No longer using Twitter. Uninstalled. reach me on LinkedIn
Dallas, TX
Joined January 2009
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Betterment had their third email and push notifications compromised earlier tonight.
Russell S. Pierce retweeted
What can be interesting is a list of what not to do during a skip level. Some quick examples:
- Changing priorities or assignments
- Making decisions without validation with their managers
- Blaming their managers or showing a lack of support
- Not informing their managers
Russell S. Pierce retweeted
in the haystack, there are always the ex-cypherpunks still-a-kid-at-heart types who just want to build something awesome with good people. Find them!
Russell S. Pierce retweeted
We build knowledge over time, but most of our system decisions are made at the start.
That’s why we need to build systems that can evolve over time.
well said @boyney123 👏
It's a simplification, but I find an econ lens reasonably useful for thinking about work satisfaction. In working life, one "generates value" for others. I think one element of career satisfaction is about the ~"marginal value" you get to create for yourself along the way.
I expect that burnout is when the marginal value of a typical breadbasket of your core work experiences/activities would be negative even with very low amounts of time invested in work.
Russell S. Pierce retweeted
"Bus factor" is a rude term, but truly, anything understood by only one person is a huge liability.
The variable cost of understanding is why developing green field is so fast and easy, and your team having to own and maintain code none of you know is like swimming uphill.
Russell S. Pierce retweeted
We’re not needing to outsmart nearly as many adversaries as we are trying to outrun complexity.
Russell S. Pierce retweeted
There is often a tension between flexibility and information hiding. Stepanov calls this the "abstraction penalty" and it's why library design is so hard.
Russell S. Pierce retweeted
That's how you know you've encountered a mature engineer:
They see stuff they don't understand, they acknowledge they don't understand it, and then they (re)learn it.
That's it. The folks claiming this is "embarassing"? "You just have to know this"? Not ready yet.
If you’ve ever asked “do I need to know math to be a programmer?” I present you: me, 15 years of experience, 4 years as an SRE at Google, relearning what the fuck a polynomial is.
ALT A photograph of the book “A Programmer’s Introduction to Mathematics” open on a chair in front of me, an iPad strewn across one of the pages with the expansion of a formula handwritten onto it.
I'm sure some folks would drag me for it, but if not in an insanely performance critical application, I'll use an enum _all_ the time rather than a bool. Too many times the belief in just two values (T/F) is a failure of imagination.
Russell S. Pierce retweeted
I feel like I have the this conversation at every company I am in. There are WILDLY differing opinions of what an EM should be doing, most of which are not going to benefit the team. People quit leaders and not every great IC can lead.
Lately it does seem like the requirements for engineering managers have swung from "you just do people stuff" wayyyy over to "you should not only be technical, but also write code and review PRs every day" --which is nuts.
A good counter: medium.com/@carled9/the-engi… by @spaceblenny
{"userSophisticationLevel":"5. Advanced"} Maybe it wants to see extra obscene usage of their tools or integrations? Reuse blocks? Databases? Use external tools against their API? Some other nonsense. Now who is going to check what system behavior this value gates?
PMs and exec leaders - if your engineering manager doesn't help you clearly see tradeoffs at this slide... they may need your help.
Brooks' law has yet to be beaten. Hire ahead of your aspirations, but not ahead of your runway. Be mindful of your ROI window & opportunity costs.
Russell S. Pierce retweeted
Junior marketer: "This is a problem. We should solve it."
Senior marketer: "This is a problem. Can we get away with not solving it?"
---
I used to think if there was a problem, we should obviously solve it.
Then I realized: Every business has problems--and the problems never end. When you find a solution, it creates new problems. When you reach your goals, it unlocks a new set of goals and problems.
This basically goes on forever (which is both depressing and empowering at the same time).
Just because something is a problem or opportunity, doesn't mean it's worth chasing. Your team has limited resources, so the ROI has to be high enough.
Ask yourself:
• What's the frequency and magnitude of the problem?
• How does it stack rank among other problems?
• Is the juice worth the squeeze?