I've been the hiring manager for my dept for 9 months, and now that hiring is ramping back up... a quick thread on how to make your application stand out when you're applying via a public job listing (eg not via referral): 1. Write a cover letter. seriously!

Maybe 10% of all applications have a letter, and less than half of those letters are thoughtful. This is your only opportunity to explain (a) why you're interested in the company/role and (b) that you've actually read the job description

when I did a brief stint as a PM, I learned a TON of useful skills that I still use as an engineer.

fellow engineers: have you ever heard of the "2x2" ("two by two") device for making decisions? if not. pull up a seat!

The 2x2 is a sorting tool that starts out like this: The axes can have different labels, depending on what you're trying to achieve, but "quick/slow" and "high/low impact" are good ones to start with.

The first thing you'll want to do is write down the inputs you want to analyze. Post-its are good, there are online tools too.

a big lesson I’ve repeatedly learned in the last year, about whether to proceed with building something or not, is to always stop and ask myself, “if we build more, could it directionally change what we learn from this experiment?” That helped me a lot when weighing things that are hard to weigh, like last-mile UI polish vs bugs that I felt were more show-stopping but only affected a small number of users. In some cases, polishing is worth it because it’s actually part of the feature’s narrative.

i saw a tweet a while back (will link it if i find it again) that the single most useful skill of any senior++ IC or engineering leader can be stated in simple terms:

In every conversation you're part of, create clarity and reduce chaos.

[thread] i've been thinking about that for months, and trying to put it into practice, and you know what? I think it is actually working. i'm feeling more professionally challenged and learning to measure my impact in things other than lines of code. chaos reduction, in practice:

smol thread about some talks I've seen this year that seriously changed or expanded how I think critically about tech. (possibly will grow later!)

1. "Privilege Defines Performance" by @TatianaTMac:


seriously just WATCH THIS TALK. 2. "Don't Get Distracted" by @calebthompson:

This talk hits you right in the stomach about why technologists need to be critically thinking about our ethical impact.

Next up: "You can't bubblebath the burnout away", with the wonderful @jtu! (I've been wanting to see this talk forever!)

A few years ago, she found herself in a stressful job. She decided to set hard limits on when she would start/stop working, and invest in self-care. #SelfConf "Why did I focus so hard on applying self care?"

Because work takes more from you than it fulfills you. Life throws stressful surprises our way. Self care can recharge our battery a little bit, but work and life tend act up again, and we can't seem to recharge fast enough.

From time to time I still think about a conversation I had years ago with a man who “debated” me on basic differences in how women and men experience workplaces, then insisted he was an “ally” and how dare I question his good intentions. So, a brief thread on allyship... Allyship isn’t a cookie you give to yourself. It’s advocacy: a sustained set of actions that involves taking risks, in service of a longer term goal. @KimCrayton1 tweeted a while back that you have to earn your status as an ally from folks who are marginalized. 💯

Just learned a real-world example of the cost of “meh, we can refactor this later”:

Japan is the only modernized country in the world to run on two independent electricity grids, by historical accident. When the 2011 tsunami happened, half the country was knocked off-grid... And the other half was unable to help out, because the two grids run on different frequencies.

How did this happen?!

In the 1800s, Tokyo entrepreneurs bought a 50 Hz generator from a German company that would later become AEG. Osaka bought one from the US that ran on 60Hz.