience

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In reviewing a bunch of resumes this week, I noticed quite a lot of resumes with a  "Work Experience"  section. In each of those resumes, people had de-valuing some very valuable  experience - and I write that with no exaggeration. The problem is people were looking at their experience purely through the "Job Title/Relevancy" lens and had reduced their experience down to a list of discrete, random, disconnected jobs. No interconnectedness, no narrative thread weaving through it all. As much as you may feel some jobs have no way of being connected, the reality is  you   are always the connection . To not connect them on your resume is to lose all that growth, knowledge, skills, impact, value, and trajectory. In other words - you lose the " You " in the resume. I recommended they start with a small change. Reword "Work Experience" to "Professional Experience" because, ultimately, every single job they had was in service of building their
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