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Matt Schellhas
Matt Schellhas

729 Followers

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4 days ago

The Six Minute Guide to Useful Unit Tests.

The biggest problem with unit tests are their name. Engineers will argue for ages about what a “unit of work” really is. Articles about how to do unit testing well all start with defining a unit of work, and it’s a shame — because it doesn’t fucking matter. Unit of…

Unit Testing

6 min read

The Five Minute Guide to Useful Unit Tests.
The Five Minute Guide to Useful Unit Tests.
Unit Testing

6 min read


Oct 12

The King and the Stonemason

One day, long in the past and far from here, a stonemason finds himself summoned before his king. The king leans forward on his throne, “Stonemason, I have a project for you. The wall at our northern border needs to be bigger. Ten times bigger! Enough to impress our allies…

Work

4 min read

The King and the Stonemason
The King and the Stonemason
Work

4 min read


Published in

Better Programming

·Sep 23

The Engineer Bouquet: Making a Team Where People Can Grow

Career ladders are a poor model for personal growth. People don’t take pre-defined steps, and they never go in a straight line. — Let me tell you a secret. I use the same interview for software engineers, regardless of their level. Can you write code? Can you design software? Can you lead people? What are your strengths and weaknesses? The actual mechanics vary from company to company. Some will use take home tests…

Management

4 min read

The Engineer Bouquet: Making a Team Where People Can Grow
The Engineer Bouquet: Making a Team Where People Can Grow
Management

4 min read


Aug 16

The First Team Paradox

Before we get too far along, I need you to understand the concept of a manager’s First Team. It was introduced in Lencioni’s best-selling Five Dysfunctions of a Team and has become very common leadership advice over the past two decades. The concept itself is simple: Managers need to prioritize…

Leadership

5 min read

The First Team Paradox
The First Team Paradox
Leadership

5 min read


Jul 9

Simple and Difficult: Earning Trust in the Workplace

A few weeks ago, a fellow manager asked me a strange question: Have you written anything about earning trust from people? Y’know… the mechanics of it? A little part of that strangeness is because it’s still a weird feeling to have managers ask me for advice after twenty or so…

Trust

13 min read

Simple and Difficult: Earning Trust in the Workplace
Simple and Difficult: Earning Trust in the Workplace
Trust

13 min read


Jun 23

The Anti-Hero Photo

My last article did well! It made it to second on Hacker News! It set a new daily high with slightly over 10k views! It’s not exactly the flood of traffic that my peers enjoy, or the sort of success that the hypesters would have you believe. Even after it…

Blogging

6 min read

The Anti-Hero Photo
The Anti-Hero Photo
Blogging

6 min read


Published in

Better Programming

·Updated Jun 7

Unnatural Keys

Nature doesn’t come with identifiers. — At time of writing, I am working in the music industry. And as part of that work, we want a database of all of the songs in the world so that we can properly identify unknown songs and provide attribution so that folks can get paid appropriately. …

Schema Design

5 min read

Unnatural Keys
Unnatural Keys
Schema Design

5 min read


Apr 28

The Many Layoff Bears

My company recently had layoffs. In the spring of 2023, this is not news. Companies left and right are having layoffs. And while managing through layoffs is always an exhausting ton of work, most of the time it is relatively straight-forward. …

Layoffs

3 min read

The Many Layoff Bears
The Many Layoff Bears
Layoffs

3 min read


Published in

Better Programming

·Updated Mar 18

You can’t lead a team with a Chat Bot.

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. “Science Fiction” has always held a bit of an amusing contradiction for me. Most folks fixate on one of the two words. The Science group loves their hard sci-fi, that imagines…

Management And Leadership

3 min read

You can’t lead a team with a Chat Bot.
You can’t lead a team with a Chat Bot.
Management And Leadership

3 min read


Mar 10

You can’t lead a team with a spreadsheet.

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. — often misattributed to Peter Drucker Managers love their metrics. They are forever trying to quantify their business, their teams, their work. Their goals are noble! They want to unambiguously get everyone from the CEO down to the Janitor to have…

Management And Leadership

4 min read

You can’t lead a team with a spreadsheet.
You can’t lead a team with a spreadsheet.
Management And Leadership

4 min read

Matt Schellhas

Matt Schellhas

729 Followers

Dour, opinionated leader of software engineers.

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