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Showing posts from August, 2021

Writing "Breathable" Code

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When you're working with teams, it's important to write approachable, readable, breathable code. Here are 4 quick and easy tips to make sure your code is always breathable and maintainable.
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I'm starting a podcast...

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Increments is a show about coming up for air once a while and evaluating where we are in our tech careers, and being intentional with our professional aspirations. I've never started or run a podcast before. I've toyed around with the idea - so we'll see how this goes!
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Defensive Coding

 Just a quick word on Defensive Coding: You can write very secure code that isn't defensive. #DefensiveCoding isn't just about secure code. It's about making your code more maintainable, easier to read, understand, and user-friendly ("user" being other developers interacting with your code.) 1) Follow SOLID principles 2) Reduce code smells 3) Design your code the way you would your UI/UX. Make it simple, straightforward, intentional, and handle user error where possible. This will help you reduce the risk of new bugs and save you tons of time when you have to revisit your code base.
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Effective Approaches to Problem Solving

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Regardless of industry, regardless of role - we all face problems. They may be technical related, code related, or people related - they lead to bugs, degraded performance, outages, security breaches, lost revenue. Problem solving is a critical part of any technologists life - and yet, training on effective problem solving techniques is rare. Wouldn't it be great if we had a formalized set of tools that we could immediately use when faced with a problem? Whether you suffer from analysis paralysis, or rely a lot on intuition, instinct or experience - this talk aims to show that problems are just solutions in disguise. Recorded live, virtual TechCoach session with the Greater Nashville Technology Council, on August 6th, 2021 Sources and Good Reads Thinking in Systems by Donella H. Meadows Cracked it! by Bernard Garrette What's Your Problem? by Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg How Would You Move Mount Fuji? by William Poundstone The Success Equation by Michael Mauboussin Stan Browne,...
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Technical Interviews ≠ Assigning Homework

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We need to change how we interview in Tech. The demand for tech workers is skyrocketing, and interviewing cycles are still taking too long. I think this is simply due people not knowing how to easily assess someone's technical skill - and from there, you get the dreaded take-home Technical Assessment. Here's the thing: You wouldn't ask a candidate to fix a bug in your product's code base, would you? You also wouldn't ask them to build some internal productivity tooling, or you an app that you can sell, right? Seems wrong, doesn't it? You're benefiting from free work. That's exactly what you're doing when you give them a take-home technical assessment. Sure - you may not be looking to productize their submission, but you are still asking them to produce something that materially benefits the company. It is free work you are capitalizing on, that addresses a problem you couldn't resolve with the resources you have. In this case, they've solved ...
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Guidance Counselor 2.0 + Technical Interviews w/Alishah Novin

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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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Let's Clear Up The Ambiguity!

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Job seeking is hard - especially when you factor the ambiguity around expectations, the lack of transparency and consistency around process. It's frustrating dealing with the sheer subjectivity of everyone's opinions. Just think of even the basics: How long should your resume really be? Traditional black and white, or modern? Should you include a headshot? Oh - and cover letters - are those needed? Is anyone actually reading the cover letter? What are they looking for? Is there a bias for people with a more traditional background? Worst of all: The dreaded typo  that you catch only after applying to your dream job.  Are typos really going to cost you the opportunity??? To help bring some clarity to the process, I surveyed a bunch of hiring managers. The results were really interesting, and very illuminating.     If you're on the job hunt, I hope this information helps out! One final note: My recent post,  7 Steps to Writing an Amazing Resume , factors a lot of...
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FAQs for a Software Engineering Hiring Manager

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Technical Interviews have evolved a lot since the early I transitioned from being a Software Engineer to an Engineering Manager. Particularly in the post-Covid era, there's been a greater emphasis on the person, which I think is an important and welcome change. Over the decade of interviewing hundreds of coders, I've also had the pleasure of working with various bootcamps, colleges, and hundreds of individual job seekers on LinkedIn. Across all the changes over the past years, across the various locations and mediums, something remained consistent throughout: The questions I get asked.  With that in mind, I thought - why not make a FAQ from my perspective as a hiring manager? While this is my perspective, it's based off years of observation and supporting data. But that being said, advice is not fact. You may disagree with certain points, and that's OK. Opinions we disagree with allow us to better understand our own views. At best, I hope these responses help you...
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7 Steps to Writing an Amazing Resume

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  Since sharing my resume template  I've received plenty of feedback from job seekers, HR and hiring managers - all of whom value its purpose. Two (now former!) jobseekers even shared that as soon as they used my template, they were getting calls. Something about this template works, and given the traction it's getting others, I wanted to share - in more detail - why  this approach works so well.  Before continuing, let me give an important disclaimer: This resume isn't a miracle cure that's going to land anyone their dream job. Unless they're filled with lies, resumes are only as good as the candidate themselves. But they can also be a whole lot worse. This template and approach are all about maximizing the potential candidates have by highlighting and summarizing key areas.  Last point before beginning: If you don't know me, it's worth stating this advice comes from more than a decade of having hiring a broad range of coders: straight out of college, hig...
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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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