Every so often, I hear a cry. “These teams aren’t working well together! People don’t know what the others are doing!” and I groan (usually to myself), because I know what is coming. Some well-meaning person states the obvious solution: “we need more communication”. Most heads nod, while me and…

I am fond of saying that software engineering is all about tradeoffs. You can’t make one program solve every problem, so much of the work is deciding which problems you are going to solve. But that isn’t entirely true. Software design is all about tradeoffs. …

This question comes from Emily and is one I get once or twice a year: Hi. I just got my CS degree, but can’t find a job. All of these places want programmers with min 2–3 years experience. People online say to apply anyway, but few companies reply. …

Ever feel like managers have nothing better to do than to make your life harder? The sad, unfortunate fact is that most do not. Think about it. How do managers get the job? Some are simply the most mature person in the room when a startup decides to promote someone…

This question comes from Bruno, who somewhat sarcastically gave me this response when I asked for things he’d love to read: How can I triple my salary and work one day a week? Sorry Bruno. You probably won’t like my answer. I’ve tripled my salary and I’ve only worked one…

It’s not my job to make you want to do a good job. Everyone wants to do a good job. It’s my job to make it easy for you to do a good job. — A recent article created a little bit of discussion, which all seemed to be focused on one aspect: inspiration. The discussion broke into three general factions. One faction started the debate. They believed that I was a heretic for even suggesting that leaders needn’t be inspirational. “Isn’t that their entire…

Unlike most meetings, mine actually involve people talking to each other — People keep complimenting me on my meetings, and I don’t like it. It’s not even just my meetings! I get compliments for meetings that people on my team run. “Wow, people actually get stuff done in your meetings.” “I love that people don’t interrupt me.” “That could have been a…

For most of my career, my managers have told me why I could never do their job. I wasn’t charismatic enough. I wasn’t diplomatic enough. I wasn’t results-oriented enough. I wasn’t outgoing enough. I didn’t talk like a manager. I didn’t think like a manager. I didn’t look(!) like a…

I would find it funny if it didn’t keep biting me in the ass. As a group of people grows, it invariably runs into the problem where the amount of stuff going on surpasses any one person’s ability to keep up with it all. That group size limit varies of…