My annual, lengthy, round-up tradition continues into another year. 2023 brought a return to Japan, a return to work, a lot of fatigue and health challenges to navigate, but also a lot of lovely memories. This post is part of a yearly series dating back to 2011(!), of which the p … | Continue reading
My job hunt experience this time around was very different to previous rounds. Being the day-to-day carer for a baby under a year old, I knew that juggling the two commitments would be tricky, but I hadn’t quite expected all of the ways that it turned out to be, especially around … | Continue reading
During my latest job search, I’ve found myself wishing I’d kept more detailed notes on situations encountered in previous roles. It’s led me to put together something I’m calling my ‘Tell me about a time’ document. I’ve been interviewing with a small number of companies lately, t … | Continue reading
It’s time for another annual roundup, but this one’s been a notably very different year. Here’s some of the memorable bits… fashionably late this time around! The big one… having a baby I should probably start here! This has unsurprisingly been the main event that shaped the year … | Continue reading
I was recently invited to be on Skiller Whale's Primarily Context-Based podcast to talk about the topic of how technology can influence business decisions. This is a big and nuanced topic, and as we only managed to cover a small slither of it in the original discussion I thought … | Continue reading
I’m not going to bury the lede… I’m making some life changes and am looking for a new role in 2023, and I’d love your help to find it! I’ve been on maternity leave since earlier this year, which has been the longest time I’ve been out of the tech bubble day-to-day since my career … | Continue reading
After a very long, pandemic-tastic gap, I’m back with an update on my Japanese learning adventures. For those of you following along, I’ve got a part one and part two ready for your reading enjoyment, should you wish to get the full “previously on…” experience. But as a quick sum … | Continue reading
According to the dConstruct archive, the previous iteration of the conference was in 2015. 2015! My digital footprint tells me that I wasn't able to make it as I was speaking at a small web event in some Kentish woods, and so my last attendance was in 2014, a year that I remember … | Continue reading
Earlier this year I had a big life moment: I had a child. As with all big life moments it’s come with a lot of introspection for me, and one of the things that I pondered a lot and felt most strongly about was around how much or little to post online about them; how much of a tra … | Continue reading
A recent tweet by Will Larson around developer productivity surveys caught my eye, as this is an area I find really interesting. Despite my interest, it hadn’t really clicked for me that this was a topic people don’t seem to write about too much. I thought I’d share out some of w … | Continue reading
When it comes to career advice, a common recommendation is you’ll need to work on your leadership to become more senior. In previous times “leadership skills” may have been code for “become a manager”, but nowadays even in hands-on/individual contributor roles leadership skills a … | Continue reading
Another pandemic-tactic yearly round-up! As a reminder, I like to look back at the end of the year, write myself a reflection on how I’d found it, and curate some memories for future me. This is the 2021 edition. But before I start, a little aside is that I realised earlier I’ve … | Continue reading
Earlier today I saw a tweet from Jo Franchetti, asking what advice you'd give your junior developer self. It's a classic question and one that's ripe for a blog post, so here's my take. Hey Sally, You may have got into this web development malarkey because you liked having a way … | Continue reading
One of the hardest things about being in a leadership position is understanding that you’re so visible, and your actions or behaviour — whether intentional or not — can send ripples through a large sphere of influence. In this post I want to give some tips about how to handle tim … | Continue reading
When it comes to looking after ourselves, sometimes we need to make sure we're practicing self care at the appropriate level. I was recently asked a couple of things which flipped a bit of a switch in my mind. 1️⃣ “What do you do for self care?" 2️⃣ “Do you have anyone else for s … | Continue reading
I’ve written some form of annual summary most years since 2011, and every year I read them back. They act as a reminder of the good and bad, and help me see the threads in my life. 2020’s a tough one to write, and has turned out to be a bit of a monster post. Looking back, 2020 h … | Continue reading
I’ve been involved in a couple of progression frameworks. In my last role I led a group where we redeveloped the Engineering framework, and now in my new role I’m building on some already great work done to help get our first Engineering version done, before I kick off our Engine … | Continue reading
Starting a new management relationship can be a turbulent time on both sides, and we want to do our best to minimise disruption as much as possible. In this post I'll talk through some steps to help smooth over the process. Whether through someone joining a company and meeting th … | Continue reading
During my search for a new role, I kept a list of questions to use during the process. In case they're useful to me in the future (or anyone else for that matter!), I wanted to write a post with the key ones. The questions that I ask tend to be split into a few key areas: about t … | Continue reading
“What should I learn? Technology moves so fast! There’s so many options! How will I ever get through everything?” In the coaching calls I’ve been doing recently it’s been interesting to see some themes come up multiple times. One of those topics is people who’re struggling with f … | Continue reading
As you may have seen from a few mentions, I'm soon going to be starting a new role. I’m very happy and excited to say that from October I’ll be working as Head of Engineering at Farewill! 🎉 2020 continues to be a year of shifting plans, and adapting when needed or when op … | Continue reading
Throughout September I’m going to be holding some free coaching sessions aimed at supporting folks from groups that are under-represented in the tech industry. Here’s a bit more about what that looks like and how it’ll work. 📣 Update: I’ve closed the form for now as I’ve … | Continue reading
When you think about “scaling” in the context of engineering, does your mind jump to thinking about systems, or about growing your organisation? Or maybe both! These are topics that have had a lot written about them, but what I’d like to talk about in this post is from the perspe … | Continue reading
In this post I talk about flipping around a common management tactic – the PIP – to help people move through periods where they’re feeling unhappy at work PIPs, or Performance Improvement Plans, are a topic that come up frequently when talking about managing people. Some people s … | Continue reading
I’ve recently had conversations with some engineers who want to know more about what my day-to-day looks like, and what my path has been to get here. I thought I’d write a post in case it’s useful to others. If you want to get a good general understanding of what different roles … | Continue reading
We’re collectively living through a very strange time at the moment. Sometimes it’s hard to answer the question “how are you?” honestly, because you don't actually know. To help break this down, I’ve put together a series of prompts that you may find useful, whether for asking yo … | Continue reading
I’ve been reflecting on the last year and a bit of working back in engineering management, and have a few posts that I’d like to share. These are things that would have helped me to hear when I was starting out for the first time, so I’m writing particularly for people thinking a … | Continue reading
Happy new year! It’s that time again - the Christmas break is drawing to a close, and I’ve got some headspace to look back on what the year has held. This year I’ve decided to split my annual reflections into two posts: one looking back over the last 12 months, and another over t … | Continue reading
It's not often that I hear about an emerging web standard and I find my mind wandering back to it over the next few days, but Web Monetization has done just that. In this post I'll go through what it is, and why I think it's particularly interesting. Last weekend I was speaking a … | Continue reading
Life as a manager means that I go to a lot of meetings. Over time it's very easy for them to get a bit unruly, and for your calendar to start managing you rather than the other way round. Every now and again I've found it's good to take stock, to tip everything out and start agai … | Continue reading