The previous post in the series can be found here[/our-continuous-testing-odyssey-part-vi/].Time flies. Over 4 months have passed since the last post about our automationjourney - there are so many other topics to cover that the posts related totesting saga kept getting postponed … | Continue reading
I've enjoyed Ben Horowitz'es books. Both of them. Far more than hisinterviews/lectures on-line, even if I find some of the references he makes(especially hip-hop ones) annoying. But in the end: he's a brilliant guy withincredible experience plus he knows how to "sell" his knowled … | Continue reading
I'm sure you know how deadlines work: 1. collect the requirements/expectations & grok through them (understand them) 2. estimate the effort needed to deliver the outcome, quantify risks, "guesstimate" unknown unknowns, ... 3. ... and "collide" what you've got with current comm … | Continue reading
Disclaimer: I'm not a psychotherapist. This whole post is based on my individualobservations & experiences - these may apply to you, but also may not. Don'tblame me, but if you find these scribblings relevant, toss me a +1.I'm not going to cover the topic of burnout end-to-end he … | Continue reading
> "Conversion, software version 7.0Looking at life through the eyes of a tired hubEating seeds as a pastime activityThe toxicity of our city, our city""Toxicity" - System Of A DownI've already written a similar post some time ago (you can find it here[/rule-0-dont-be-an-asshole/] … | Continue reading
There are so many myths about software architecture ... * that it's done once and there's no further cost associated * that if you do it properly, it will serve forever * that there's "the correct way to do it" & you measure correctness with "software architecture" aestheticsTh … | Continue reading
I have an idea that keeps haunting me now and then. To take a break from mycurrent role (a leader of 60+ engineering unit) & go for a temporal (1 month?)contract assignment as an individual contributor - front-line software engineer.What has inspired such an idea? No, it's not ab … | Continue reading
I'm not really a Scrum aficionado. Actually I'm pretty far from calling myselfthat way ;) But I can still remember the moment years ago when I was readingthrough Scrum Guide & some accompanying materials and I've found out a term thathas really caught my attention:> "the quality … | Continue reading
It's hard to find a company bigger than 30 people that doesn't have its HRDepartment - even if it consists of just 1 person. And the name itself is ofsecondary meaning: some call it Human Resources, some prefer People Operations,Human Capital, etc. Regardless of name I think that … | Continue reading
The first post in the series can be found here[https://no-kill-switch.ghost.io/a-game-changing-value-of-missing-abstractions-part-i/].--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Last week I've presented one aspect of complexity of the transacti … | Continue reading
Few months ago I've published a short article[https://no-kill-switch.ghost.io/the-anatomy-of-a-model-debt/] about what is aModel Debt & why it matters. Today I'd like to provide you with two nice, crispyexamples that illustrate the idea. Both are coming from the Domain I currentl … | Continue reading
Imagine that ...... you're at the doctor's because you don't feel well - there's something wrongwith your health and you need professional help of a medical expert. You sit infront of him, but before you have any chance to describe your problems theinterlocutor opens with lengthy … | Continue reading
There's no point in re-inventing the wheel. We all walk in the footsteps ofindustry pioneers & use the legacy of their lessons learned for our advantage.However ...Think for yourselfI hate mindlessly copying "industry standards" & "best practices". SoftwareEngineering varies so h … | Continue reading
There's plenty of hard topics in building software, but if you asked me what'sthe most challenging one, I'd answer without doubt: scaling (engineering)organizations.Why so? 1. first of all: economies of scale [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_scale] do not work for b … | Continue reading
Last week we've released a new mobile app for our business users (we have aSaaS-enabled Marketplace, so we have apps for those businesses' customers aswell). There were no advertisements, no marketing, no previews. We werepolishing it quietly, alpha & beta testing it, getting som … | Continue reading
Let's talk about "seniority" - but not in the usual way, in a context of careerprogression. I'm more interested in speaking about the "seniority" itself,regardless of specialty/path chosen, compensation, labels & position names. It'sthe kind of discussion that revolves around the … | Continue reading
