Career advice for graduates

I saw this tweet and I’ve been asked this question myself a couple of times so I wanted to highlight this as a reference for others, and collect my thoughts into one place.

I've been getting a lot of messages regarding job hunting as a Software Developer. Let's get a thread going with advice for developers looking for jobs! 👇🏼My advice: Keep LinkedIn up-to-date. Recruiters will reach out if your profile is full of great information about yourself!

— Emma Bostian (@EmmaBostian) September 30, 2018

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Know what you want. E.g. Do you want a startup with scrappy hours but more influence or a big company with more structure but where you have less control?

You don’t have to have a public profile.

If you do have a public profile, make sure it reflects you well.

Doesn’t have to be a blog, but always be thinking about teaching others what you’re currently learning. It really helps you in appraisals, interviews and networking because you’re already reflecting on your skills, and you can more easily help others

Apply even if you don’t meet all the criteria. In most companies “must haves” aren’t. You’ll need to meet some, and be prepared to learn others, but don’t wait until you’re 90% ready.

Ask Your Mentor These 40 Questions : introspection (Q21-30)

Lifehacker suggests 40 questions to ask your mentor. So that I don’t have to repeat myself, I’m posting the answers here in 4 chunks.

21. If you were me, what’s the single most important question you would ask you?

Are the experiences I’m talking about typical for all, or do they exhibit a white cis male bias that I need to correct for?

22. If you were me, what’s something you’d aim to change immediately?

It’s never too early to practice your people skills. If you can’t put yourself in someone else’s shoes, you’ll never write the best software for them.

23. How can I tell I’m not cherry-picking which feedback I accept about myself?

In my experience, it tends to be the opposite. People pick out the negatives and ignore the cherries. The best way to keep yourself honest is to set it your own goals, and honestly reflect to yourself how you did, good and bad. Write it down in advance, and as you go, and look for opportunities to improve.

24. Is there a strategy to unlearning behaviors that are holding me back in this field?

Coding challenges are a great playground for behaviours and techniques. If you find a behaviour you want to change (e.g
too procedural, not enough functional), then challenge yourself to solve 5 puzzles without that behaviour, see how the new behaviour feels, and see if the old behaviour is sometimes useful.

25. Do I exhibit any warning signs that indicate this field won’t be right for me in the long run?

If all you care about are the technical aspects, you will limit yourself. Your job is solving problems, software is a tool. You need to know the technical, but you also need to understand elements of psychology, ethics, politics, economics and others. If you’re planning to stay within your bubble, new ready for an escape plan when your skills bedtime obsolete

26. When is it time for me to contemplate changing career paths?

When you stop caring about doing it right. Maybe it’s time to change jobs, but if the whole routine of requirements and coding and testing just grinds you down, get out whilst you still have passion. And follow your passion somewhere else.

27. How do I ensure I’m prioritizing the right things?

Always provide value. Sometimes the value is direct (e.g. a new feature), sometimes it’s indirect (e.g. refactoring before a new phase of work). If you’re not sure, ask. Either ask the team, the product owner, or all your future self what you wished you worked on.

28. Where do you feel I fall short?

That’s for you to answer. Ask for honest feedback and take it in the spirit it is offered. We always reflect on the sprint for ways the team could improve, and always there are things we can do better. There are axes to sharpen, new skills to learn, new people to teach and lead. Pick your favourite retrospective format and apply it to yourself.

29. How am I perceived by those around me?

See my previous answer.

30. What should I do right now to improve myself and my career prospects?

Figure out what your 5 year plan is. Once you know which direction you want to travel, the first step is much easier to decide.

Has blogging changed my career in a positive way?

As part of my mentoring, I was asking a question about this blog, and I thought the answer was worth repeating publicly.

The question was:

“I am interested in learning whether blogging changed you career in a positive way?“

It’s been helpful to me, and I know it’s been mentioned in a couple of job interviews, but for me the benefit was more about the discipline of writing and using it to clarify concepts that have been bouncing around in my head. I’m not always the best at writing clearly and cleanly, so blogging has been my way of practicing that.

I guess it’s a matter of what you want out of it. I don’t believe you need a blog to get a better job for example, there’s plenty of ways to that goal.

On another note, I’m not following John Sonmez any more after I saw him bullying others on Twitter. That’s something important to remember if you’re blogging – anything you make public you’ll be judged on, so be the best version of yourself when you express yourself.

