Dear new developer, Hopefully you'll work in a place where you'll have regular one to ones with your manager. I find these helpful for building a relationship and engaging with your manager and your reports (if any). I even did them with my co-founder when I founded a startup. These meetings tend to be 30 … Continue reading How to manage one to ones
Dear new developer, I thought this article nicely laid out three principles to guide a developer's career. They were: follow your taste find community take risks Each of these really resonated for me. The first because the wide world of software can lead to analysis paralysis, so you should really have some way of deciding … Continue reading Three principles for guiding your development career
Dear new developer, I really liked this post on mid-career challenges. I know you're new, but you'll be mid-career before you know it! I’m in a position right now where I have to figure out what comes next for me and how to navigate the challenges of getting there. I made it to senior engineer, … Continue reading On mid-career challenges
Dear new developer, You have to manage your career. If you don't, no one else will. This means three things. Know what you want. Communicate that. Make moves toward it. Let's talk about each of these in turn. "Know what you want" is the hardest part. Because we are lucky to live in a world … Continue reading Manage your career
Dear new developer, This post has a lot of great career tips including how to select companies to apply to, what to do in an interview if you don't know the answer to a question, and how to challenge yourself in a new job. This piece of advice in particular resonated with me: Show how … Continue reading A bunch of career advice from a new developer
Dear new developer, Sometimes when you are thinking about a new job or shifting to a new position in a company, it can feel overwhelming. What if I make the wrong choice? At least, I've often felt that way. Every choice you make has effects. When you choose to study ruby, you can't also study … Continue reading No choice is permanent
Dear new developer, In my experience, four types of companies use software. Software is as prevalent as accounting, so every company uses it in some way. Those that sell software to help build software, software product companies. Examples from my career: Oracle. Those that sell software, often called product companies. Examples from my career: The … Continue reading Types of companies that use software
Dear new developer, I remember one of the first times I spoke in public. I was talking about J2ME (which was a technology for building mobile apps, pre iphone) to the Boulder Java Users Group. I threw up some slides showing the flow of data across the system, and made a joke along the lines … Continue reading Speaking isn’t as scary as you think, eventually
Dear new developer, I've written before about my belief in blogging as a way to sharpen your thoughts and give examples of your expertise. Here's a post along the same lines. From the post: People always try to find someone they can trust. You can go through a series of interviews and hope that they … Continue reading Benefits of blogging
Dear new developer, You will encounter good managers and bad managers in your career. I've found that one common thread for all managers is that they are busy. Busy with meetings, busy with coordination with other teams or parts of the business, busy putting out fires, busy with helping team members. Busy busy busy. They … Continue reading Write a brag document
Letters To A New Developer 