Tag: Bias For Action

Missing The Trees

Missing The Trees

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Are you the kind of person who, when you have a bunch of questions you need answered, dumps them all into either a single email or a series of Slack messages (optimizing for overall throughput)? Or do you dole them out serially, waiting on an answer for each time before moving on to the next one (optimizing for clarity and completeness)?

I’m not here to say either approach is right or wrong, but I tend to be the “spew all the questions at once” type. And I wonder how many times it’s bitten me.

I came across one obvious example over the weekend when writing my previous post. The discussion of recruiters got me nostalgic, and I went back and read the original email thread I had when going through the initial screening process at Amazon. This exchange jumped out:

You’ll notice I was addressing several things in one go: I was responding to a specific question, and asking a bunch more, somewhat unrelated questions. The recruiter did a decent job with a detailed response, but never answered the highlighted question in particular.

Now, that oversight may have been deliberate (or at least subconsciously skipped) because those roles likely weren’t in this recruiter’s purview. But looking back, I would have been considerably better suited for them vs the one I ended up initially taking.

I’m not complaining about how things played out, but I still have to wonder how differently my Amazon experience might have gone if I’d not made the blunder of burying a critical question, namely ensuring I was aligned to the best job for my skills. Yes, I was unemployed at the time and trying to move fast, but that’s no excuse.

Whether this anecdote means serial communication is better I’ll leave as an exercise for you, dear reader.

Mother Of Invention

Mother Of Invention

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More often than not, the tool you need to solve a particular programming problem has already been created and is easily discoverable via PyPI, npm, etc. I rejoice in these times.

Sometimes, however, the tool you need does not exist. Yet I still rejoice in these times, because they present an opportunity to create a new thing and share it with the world.

I’m thus here to announce sql-to-odata, a Python package containing tools to facilitate adding an OData interface in front of a SQL database. It’s limited right now to my specific use case (creating static extracts from SQLite), but if there ends up being broader interest, who knows what it might become.

Little Things

Little Things

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One of my favorite tools is ngrok (pronounced en-grok, presumably referencing Stranger in a Strange Land, a book I read as a freshman in high school when I was far too young to appreciate it). If you need to get a locally-running service on the Internet, ngrok can do it in seconds with a single command. I use it all the time when experimenting with and debugging APIs, such as this weekend’s foray into LangChain.

Supposedly it can do a bang-up job of fronting production services also, but I’ve never tried it for that use case. Perhaps someday? In any case, I’m truly grateful it exists.

Godwin’s Law Redux

Godwin’s Law Redux

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As a tech discussion grows longer, the probability of a mention of Generative AI approaches one. It definitely happened at today’s 4S Tech meetup; we didn’t even make it all the way through the introductions.

Additional common topics: biometrics, productivity hacking, ways to get funding, something someone heard on a podcast.

Like Tears In Rain

Like Tears In Rain

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It was six months ago now, but I clearly remember the feeling of sitting with my AWS laptop on a Friday morning, knowing it was the last time I’d use it. There’s a surprisingly emotional bond that develops between a technologist and their equipment; I was genuinely sad about turning it in. But handing over the hardware wasn’t the worst part, it was knowing that every digital file I’d created on that laptop would be erased, thus anything I hadn’t transferred to someone else or otherwise handed off for preservation would be gone forever: every half-completed business idea one-pager, all my customer presentations, any little code utilities I’d built. Everything. Four years worth of accumulated artifacts is no small thing, and I didn’t want to see it disappear.

I was in this same situation back in 2014 when I left my first job, and at the time, for confidentiality and security reasons, I’d done nothing I could publish publicly or otherwise take with me. That was unfortunate, and I didn’t want to repeat that disorienting experience. Thankfully during my AWS tenure I’d taken steps to release whatever I could via open source mechanisms. And what I couldn’t directly publish, I’ve tried to capture after the fact on this blog, including this post on how to approach certifications (reconstructed from a talk I gave at an internal conference), my advice on brag documents (also from a talk), and a process for doing project estimation (rewritten by memory from a team wiki page).

Don’t make the mistake I did and wait until the 15 year point of my career to take these sort of steps. And don’t wait until you’re at the end of your time at a company either; like documenting your accomplishments, archival work is best done in real-time. Embracing open source development can help, even more so if your employer is onboard. Push them if you need to (you can find some talking points in this excellent article).

A final argument: continuous improvement is predicated on retention. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” applies not just to history, and the DRY principle applies across both spatial and temporal dimensions. Or even more simply: save your work!