Good luck,
Craig

Ask Your Mentor These 40 Questions : success (Q11-20)

Lifehacker suggests 40 questions to ask your mentor. So that I don’t have to repeat myself, I’m posting the answers here in 4 chunks.

11. What decision netted you the most success in your career?

I quit my job. I was unhappy but I didn’t realise it at the time. I had nowhere to go but no-one was being highest with me. So I looked. For about 2 years. I tried to change my role in the company, or look for a promotion, but no-one was ever clear about what the gap was from where I was to the next step up. So I quit, helped build a fantastic team, and saw a great uptick in my salary.

12. Is there a particularly effective strategy for achieving success in this field?

Have broad knowledge. T-shaped, if you like that term. Know enough to understand and explain technical problems to your peers, even if you leave design, architecture and implementation to others. Know what their constraints are because it will make your job a lot easier. More than anything, hone your bullshit meter, because everyone you meet is biased, and chances are a few will be liars and charlatans.

13. Which people do I need to stick around to maximize chances of success in this field?

Anyone outside your group. Find a technical architect or a marketing person you can learn from. Find people who will broaden your horizons.

14. Where should I be networking?

In the TCP stack.

For connecting with people all bets are off in this pandemic, but connect with people the same way you would outside work – find common interests, maybe technical, maybe a hobby. Find people that you have the knowledge or connections to help.

15. Have you ever made a single change that led to tremendous success?

I stopped trying to keep up with every new framework and language. I’m happy to be a leader in different ways.

16. How can I be more strategic in pursuing my career goals?

Know what you want. Do you want t to be a domain expert? Do you want to be an architect? Do you want to lead and mentor? What will make you excited to get up for work.

Pursue that.

17. What traits do I need to exhibit to stay ahead of the curve in this industry?

Understand how to solve problems and the limits of computers. Read Turing.

Understand people. They’re the ones you need to communicate with. Your job is to be an interpreter.

18. At how fast a clip can one reasonably expect to climb the ladder in this field?

It’s faster in a start-up, with a lot more breadth. It’s more structured and supported, but slower, in a bigger company. Which suits you better?

19. What should success look like at this stage in my career?

Are you interested in your work? Are you learning something new?

20. What should I be focused on right now to smoothly transition into the next leg of my career?

Understand the business. Debug how the processes really work and who has the keys to your next job.

View on Trello

Zettel Lint

—
title: vision
created: 2020-10-11 21:48
—

There are many editors and extensions for working with connected markdown files. As I am working on multiple devices, it’s hard to find a single editor that works on all of them, and different editors are optimised for different things. In the spirit of UNIX, therefore, I wanted to write a suite of small programs (here coded as sub-commands) that will allow the connection and management of markdown files via automated processes, such as github actions, so that the knowledge base can be updated from anywhere.

This tool was originally created to manage a zettelkasten based markdown powered git repository.

Principles

• All outputs should use standard formats, mostly markdown, but some usages may need something more specific.
• All subcommands should be independent so that users can pick and choose whatever suits them.
• Modifications aligned to particular practices (e.g. GTD, Zettelkasten, bujo) should live in their own subcommands.
• This tool should not impose structure on the knowledge base.
• Repeated application of a subcommand should only modify the knowledge base at most once, unless external factors apply
• External factors include time triggers, update of import files

View on Github

Ask Your Mentor These 40 Questions : failure (Q1-10)

Lifehacker suggests 40 questions to ask your mentor. So that I don’t have to repeat myself, I’m posting the answers here in 4 chunks.

1. What’s a big mistake you’ve made that you’d want others to avoid repeating?

Never take responsibility away from a team. Empower them and trust them. If you lead a team, don’t tell them that the buck stops with you, tell them that the buck stops with all of them. You can defend the team from others, and take responsibility for failures externally, but always make sure everyone is accountable for their own work and you all succeed together or not at all.

2. What’s your strategy for overcoming failure?

Move on. Leave the failure in your notebook, or in your action log. Own the failure, understand why it happened and work to avoid that situation in future. Put safeguards in place, rework the environment, but don’t expect future you not to fall into the same trap as current you. Move the trap where you will notice it.

3. What’s an essential lesson you learned as a result of failure?

An untested backup is a wish, not a promise. Test it to make sure its a promise.

4. When should I give up on a pursuit?

When it no longer provides value. Or there is a better way to provide the intended value.

5. Do you believe in the sunk-cost fallacy?

Absolutely. And I have worked on projects that recognised this, restarted from scratch, and delivered for less than the change in estimate to continue the project.

