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We all specialize and we all forget what we learned in school if we don’t use it for a while. Focus on the fact that you can teach yourself so much, therefore you can presumably teach yourself anything. -
Even the most used lines of code will never be as valuable as a whole community of diverse perspectives building code. Do not idolize smart assholes. Idolize those that empower the voices of others and make our whole community stronger. Work to build psychological safety for all. -
Memorizing everything you’ve encountered is not a badge of honor, it’s wasted space in your head. If you can google it and be on your way to providing value you are a great engineer. -
As a white person, what AM I doing to dismantle white supremacy? An evergreen question requiring daily asking. Trying to get better at it myself. -
Pay everyone well enough to get their own [ping pong table] and let them go home/work at home to enjoy it. -
It’s also a humbling opportunity to make a big impact on a lot of people that have put that much trust in you. I try to earn that trust every day. It’s my North Star. -
I felt weird saying this before but I may as well. I’ve been told by many at Stitch Fix that I will be their canary. For years this has been said directly to me. That’s a heavy burden to carry when your company and engineering org has been growing as fast as ours for six years. -
I have a long history of staying exactly one year after I am no longer happy in an attempt to fix what I can. Usually does not work but I doubt I will ever learn that lesson. My feelings of responsibility and empathy are just too high. But my advice: be ok taking care of yourself -
This Independence Day I think we’re the bratty kid that left home too early and it’s obvious we weren’t ready. But mom is a mess too so we can’t go back there. Is anyone willing to adopt us?? -
Rest assured I won’t be making any trouble for you internally if you do this, because I won’t work for your company. -
This is the approach I take to leading new teams. If you want people to follow you be quiet and listen. Especially when you first get there. The exception is that one small thing everyone knows is broken but they haven’t gotten permission to fix yet. Have them work on that :) -
Sonia is very right here about how to be a good teammate. If you bowl your way in with new ideas you’ll alienate everyone and most likely be wrong. Even if you’re “right” the team will resent listening to you in the future. Be the person to be trusted forever beyond one project. -
This isn’t the worst problem here but a good example of what young white dude engineering teams come up with: a shaky phone with random taps is going to identify mothers (and fathers) holding their squirmy kids just as munch as a drunk. But the former never enters their mind. -
Yes. These are the hard skills. There are manuals on how to write code and the computer will tell you if you got it wrong. But knowing what software to build requires empathy and communication. Now is it obvious why tech treats people like shit if empathy is a “secondary” skill? -
Since you’re here, please consider supporting diversity in tech! -
As the first engineer, I helped my company go from barely making payroll to being a billion dollar public company (and growing.) I don’t have an interesting GitHub profile because I worked on that instead. This is a VERY bad take about where value comes from, Joe. -
An open letter to my coworkers -
How to build great software before you have a UX team