Grow your engineering career

Your code gets you to senior. To go further you need more than code — interviews, negotiation, picking the right problems, and knowing what the business actually pays you for. These essays cover the career side of software engineering.

Career essays

6 articles from 2021 · show all

November 2021

What to expect in senior level interviews

Interviews are terrible. Stressful, time-intensive, loosely correlated with on the job performance. They're the least terrible way we have to hire.

Getting from junior to senior

The difference in salary between a junior and senior engineer can be orders of magnitude. Many multiples at least. But what's the difference in mindset that gets you there?

July 2021

Pay yourself first

Profit is not what's left after expenses, expenses are what's left after profit.

Tips for a fulfilling tech career

When I dropped out of college to focus on freelancing back in 2012, I set 3 ground rules:

May 2021

Why you need a positioning statement

High value experts use positioning statements to say what they do for whom. Most engineers don't have one. 🤨

What matters in a senior engineer job interview

Degree matters if you have nothing better to show, consulting and BigTech backgrounds are negative, too many seniors can't code.