Articles
Software engineering lessons from production, raw and honest from the heart — almost 20 years of them. Jump to a year in the sidebar, or browse categories and curated collections.
79 articles from 2024 · show all
March 2024
Code yourself out of the job
Don't get stuck being a critical member of the team.
The answer to 5 soloists in a trench coat
Team dysfunction where everyone's a soloist? Try this fix: Force the team to work on ONE story at a time.
5 soloists in a trench coat
Ever felt like your software team is just soloists in a trench coat? You may be right!
February 2024
The market always wins
No amount of growth hacking, investor money, or a/b testing will save you, if people don't want what you have.
Why you need a regular retro
Agile is something you are, not something you do.
Your resumé has a job
Is your resume a tech bingo card? Not great.
5 tips for effective standups
Talk about today, not yesterday
Can I get your opinion
Books start with a detailed outline that's easy to change. That's when they're easy to change and where you can help.
Onboarding to a new team
People are starting to cheat in interviews using ChatGPT. It's obvious, doesn't work, and wouldn't even be cheating if you did it right!
What interviewers look for in senior engineers
People are starting to cheat in interviews using ChatGPT. It's obvious, doesn't work, and wouldn't even be cheating if you did it right!
January 2024
What being an expert looks like
The blue sweater scene in 'Devil Wears Prada' is a masterclass in expertise
When to stay at a company
Cap your down-side and think like an investor. Look for key metrics that can shape your career growth.
Ask me a question
Swizec is writing "Scaling Fast", a book about his journey in a 20x hyper-growth startup. Questions?
Be action oriented
Unearth the surprising connection between the CIA's Simple Sabotage Manual and your productivity, and learn how to transform tiny actions into big wins. Dive into Swizec's engaging exploration of how small actions can make a huge impact on your progress.
The Buxton Index – why some are hard to work with
The Buxton Index measures an entity's planning period and explains many of your work dynamics.
TanStack Router – modern React for the rest of us
TanStack Router puts the router in control of data, state, and UI and it's ... really good.
How I Added a Related Articles Feature on Swizec.com Using GPT-4 Embeddings
Making 15 years of blog archives easier to navigate with AI and cosine similarity to build a related articles featur
I'm a different engineer than I was 3 years ago
A reflection on engineering through The Hockeystick