-
Building keyboards. 1/n
My first time building a keyboard, I didn’t have a mental map of how a keyboard worked beyond “well it sends a signal and boom, things happen”. I had been using a Corsair k60 mechanical keyboard for nearly decade, but for the most part I just enjoyed it and didn’t dig very deep into how…
-
Your manager can’t read your mind.
Here we go again. Stash my work. Create new branch. Understand what has to be done. Do it all over again once this one is done. Get asked why the ticket I had to drop isn’t finished yet. Well, because you gave me a different task, that’s why!
-
When should junior developers start working on “real”, production issues?
Learning how code goes from your precious code editor and into users lives is a critical skill for engineers At All Levels while they onboard into a new job.
-
Your team wants you to succeed. Don’t stay stuck.
It was Monday morning, and I’d been thinking about it through my weekend. A developer in my team wasn’t making any progress and now a ticket was delayed. They weren’t asking for help, and our offers to help them were not being received as we hoped. Instead of accepting the team’s help, they kept saying…
-
Remote onboarding 101 – “Whenever I reach out, I feel like I’m bothering them”
“It’s really hard to get mentorship, I don’t have the support I need.” new remote developers Remote or not, one of the first skills we need to teach junior developers is how to ask for help. Junior devs often fear that reaching out will make them look bad. To help them get over this problem,…
-
Remote Onboarding 101: give new employees the power to improve your onboarding documents.
Make onboarding better, one small change at a time.
-
Remote Onboarding 101: tell them Where, When, and How to show up.
Ensure no new employee has to wonder “Do I still have a job?” on their first day.
-
Leaving a job – reflections & timelines
I gave my notice, we agreed on 3 months, and we set to work. The first month was about setting things in motion, and creating the right environment for a transition. We made an offer to someone on the team to take over my role as CTO, answered all questions that came up, and worked…
-
More thoughts about management.
I wrote this as my answer to an application question for a remote company a few years back. It’s a bit outdated, but I thought I’d share it anyway. In a broad sense, to me management is about people and the things that stop them from achieving what’s important at an individual, team and company…
-
Ensuring new tech leads get a chance to succeed
When assigning technical leads, take care to put them in a situation where they will succeed easily, especially if this is their first time with a tech lead role. The tech lead role is one of the most challenging roles to go into because you live in a sort of limbo where you are still…