What can we say about the characteristics of lava flow (no metaphors YET, Irefer to RL lava)? * it's practically impossible to stop/revert lava flow, it can either continue in the current "channel" or get routed in a new one(s) * if there's no clear channel/route, lava will fin … | Continue reading
Yupp, apparently I'm completely nuts. Demand in software engineering job marketwent through the roof (seems about to reach stratosphere) & I ... not only donot snatch everyone with 10 fingers and a basic understanding of "ifs" & "fors".Actually, I ask candidates to ... do homewor … | Continue reading
> This blog post is about: why Operation Kalashnikov was doomed to succeed, whatdoes it mean to have an emotional bond to a mission, why Front-End Engineershave smashed what was so hard for Quality Assurance specialists, what kind ofeffects we've expected and how I've cynically … | Continue reading
TL;DR Many of the most commonly used patterns & "conceptual industry standards"in software development have their roots in Object-Oriented design. However,it's time to realize that OO is not the only viable way this day, so in somecases yesterday's anti-patterns may be a preferr … | Continue reading
> This blog post is all about: what can be (effectively) visualized, whenvisualizing works (brings benefits), what does it mean that visualization is"effective", why visualization makes a difference, why visualization is not justabout sketching something that comes to your mind. … | Continue reading
> This blog post is all about: the common part of "Shallow DDD" & "AestheticClean Code", what really is Business Logic (& why you may be wrong about it...), what part of BL is really within your "algorithmic" (imperative) code andwhere you should really apply your focus to if yo … | Continue reading
> This blog post is about: what's wrong with Scrum-ish retrospectives, what's thebetter alternative, why questioning yourself is nothing about self-doubt orslowing down the decision-making, is it necessary to abandon "retros" and whyawareness leads to clarity (and what does it r … | Continue reading
> This blog post is all about: ruling time out of the equation (because it's verydeceptive), what happens when Purpose meets Social Contract, what does Autonomyreally mean (and why freedom is a minor part of it), whether 50h is better than40h (or you simply need to go beyond 60h … | Continue reading
> This blog post is all about: a special kind of contract that is almost neverwritten down, comparing rat-race with inspired evangelism or a quest forworkplace happiness, what does happen when "social contract" is broken (& whydoes it happen), why respecting "social contract" (a … | Continue reading
> This blog post is all about: what Jack Ma has in common with Elon Musk, whetherwe always condemn people who sacrifice personal balance to pull over-time (infact we ... don't), is "up-or-out" culture unfair, how does Cristiano Ronaldodiffer from a creator of next-generation Int … | Continue reading
> This blog post is all about: the definition of what Model Debt is (& whatisn't), how is it created (& why), how to avoid growing Model Debt, whetherModel Debt does have anything in common with Technical Debt (& can one usetechnology to fix it).Disclaimer #1: I was considering … | Continue reading
> This short article is all about: the end of non-fiction books (?!), how toextract (& preserve) KNOWLEDGE out of raw information, what kind of tools can beused to support this process, why it requires more effort than justunderstanding the written words.Few days ago someone has … | Continue reading
> This post is all about whether recent Accenture/Hertz drama proves anything (oris it just an unlucky incident), why did I join consulting company back in 2000s& what has (IMHO) changed since then, are there any valid reasons to hireEnterprise Tech Consultants & why they will p … | Continue reading
> This post is all about how we've decided to revamp our FINAL approach to E2Eautomated testing in a way that was supposed to maximize the chance of finalsuccess. Warning, post contains: AK-47, what's wrong with "tightening thescrew", why JavaScript is better than Java (;>).Prev … | Continue reading
> This blog post is all about: what are the potential benefits of a goodconvention & what are the conditions to make it so :), what is the mostfundamental requirement for the convention to succeed & why conventions aredouble-edged swords ...Programming languages are very flexibl … | Continue reading
> This blog post is all about: why I gave up on Grammarly, what's the differencebetween ReSharper-aided Visual Studio and Sublime Text or Vim, did VS cripplegenerations of software developers and why I'm skeptical of modern IDEs (hint:they are not solving the problems they shoul … | Continue reading