6. How do you assess what feedback is legitimate?

It’s specific, The person giving it has your trust, or the trust of others you respect, It’s given in kindness even if it’s given with force.

7. How do you integrate feedback into your work and lifestyle?

Always listen. Ask for feedback. But most importantly, act on the feedback, and show yourself acting on feedback, because that always encourages more. If feedback is lost, new feedback is never given, because what’s the point?

8. How big of a risk is too big of a risk?

Depends on the project. A team of 1 can handle a much bigger risk than a team of 100. A team with a strong PM who manages risk well, can handle more risk than one with a weak PM.

9. How do you determine which weaknesses can be overcome?

Ask. Whichever weakness you have, someone out there is thriving with it.

10. Can you tell a story of how you recovered from a massive blunder?

[I deleted a database]

What are you doing now that your future self will thank you for?

There’s a lot of productivity guides and self-help advice out there, but if you really want to make a lasting change, you need a mantra or a question that cuts through all of that and helps you focus. I know some people like Does This Being Me Joy? Is This True To My Inner Self, or What Would Joe Do?

I think whatever it is, it has to be yours. Mine is “What are you doing nw that your future self will thank you for?”, and was forged out of “write your code as if the next person to read it is an axe wielding maniac who knows where you live” with the footnote “everyone can become an axe wielding maniac at 3am in the morning when nothing is working”.

Be kind to yourself. In the moment, of course. But to really find peace and satisfaction, you need to be kind to your future self.

• Write a test suite for your future self so they just need to add one more test for that error condition you didn’t think of, instead of having to write the entire harness.
• Be smart enough to write dumb code. 3am you is not as smart as now you, and has forgotten the context you currently have.
• Do the dishes. Especially the porridge bowls.
• Embrace Mise En Place. Prepare your space, lay things out beforehand. Even the night before. Tomorrow you will be happy not to search for things before morning coffee.
• Get some rest. Tired you doesn’t like Doomscrolling you.
• Switch off from work. Future you didn’t want to be an always-on stress bunny. Future you would much rather know tourist French or the 4 Seasons on guitar.
• Document your decisions. Especially design decisions. You can never have too much context.
• Always be ready for your next holiday. Write things up as you go. Don’t be irreplaceable.
• Share 80% of something ok and get feedback to turn it in to great, instead of trying to release 100% fantastic. Future you likes the conversations the feedback sparks, and that last 20% wasn’t the way you would have done it alone.
• One small step now is far more effective than a possible leap in the future.
• Valuable unfinished tasks pay compound interest. Figure out how to find the valuable ones.
• Check in with your past self once in a while and think about what you would do differently to make today easier. Then do that.

Things I don’t know as of 2021

Things I don’t know

Last time round, I stated the things I didn’t know. Whilst the technical list hasn’t changed much, there’s a new set of skills I want to talk about for this year, as these are the things I want to know.

How to build a diverse team

I’ve worked in plenty of diverse teams, and I’m proud that we managed to build a team from all male to 50% female in the 2 years I was at my last job, but there was a lot of unique features about that job that makes it harder to replicate elsewhere. And some of the groundwork was laid before I joined.

How to be a good mentor

I started mentoring via coding coach last year, and I’ve had to tune my approach to each individual, but I’m still not sure the best questions to ask, and what’s the best structure. If I find out, I’ll share it here.

How to get a sleep routine

Sleep is important. But between the existential crisis of a global pandemic, with the subsequent upheaval of work processes, and the constant desire to get more done, I don’t always timebox what needs to be done, and things fall, including my blog, and my fitness. I have thoughts on how to prioritise and plan better, but I can’t control for external factors.

How to work remotely

Whilst I’ve been used to sort periods of working from home and working with teams spread across multiple offices, this COVID lockdown is different.

I’ve learned how to work asynchronously, but there’s no good replacement for the serendipity of a chat grabbing a coffee or over lunch. Whilst I’m cautious about returning, even when we can, I definitely look forward to seeing people in the flesh again. Even if we’re wearing masks.

Is there a better way to work?

Whilst trying to find how to work “like this, but over video”, I’ve started looking at how properly remote-first companies do it, reading DHH and Reinventing Work, and thinking if there’s a better way of organising work completely. Asynchronous, pull-driven, self-organised. How do open-source and open-contribution (e.g. Wikipedia) work, and are there lessons we can learn there to make companies more effective, more value-driven and more scalable?