This is a guest post from Cara Borenstein. Enjoy. Dear new developer, A couple of years ago, I started my first job in Silicon Valley. I was a junior software engineer at a fast-moving company and I was so excited to have the opportunity to learn. I worked hard. I looked up terms I wasn’t … Continue reading You know more than you think
Dear new developer, When you are facing a problem, it can be very tempting to try to solve it perfectly. Handle all the possible edge cases, make it extensible, have it be configurable without code changes. As with everything in life, there's an opportunity cost to this perfection. If you're spending days perfecting a single … Continue reading The perfect is the enemy of the good (and the done)
Dear new developer, Sometimes you want to play out things two and three steps deep. Kinda like chess players, who think about many moves ahead, if you can consider the ramifications of your decisions, you'll be well served. I remember talking to someone about a software position at his company and he referred to the … Continue reading Learn to look around corners
Dear new developer, Sometimes you are confronted with decisions for which you simply don't know the correct answer. This has happened to me many times over the years. A recent example is that the client wanted to build an online quiz. They wanted to be able to edit quiz questions and answers. They wanted it … Continue reading What if I have to make a technical decision and I don’t know the right answer?
Dear new developer, When building a system, you're going to be confronted with lots of decisions. Unless you are operating in a total vacuum, you'll have to reach agreement with other people. This will lead to discussions and arguments, as all the people involved will bring their viewpoints and experience. You should definitely participate, and … Continue reading Strong convictions, loosely held
Letters To A New Developer 