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Showing posts from November, 2024

Agile is Not Dead and it Never Killed Waterfall

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I've been reading posts about Agile being dead for years now. Those arguments seem to be picking up and my best guess as to why: It gets you clicks by manufacturing controversy. The main arguments I continuously run into with these articles all stem from fundamental misunderstandings of what Agile is. It's just as misinformed as the (incorrect) notion that Agile killed Waterfall. These misconceptions stem from too many projects that are AINO/WINO (Agile/Waterfall In-Name-Only), resulting in bad experiences. I've heard a common refrain from teams over the years: "We're hybrid agile," or "We're scrum-like" or "We've come up with our own agile approach..." These are red flag indications that the team does not have a clear understanding of the Agile principles or the Agile manifesto. You may as well declare "Hammers are dead" if you hit your thumb too many times. In fact, the "Agile is Dead" posts are equivalent to ...
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How Coaching 6 Year Old Rec. Soccer Made Me a Better Product Manager

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The summer/fall season of our local recreation soccer league has to a close, and I'm pretty thrilled with how well we did this season. We're not supposed to keep score, but the team of 5 & 6-year-olds I coached was  nearly undefeated, with just one game slipping away from us. I've been doing this for 6 years now, and each season has been a blast, but something was different about this season. 5 & 6-year-olds are still learning the basic rules of the game. They're still adjusting to the shock that, after a "lifetime" of being taught to share their toys, they will be given a ball and told to keep it from others. They're also easily distracted - by planes, migrating geese, dandelions, dogs. They're also, depending on any number of factors, reluctant to play. Yet, somehow, by the time we took the field to play our first game, my team looked like veteran pros. So much so, I grew self-conscious about just how   good  they had become. There was such ...
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Practice, not Production

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Like most kids, my 6-year-old loves to draw. But, unlike what I've seen in other kids, my son likes to draw the same thing repeatedly, trying to improve upon it with each pass. He'll intently watch time-lapsed sketching videos by real artists who have recorded their process - and then he'll try it out for himself. The result is he'll produce drawings that are pretty advanced for his age. But he's still young, so his motor skills are still catching up with what he wants to get down on paper. And that leads to easily getting frustrated - something every parent finds themselves coaching their kids through. It reminded me of something I once heard: When you're talented at something, you can spot the imperfections that other are faster to write-off. While most people will praise the work, you are left feeling it could be better and obsessively pursue perfection. Knowing when to stop and getting to "Good enough" is an important skill otherwise you risk ...
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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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