Disclaimer: I'm not a psychotherapist. This whole post is based on my individual observations & experiences - these may apply to you, but also may not. Don't blame me, but if you find these scribblings relevant, toss me a +1. I'm not going to cover the topic of burnout end-to-end here, there's no need as there are already very informative articles to be found on the web, e.g.: https://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/burnout-prevention-and-recovery.htm My problem with these articles is that they focus on clear symptoms of burnout that's already taking place - which is IMHO a…
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This article is all about tech recruitment interviews, but in particular: why tech skills are necessary but not sufficient, what are open questions used for, why you should always have your own questions (that make sense ...), that without high "work-awareness" you're not credible, during the interview we'd like to hear about "you", not "them" ... and why you should always remember about something to back your declarations up with.Recruitment in IT is in a pretty poor shape these days: spam offers coming in herds "out-of-the-blue", incompetent recruiters who don't bother to understand who they really look for, poorly engaged leaders…
TL;DR We spend ridiculous amount of time on verifying job candidates' technical proficiency, analytical thinking, communication skills, but we rarely ask them for what they really aim for. Companies enforce their career models & internal goals / definitions of success w/o examining what really drives a potentially new hire, what are their ambitions, what impresses them and lights up sparks in their eyes. It's a gross oversight as nothing unites & strengthens the team as much as the common goal & shared motivations. I've never have hidden (especially on this blog) that fact that I'm totally fascinated by the…
TL;DR Judging software engineeer's potential is not easy. Skill is in fact of secondary importance, experience may be a subject of diminishing returns, passion can manifest in very different forms. Fortunately there's one, particular personal trait, the one I call an Ability To Execute (ATE) which is absolutely essential to get shit done - ones that have it will succeed like they were appointed by gods, ones that lack it will only keep chasing their own tail while running in circles. One of my key responsibilities whoever I work for at the moment is building engineering teams & helping…
TL;DR - Sometimes I get an impression that there are people who got "promoted" to Senior Developer even before releasing anything to production ... Clearly the length of tenure is not the key determinant here, but neither should be the 100% memorizing of given framework's / library / language's full syntax. There are certain much important qualities that may be harder to assess, but in fact are a pure essence of Developer's "seniority". This is a post about these qualities. If you've read my recent post, you already know I've spend a lot of time researching software development…
TL;DR - These are not just great times to be a Software Engineer - it's even better to be a Software Engineering Manager. Plenty of open development opportunities help in shaping your own, individual professional profile. Physical world borders are far less constraining in that industry. True engineering expertise (& individuals who can apply it within whole organization) gets noticed & appreciated. And in the end, you don't have to work for Amazon or Google to build top-notch products, quite the contrary - in many cases small, companies with the headcount of few dozen are capable of things that…
TL;DR - 2016 in Technology failed to impress me; personally I missed building stuff (that matters), so I've quit (but not rage-quit ;>) my job few days ago. 2017 will be make or break. It's January of 2017 already, everyone's making summaries, so how could I resist the overwhelming temptation of making my own one? :) My 2016 in a (very) few numbers 5 public conf talks (and 1 podcast appearance ;D) 73 blog posts 88 books read (total of 29322 pages) & reviewed (on Goodreads) 616 km ran (in 48 workouts) Comments? Conclusions? Just a few: I'm certainly not…
If you haven't yet, check the part I first. Where were we? We've figured out that your job may wave you good-bye & go to Fareastan. But it doesn't conclude the consideration just yet ... Is the growth inevitable? Are we completely sure that software development is on permanent rise? World is crazy about software, everyone wants to build new "digital" services, but if you give a bit of consideration: how much of this stuff does actually bring real VALUE (other then brief, hedonistic moment of pleasure because of doing something trendy)? Just check the mobile app stores -…