I have written in the past about communication through the lens of information conveyance. That is a useful model for coaching people (usually engineers) to focus more on the audience’s understanding than on their own highly precise broadcast. I have written in the past about communication failure when collaboration is…

It turns out that absolutely nobody wants to Netflix and chill with Schindler’s List. If you hang around in tech long enough, you hear some great stories. One of my favorites is this recurring problem that Netflix had with their recommendation engine. This engine is meant to replicate the sort…

I never set out to become a good writer. My English courses were always my least favorites. I was good with the grammar and vocabulary side of things. Those had a nice, comforting objectivity. …

Note for Followers: My usual leadership oriented writing will return soon. I have a few drafts in-flight, but today is going to be about number theory and algorithm design. Thank you for your patience and your support. I am a fairly decent Programmer. Which means I am a kind of…

One way leaders drive mediocrity. — Indulge me a moment while I tell you a story you’ve heard before. A worker starts a new job. Let’s call her Lisa. She is new, so her manager gives her a nice easy task to start with. She is a good worker, and completes the task quickly. Her manager…

If you could do it alone, you wouldn’t be on a team. — Recently, BetterHelp released a series of clever commercials that poke fun at the reasons people give to avoid therapy. There is the cattle rancher with the snake bite who wants to tough it out. There’s the guy at the gym who refuses a spotter for fear of anyone finding out…

Hiring is filled with uncertainty. It always will be. And uncertainty is the realm of gamblers. — You wish it weren’t true. In a just world, people would be hired on their merits. Skilled managers would know exactly what qualifications they needed for the team. Candidates would go through a rigorous (but humane!) interview process to assess the needed expertise without bias. Compensation would be transparent and…

A cautionary tale for interviewers and interviewees alike. — One late afternoon, a figure walks through an anonymous doorway. Inside, a tiny bar like you find in every city. It’s dark and dreary, but the figure moves with familiarity. A regular. That out of work engineer. The bartender knows that look. Unemployment taking its toll. The usual? The engineer…

How to deal with a sad reality. — Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you’re as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it? - Brian Kernighan It has always been easier to break things than to make things…