Gone In 60 Seconds

Gone In 60 Seconds

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If I had one minute to evaluate a job interviewee, I’d put a piece of writing in front of them (either code for a developer or prose for a less technical person) and watch them type it into an editor in real-time. If they are able to do so quickly and with few errors (for some values of quick and few), they pass.

This is completely unfair, and heavily biased towards certain privileges; many otherwise excellent candidates would be missed. But as a first-order approximation, I’d be willing to wager it works more often than not.

True Grit

True Grit

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Speaking of persisting, there’s two books I’d recommend on the topic:

While targeted to traditional artists like writers and musicians, both have much to say about broader creative activity, within which technological work definitely falls.

P.S. If you’re short on time, you can find a selection of extracts from the latter book in this article: How to Fall in Love with Hard Work.

P.P.S. I almost didn’t write this post because both these books have considerably mixed reviews on Goodreads. But I decided to take their advice, post anyways, and let the reader decide. How meta!

Persist Until Something Happens

Persist Until Something Happens

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Yesterday we held the inaugural 4S Tech meetup. In my book it was a success, with 8 attendees (including myself), and a nice mix of founders, CTOs from both small and large companies, engineers, and even a person from a venture capital firm. The conversation ranged across a number of topics: how to start a company, dealing with founder fallout, mid-sized opportunities that often go unnoticed, dealing with tech FOMO, and of course, generative AI. I know I had a good time and learned a few things, and given that everyone stayed the entire 2 hour allotted time and beyond, I’m guessing the others did too.

I’m already looking forward to doing it again next week. Can we keep the momentum going? I certainly hope so; if you’re in the area, consider joining us: Thursdays 2-4pm at Mostra Coffee in 4S Ranch.

Avengers Assemble

Avengers Assemble

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Back in June, I reflected on the importance of professional friendships, and teased that I’d have more to say “soon” about it. Well, the day has come (and yes, I realize to some, a six week delay might not feel like soon, but in programmer terms, I think I delivered pretty quickly).

I’m excited to announce the launch of 4S Tech. It’s mission is to cultivate a community of technical leaders who live in 4S Ranch though encouraging them to get to know one another, discover each other’s work, and share ideas for collaboration.

Our meetings will begin on August 24 and every Thursday after that from 2-4pm. If you’re anywhere near the area, I’d love to have you stop by for casual conversation, networking, and co-working at the terrace outside Mostra Coffee. They also sell beer if that’s your thing, and there’s a number of other food and drink options nearby if you want to hang longer.

If you’ve got any questions or ideas, please let me know. Here’s to establishing connections!

In Remembrance

In Remembrance

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When I was laid off back in early 2019, my emotions ran the gamut from sadness to fear to anger. That isn’t terribly surprising. But one feeling caught me off guard, and it took me a couple weeks of unemployment to name it: loneliness.

It’s not as if I was truly alone; I still had my family, who are awesome, and friends I saw regularly. But so much time is spent with coworkers, time that requires no planning or effort in the way that maintaining other friendships requires, that inevitably colleagues become a significant slice of a person’s social circle, and when that’s suddenly taken away it can be a shock.

While not as acute, there’s a similar feeling when a job is left voluntarily. As soon as word got out about my departure from my previous job, even though I was sticking around for a couple weeks to ease transitions, my interactions with coworkers changed, an unspoken realization that further investment in these relationships had limited value. “Let’s stay in touch” is a common refrain, but to do so takes effort that usually doesn’t get made. Not matter how strong the connections may seem (and given the nature of things like mutual goal pursuit and shared trauma, they can feel quite strong), once the bond of shared employment and daily interaction is broken, that’s usually the end of it.

Nevertheless, I truly value the “work friendships” I’ve had during my career, even if they only last for a season. I was enjoying an afternoon coffee a while back reflecting on this topic, and a wave of nostalgia hit me hard enough that I decided to do something about it, sending out a bunch of LinkedIn “hey how’s it going?” notes and planning a happy hour get-together for former employees of the startup I worked at from 2014 to 2019. The latter happened this past week and it was delightful catching up with folks, most of whom I hadn’t seen in years.

Besides the upheaval that comes with job changes (voluntary or otherwise), the nature of work friendships are changing thanks to remote employment. I’m a big fan of ditching the commute and having a flexible schedule, but it does comes at the cost of the communal benefits of an in-person office. For many folks social circles are shrinking (see Bowling Alone for a deep dive on this phenomenon in America); not going to an office isn’t helping.

The above has me thinking about alternatives ways to help people fill this gap, tech people in particular, and tech leaders especially, since their potential for loneliness is compounded by being in positions where they can’t be completely transparent with the majority of their colleagues. More to come on this soon.