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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 18th, 2023

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  • I really liked their electric XC40’s and tried to buy one last year, but … I just can’t figure out car dealerships. They had two on the lot, I had enough in my checking account, I go there on a Saturday morning, and … It was just a mess. The sales guy first said electric cars are dumb and I don’t want one, I actually want their biggest SUV, then he said he could only lease the electric cars (with horrible terms), not sell them. I gave up and went home to see if there is a way to buy a new Volvo online – no. So I bought my second choice (a Tesla Y), with an app, in about 30 minutes.




  • OMG it’s so good to hear that this is changing. Twenty years ago, in college, I responded to flyers around campus about a support group forming. The therapist refused because obviously the support group was only for women. No mention on the flyers. She was surprised I tried to sign up and said I’d make everyone uncomfortable.

    I know we have a ways to go but I’m glad there’s even a thought that maaaaaybe men need and can benefit from support, too?





  • I have both. The way Bose handles bluetooth with multiple devices is so awful that I gave up on them and bought the Sony’s. They would probably be fine if you only intend to ever pair them to one device. However, for me, I just never figured out what they were trying to do. I’d turn them on and they’d wake up a sleeping iPad in another room, or closed laptop, and then refuse to connect to my phone (using the phone’s built in Bluetooth menu) until I opened the Bose App to reconfigure them. The last straw was on video calls for work-- they’d randomly re-connect with a random device.

    The Sony’s just don’t do that. They don’t wake up random sleeping or idle devices, and if they do connect to the wrong device I can use the OS Bluetooth menus to manually connect them to a given device – rather than opening the app in my phone.









  • It’s fine for the usual straightforward and easy problems – problems that common developer tools and paradigms have solved. Like a product that reduces to CRUD with a few boolean expressions, joins, and simple algebra mixed in. But I think it’s inefficient maybe even unworkable for harder problems. And hard can be scale, like moving up two orders of magnitude in throughput or entities, or down in latency. Or hard can be algorithmic stuff.

    I highly agree with what others have said here, that a culture of “fungible engineers” can alienate those who want to go deep. Some folks enjoy being subject matter experts or are drawn to a craftsmanship aesthetic. And, IMHO, a healthy org culture should work for all kinds of people – specialists and generalists. I think you should aim for and encourage people to grow to be T shaped rather than fungible cogs.


  • Hey, don’t be discouraged.

    You are a treasure and rare. There are places for folks like you. I hope you can find one where the culture fits you and knows your value.

    Until then. You can try to change the culture. But if that’s possible depends on more than I know for your context.

    With small teams it’s easier. Demonstrate competence, gain trust of everyone around you, then sell a better tomorrow where … Stuff just works. Faster velocity, more features, fewer bugs, etc.

    This is a very valued message in some places, and totally not in others.

    I have a feeling that infrastructure/platform/core teams – those making tools for other engs – are probably more naturally aligned to quality and lower defect rates. That may be a direction for you if you aren’t sure where to start aiming towards.


  • Is this for interviewing or promotion?

    At my org the formal definition is “[demonstrated] ability to lead projects at x scope.” This is how people leaders frame it.

    But to individual contributors (engineering track) folks, I think we are looking for:

    • Thinks. Applies themselves to the hard work of figuring things out. Reads documentation for libraries and languages to get how to use them. Doesn’t vomit up random groupthink (from the wider org or web) without understanding it.
    • Curious: doesn’t take “this is how we’ve always done it” as a thought stopper – wonders if there’s a better way. Flexible, open to learning.
    • Teamwork skills: communicates own level of certainty, listens to others and tries to understand – not stubborn: honestly tries to figure out the best solution rather than trying to look smart in front of others. Has a feel for how to help everyone be heard and add their thoughts to the group decision.
    • Communicates clearly-- excellent written documentation for spikes/designs/decisions is a clear stand out here. (easy win with high visibility)
    • Can start to participate in meta/scope and product type conversations around “hey this is stupidly hard why don’t we just do this slightly different thing that’s way easier” (extra credit at this level)

    How to show this when interviewing vs getting promoted is different.