> This blog post is all about: why engineering leadership is both - engineeringand leadership, why both strategic & tactical perspectives HAVE to be mixed (andwhat happens when they are not).This is one of THESE posts. No solutions, no conclusions, pure rant ...WAIT, wrong attit … | Continue reading
> This blog post is all about: why salaries are so tricky in softwareengineering, an evolution in approaching the topic of promoting/compensatingpeople, why market evaluation can't be relied upon, what are 2 best ways toevaluate how much you're worth, are people always comparabl … | Continue reading
> This blog post covers: the practical definition of what heuristic is, exampleof how imperfect heuristic may solve a problem we're not sure exists, what doesit mean "everyday heuristic" (that is not really ad-hoc) and whether it's fairto call heuristic a "short-cut".It's not (& … | Continue reading
> In this article you'll find out about modern Operations (& why DevOps ain'texactly the thing), what's missing in "you build it, you run it" paradigm, whythere's a need for platform-caretaking team, what does it really mean - "SRE",how did we start building an SRE team & what d … | Continue reading
In this blog post you'll find out ... that design is not (should not be) dead yet, functional architecture is as important as the technical one (and should have an owner), why BABOK sucks big-time, that it's time to pimp your dusted Business Analysts, what I think about User Stor … | Continue reading
This blog post contains the list of MacOS-specific apps I personally find absolutely essential in everyday's productivity.8 months ago I've crossed the barricade & embraced MacBook Pro for both professional & personal purpose (all kinds of skunkworks - mainly codework &am … | Continue reading
No TL;DR today :) You either are interested in the recommendations or not really.Just like 12 months ago, I'd like to share with you a short list of books I consider the best I've read last year. Fortunately, it was a very good year (again) - my selection & | Continue reading
This blog post is all about three particular kinds of issues Airbnb focused on when declaring their way to fix problems in their company culture; why its important to name such issues explicitly; what happens if you ignore them & why it's so important not to do so.Disclaimer: … | Continue reading
This article is all about tech recruitment interviews, but in particular: why tech skills are necessary but not sufficient, what are open questions used for, why you should always have your own questions (that make sense ...), that without high "work-awareness" you're not credibl … | Continue reading
This blog post is all about: Kaizen as an attitude (and not a buzzword!), role of everyday flexibility, reducing inertia by dissecting the problems, habit of continuous introspection and in the end - why you should always look for exponential effects (both positive & negative … | Continue reading
This blog post is all about why you don't keep your best code in a drawer :), what does it mean to discount your work, why sometimes you have to be a bit "selfish" (and that it's not against the teamplay), that you're both brand and product, there's no excuse for | Continue reading
In this blog post I'll describe why remote work != remote work, what's wrong about satellites and isles, why differences in communication bandwidth are worse than overall low bandwidth and what does it have in common with osmosis & water cooler.No, I'm not going to describe p … | Continue reading
There's bunch of questions that will probably never get answered ...who was behind killing JFK?is Elvis alive?why did your local football team suck that much in the yesterday game?... and ... what's the optimal work model for running software teams? ;PObviously the last one is mu … | Continue reading
This blog post is all about: what's mindfulness meditation (for real) & why you've been so wrong about it, how it helped (and keeps helping) me (as an engineer & creative knowledge worker), what does it have in common with working out at gym and what benefits comes out of | Continue reading
This blog post is all about: cognitive bias (one particular one), how quickly we get used to "the new normal", how being insatiable when it comes to knowledge can make us ashamed, why we get annoyed when some junior pops up with "microservices now!" idea, why leader in the trench … | Continue reading
This blog post is all about: why (& how) your workmates are not your families (and not even your friends - first), what's an unwritten "protocol of co-operation", why we're ruining good teams with empathy (& leave disappointed afterwards), how does mutual admiration socie … | Continue reading