Quick note today to plant the seed of an idea I've always loved: The Tour of Duty.

The blue sweater scene in 'Devil Wears Prada' is a masterclass in expertise

Want an engaged engineering team? Let juniors speak first.

Position yourself as an expert and stand out in the job market

A strong partnership with product is key to an enjoyable engineering life

You cannot make something good until you understand who you're making it for.

because if you go to bat for the team, the team goes to bat for you

What do you do when every bug you fix creates 5 new bugs? You could laugh and move on, or realize it's a sign of bigger issues

Not all overtime is bad overtime

Engineers *hate it* when you say it doesn't matter how good they are because a team will outcode them any day. But it's true, you can't build something big on your own.

Boo meetings, yay code, right? There comes a time in your career when coding is no longer your highest impact contribution. Might even be holding you back. 🙊

Earlier in my career when I thought I was god's gift to engineering but wasn't, I failed one of those stupid interview questions that "have nothing to do with the work". It was a great question.

what makes a senior engineer stand out in an interview? No it's not the amount of side projects or their leetcoding speed. It's knowing how and when to ask for help.

Long time reader Phil asks when do you fix the tech debt you used to ship faster. Heroic efforts don't work. The real answer is "always" – a mindset of gardening.

If your house was on fire, would you mow the lawn first?

When I first picked up Software Engineering at Google I thought it was another one of those FAANG books full of lessons that make no sense at human scale. I was surprised, lessons apply to teams as small as 5.

The best skill you can learn is ownership. The second best is to let go.

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

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

Here's a comment that resonated yesterday and you might like. It's about how to maximize the opportunity in your work.

Wanna learn boxing? Join a gym, find a coach. Tennis player with a kink in your game? Find a coach. Software engineer with a missing skill? Google, random blogs, fun newsletters, dubious podcasts, noise on twitter 🤨

You start a new job and it's amazing. Code all day, clear objectives, easy guidelines, ship a bunch of features be a hero. Then something happens and suddenly you get nothing done. 🤔

Engineers don't do the day to day work, they build assets the business can exploit for years to come. That's the magic

Say your boss gives you $1000 to grow your career. What do you do?

I used to think a senior engineer was someone who gets a project, understands the context, puts their head down, and gets it done. But no. A senior engineer does so much more than just write code and design systems.

All that once was new is old again