AI and I built a website yesterday
Early morning yesterday, I was wide awake at 4:30 a.m. for no clear reason. And I had one of those 4:30 a.m. thoughts: You know, I could move my personal website off of AWS, and save some money. In fa...
Posts in learning
Making decisions as tech lead
When I first started as a tech lead, I often made my decisions based on what the tech lead before me had done. It wasn’t a terrible idea. Mike was knowledgeable and competent, a good person to emulate...
Developer's checklists
Posted just now about writer’s checklists – so let’s post about the developer’s checklists here too! As a developer, I maintained a checklist of troubleshooting tips. I would have conversations like t...
Me from the Past; issue 14 of Beyond Writing Code
Being kind to yourself and using the dinner test for storytelling.
Agile... book writing?? Issue 9 of Beyond Writing Code
Iterative writing, fast feedback, adapting to change.
Answering the question, issue 4 of Beyond Writing Code
Why asking "why" and listening with curiosity matters more than having all the answers.
Where to start
Many of my blog posts start as a response to something I see online. I start typing away in a comment box, and I soon realize either: Or both. Today, definitely both. Someone in the LeadDev community ...
How can I help?
My first full time job after college was as an administrative assistant at a health insurance company. I did a lot of what you might expect: directing incoming phone calls, keeping our office supply c...
Language learning
My Romanian coworkers were impressed when I started learning Romanian. I’d say “bună” (hello), complete with the ă, and they’d be shocked by even this basic effort. What confused me, though: several o...
Choosing a mentor (updated)
I’m happiest in a job when I’m learning from someone who knows more than I do. Last year \[this post is originally from August, 2023\], I started a new role on a team of engineers who all know boatloa...
Don't do this: my career path
Folks who are new to software development sometimes ask me about my career path. The first time I fielded this question, I told my story in a straightforward way. Hearing myself talk, though, I realiz...
Lessons from Uncle Sidney
Uncle Sidney was notorious. I think even he’d agree to that. He might indeed be someone’s uncle, but he isn’t my uncle or the uncle of anyone I know. He was the main instructor for one of the programm...
Three reasons not to bring hostility
I enjoy challenges to my “conventional wisdom” about how developers and dev teams work. We can improve. “The way we’ve always done it” isn’t necessarily the best way. Luckily, I have found people on s...
Cloud Resume Challenge
DevOps Enterprise Summit 2022 closed with a great talk from Forrest Brazeal. As a cloud architect, musician, writer, and cartoonist, he’s got an impressive resume of his own, but he also has a project...
Why Everyone Else Knows More Than You Do, and What To Do About It
The developers you work with know stuff that you don’t, and you know stuff that they don’t. Obvious, right? So why does it seem like everyone else knows more, and you’ll never catch up? Why does it se...
Thinking Errors – Notes
Notes from a post by Sheril Mathews about common thinking errors and how to spot them. First, the ones I suspect I fall into the most: Well, good to know oneself… Here are the others. Not saying I don...