4 min to read
Software Developer's Career Handbook
How to thrive in the cut throat business of software
Notes from Being Geek: The Software Developer’s Career Handbook taken straight out of the book. Sometimes they are partial sentences but they are ideas I thought were worth saving.
- remind you that you’re working toward something bigger. Your job is not just what you’re doing; it should be preparing you for what you want to do.
- All decisions are easier when you’re clear where you’re headed.
- quest to know it all that is destroying trust on their team.
- panicky mob that is the stock market equates a lack of a growth with death.
- “If you’re not growing, you’re dying.”
- while you’re sitting there in your mediocrity, your industry is aggressively attempting to make you irrelevant.
- technical direction is a reminder to care daily about my work.
- Growth is actively watching my career and making sure that today is not a dull repetition of yesterday.
- delivery is my daily investment in my reputation.
- if you don’t have a list of questions lined up for me, all I hear is: YOU DON’T WANT THIS JOB.
- The flawed reasoning here is that you need to say something immediately.
- silence demonstrates composure and thoughtfulness,
- look them straight in the eye and say, “I don’t know.”
- “Do I want this job? Do I like these people? Is it a healthy organization?”
- the more they know you want the gig, the less they need to offer you.
- I’ve never received an initial offer that I’ve loved.
- I’ve always needed to construct a counteroffer, and I’ve done it using facts.
- We must not ship crap.
- does not work as I expected. Therefore, other surprises are guaranteed to happen randomly. QED. I have no control whatsoever. Shit.”
- best way to attack this despair is with a project.
- geeks are system thinkers. We see the world as a very complex but knowable flowchart where there are a finite number of inputs that cause a similarly finite set of outputs.
- the adrenaline, comes from the discovery, hunt, and eventual mastery of the unknown, which, confusingly, means if you want to keep a geek engaged in a game, you can’t let them win,
- “And everyone has their own color?” “Yeah, so we know who has the most points.
- management is the art of choosing what not to do,
- go further to hell in the now, because you’re choosing to invest in the Creative for the future.
- you’re recognized for what you’ve built versus what you’ve fixed.
- criminal waste of his time.
- The most common participation technique is the show of hands opener.
- five years have been spent in the same gig, I wonder, “Why hasn’t he gotten bored?”
- make a critical decision on the spot with incomplete information.
- and at the end of the day, you won’t be sure you did anything.
- asking their question as a means of confirmation rather than as a process of discovery.
- Alpha’s departure will give others the incentive to trust what they already know.
- Success feels good, but you’re not actually doing anything. Building stuff every day exercises all the muscles necessary to remaining vital. Experience fades and becomes irrelevant without a constant flow of the new.
- You are biased by the now. I would go as far to suggest that you are incapable of imagining what your professional life would be like if you were no longer doing it. It’s not that you’re not bright or aware of your surroundings; it’s that there’s too much data.
- Don’t worry if someone else is already working on your idea. I’m certain they are, but they are decidedly not you, and it’s the you that makes your idea unique.
Crisis
- I’m frantically trying to fix the issue by any means possible. I’m also carefully looking to identify the root cause of the Crisis.
- if I’m responsible for resolving this Crisis, there’s a good chance I’m just as responsible for its creation.
- in the absence of it, will manufacture drama in order to create additional Crisis.
- discovered that the umbrella of a Crisis removed traditional organizational roadblocks.
- management by Crisis is a losing strategy.
Tools
- tool—looks, feels, and functions fits how you see, move, and work.
- the tool is serving its purpose—to get the hell out of the way so I can go be exponentially more productive.
- my tools are always fighting for their lives.
- walk into the office of the best developer in the building.
- you are guaranteed to learn at least one thing about moving faster.
- Perhaps it’s a tool you’ve never heard of, or maybe it’s the way he deftly manages a tool you’ve taken for granted.
Morning Scrub
- Today This task must be completed today. Later Not today. Later. Never Yeah, I’m never going to do this task.
- Parking Lot. This is a blank legal-size piece of paper that sits directly to the left of the keyboard.
- landing spot for any idea/task/thing that is worth remembering but, if acted upon at the moment, will derail the productivity train.
- find a tool that fits your personal quirks,
- I end up maintaining the structure rather than getting shit done.
- I fully scrub my to-do list every day,
- I don’t track due dates, either.
Evening Scrub
- scrub the Parking Lot into the Later bucket.
