Tumbling down the rabbit hole of time...

 

It was 2006/2007, and I wanted to harness the power of crowdsourcing. The idea was simple - a website for recommendations. Not algorithmically curated, but people curated.

Music, Movies, Books, and more. You'd search for your favorite, and see a bunch of user-submitted recommendations ranked in a digg/reddit style voting system.

I built it in PHP, launched it and then... I hustled to promote it. As most crowdsourcing sites, the fatal flaw I knew I was fighting against was building up the critical mass to keep the site rolling on its own momentum.

I did everything I could to help it take off. One approach was to feature lesser-known musicians, along with some of their tracks that people could preview. The idea was symbiotic: their following would see my site, my users would see the musician.

I got in touch with many artists, performers over the course of months - and while I'm sad to say my website never reached critical mass, and odd thing happened over the weekend.

While catching some Grammy news, I saw a familiar face on the red carpet. I couldn't place it at first - it wasn't the same feeling as trying to remember what other movies you'd seen a particular actor in... this feeling was one of familiarity - I'd interacted with this person.

After tumbling down the rabbit hole of time, I realized (as you may have guessed) it was one of the very artists I'd featured on my little website 16 years ago. Still a performer, and also the Grammy's Diversity and Inclusion Ambassador.

Our paths crossed for just a brief moment. While I doubt I played a role in her success - if there's any lesson to be learned here it's just simply about the pleasant surprises you'll have over the years as you cast a wide net when building your network.

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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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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, high
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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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