In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: How do I deal with someone who says their job (management) is so much harder than my job (engineering)? How do I deal with a two-boss situation where I am one of the bosses?
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: How can I encourage my team to be more visible in the office? How do I learn new technologies without going through a noob phase?
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: How do I deal with engineers who are skilled technically but rude and demeaning? What should I talk about in one on ones with my manager or reports? We also cite Questions for our first 1:1 , a blog post by Lara Hogan.
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: When is it appropriate to go over someone’s head? Should I fire the new engineer that we just hired (and who relocated to take the job)?
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: How does venture capital work, and how does it affect me? How do I give great presentations at work?
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: What do you think of unlimited vacation policies? How do I enforce coding best practices? Show notes, because Jamison is feeling ambitious: The Netflix culture slides we mentioned pylint , the linter Dave talked about
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: How can I attract talent? How do I quit without burning bridges?
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Do certifications help me? How can I solve an avoidance problem?
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: How can a developer damage their credibility online? How can I meet potential employers while I’m still in school?
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer this question: Why would a developer leave a full time job to do consulting or contracting? It just so happens that Jamison did this a few months ago, and he shares his experience in making the transition.
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Should I go in to management? How do you know if a job is worth applying to?
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: How should you reach consensus on a team? Should you always have consensus? What is the etiquette around editing code in a shared repository?
Literally the only episode that the advice “quit your job and get a better one” doesn’t apply. Dave and Jamison answer the question: What should I do when starting a new job?
In episode 28, Jamison and Dave answer these questions: How long should I stay before I quit my job? Two to three years seems fairly normal. Dave sees people with less than 12 months regularly. Staying at a job means you experience things you wouldn’t if you hopped around a lot. It is much easier to see the hype cycle play out if you stick around. You get to see the outcome of your own decisions. Quitting usually == raise. Chronic job hopping might result in a reputation of not sticking with thi...
In episode 27, Jamison and Dave answer these questions: How do I write a great resume? Do you really need a resume these days? How important is formatting and good design? What content should be on your resume? Should I push back on non-engineering tasks like PowerPoint presentations? From listener samspot: I am a Sr. Developer and I am often asked to spend time on PowerPoint presentations for funding and other business stuff. I want to ask why the managers, analysts, etc can’t handle these task...
In episode 26, Jamison and Dave answer these question: How do you make sure people know about your good work? See Matt Zabriskie’s great post for background on this. We also mentioned Do Things, Write About It . How do you get your point across effectively so you don’t have to say “I told you so” later?...
In episode 25, Jamison and Dave answer these question: How do I understand the business side better? Analysis of tabs vs spaces How does your business make money? Just ask your CEO/manager Kill the myth of the pointy-haired boss Smaller companies expose you to this more Just ask questions: What was our revenue last month? How much did we spend last month? Who are our biggest customers? How does the sales process work? The Dave Smith Method® for learning business jargon. Be kind and have empathy ...
In episode 24, Jamison and Dave answer this question: As a software developer, should I be a generalist or a specialist? This was inspired by a Twitter conversation here: https://twitter.com/iam_preethi/status/766758679743954944
In episode 23, Jamison and Dave answer these questions: You are asked to be a CTO of a start-up. What questions would you ask in order to decide whether to join, and what things would you give most attention to, if you do join? I REALLY want and deserve a raise so I hope you two discuss how a nerdy introvert gets the CFO of a small privately owned business to want to give her more money when she’s already happily donating an additional 10-20 hours a week.
In episode 21, Jamison and Dave answer these questions: What’s up with all this health insurance jargon? How do I get started contributing to open source?
In episode 21, Jamison and Dave answer these questions: What kind of work should interns be given? How do you handle developers who are dead weight?
In episode 20, Jamison and Dave share some stories from people who have been fired. We also answer this question: How do I make code reviews more effective? It feels like reviewers fit into 2 categories: either they are too quick and superficial, or they get bogged down in nit picks.
In episode 19, Jamison and Dave answer these questions: Would you ever fire someone over a coding mistake? For example, should you empathize with ignorance and explain how SQL injection works or is the mistake so basic as to be intolerable. Would you change your answer if the mistake was found during a code review or found as the source of a data breach? How do you positively represent the desire to be demoted? I am called a ‘senior engineer’, but I got that way because of null instead of actual...
In episode 18, Jamison and Dave answer these questions: I’m a computer science major who still has a couple years of school left. I also have a part time job doing web development. I love what I’m learning and doing at work to the point that I question if it’s worth investing two more years into school. How would you counsel someone in my position? From listener Antonio: How do I prepare for an interview?
In episode 17, Jamison and Dave answer these questions: From listener Greg Harrison: I want to build a side-project, but my lack of coming up with a good idea saps my motivation. Do you guys have any tips? Have you ever been fired? What happened? How do you bounce back?
In episode 16, Jamison and Dave answer these questions: From listener David Renne: What’s the best way to talk to random LinkedIn recruiters, recruiter calls and emails? I prefer the reverse lookup apps to determine if an unrecognized phone number looks like a recruiter it goes straight to voice mail during business hours. As a mid-level dev, i sometimes get frustrated when i try learning new things. how can i be more comfortable as a beginner? Sometimes i get frustrated with myself when i don’t...
In episode 15, Jamison and Dave join Brad Green, engineering director at Google and Angular team manager, to answer these questions: How do I deal with non-technical people at work? I often get questions that put me into a position where I have to explain really basic concepts to non-technical people like sales and marketing. They seem to rely on me like a crutch, and it gets tiring to have to explain things over and over. How do I strike the right balance of being helpful, but not so helpful th...
In episode 14, Jamison and Dave answer these questions: Since I am primarily a web developer, I often find there is a bit of developer prejudice, against web developers from software engineers of other categories. Often I find they think I am not capable of anything other than jquery dom manipulations, and talk down at me like I wouldn’t understand their expertly setup mysql queries. As it turns out, I too have my CS degree, and start new projects in all kinds of programming languages just to le...
In episode 13, Jamison and Dave answer these questions: What should you do about a boss, or in my case ‘solution architect’, who won’t push back to the client and just keeps sacrificing quality of the product to push more features out? What’s the difference between contract and permanent positions?
In episode 12, Jamison, Dave, and special guest Ann Harter answer these questions: How do I make friends at work? Should I? I hear a lot about being a good manager but not much about being managed. How do I do that?
