Don't Break Prod

One of the most important rules of programming is Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's law.

One of my favorite quotes about growth comes from the cartoon Adventure Time: "Dude, sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something" - Jake the Dog A huge part of being a software engineer is trying and learning new things.

This project is going to be perfect.

It can be easy to think that your job is to write code, but it isn't.

Well, you failed.

It can be easy to be impressed by a particularly clever piece of code and assume that the effort required to understand it is a sign of skill in the person that built it.

We've all gotten really excited about a new project; building something interesting, learning something new.

You've just been presented with a great opportunity.

As engineers it can be tempting to think that our work should speak for itself.

You've just closed the last issue of a major project.

When thinking about how a project can be completed you can look at 3 different dimensions: scope (how many things need to be done) timeline (when you can complete everything by) effort (how much work you and others can put in) If a new feature is added to…

Your job as a software engineer is not just picking up Jira tickets and completing them.

Positive feedback is pretty easy to hear.

Especially when changing expectations.

A lot of recent posts have been about goals but it's important to call out that happiness is the fundamental goal you should be seeking.

You've spent some time figuring out what you want and why, made a plan for how to reach these goals, and hopefully executed on that plan.

Continuing on with making the most of mentorship, you've now figured out what your goals are so now it's time to achieve them, right?

The first step for making the most of mentorship really applies to pursing any serious career satisfaction.

Having a mentor is great.

It's not always what you know, but who you know.

It's not enough to do good work, other people have to know how good you are.

When you get the opportunity to choose the language or database for a new project it can be tempting to go with something new and exciting.

Your direct manager has some of the biggest impact on your day to day happiness, often more so than the project you're working on or the company you work for.

The earlier you can catch problems, the better.

Do you know if your company is in wartime or peacetime?

"Debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place.

There's a difference between being good and being useful.

Your team is just coming off a major incident.

Being good at learning is important.

There's an old quote by Larry Tesler that goes, "AI is whatever hasn't been done yet."

Sometimes an interesting opportunity presents itself, but your first instinct is to say "no".

Let's say your team is having trouble with noisy alerts.

I first heard the term "gumption trap" in the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (which is only superficially about motorcycle maintenance).

The concept of "tech debt" is all too familiar to most engineers.

The best way to get useful stuff done is to not do other things.

Or agree with!

When I think about the most impressive and impactful engineers I've worked with the most common trait they share is their ability to learn.

Your job is to be impactful.

You should know a little bit about whats going on in the tech industry.

This is similar, but not quite the same as really being on vacation when you're on vacation.

It's not enough to be just be good.

Production is down!

Often as you are building or fixing something you'll find yourself doing things that are either repetitive or generalizable.

This goes for being home sick, being on parental leave, or any other situation where you are officially "not at work".

Maybe you know someone who wields their code editor like a magic wand.

Given that you are a software engineer it might be easy to think that your job is to write code.

As you work on growing your career you will hopefully have many people helping you reach that next level, maybe a supportive manager or a mentor.

Don't be afraid to speak up when something just seems... off.

As you progress in your career, becoming a stronger engineer and delivering more value you're going to build up trust and goodwill with the people you work with, both leadership and peers.

When working on a feature or bug fix it can be tempting to make all your changes at once (this often means everything going out in a single pull request).