Posts, Essays, and Articles on Candost's Blog

Most newsletters have turned into daily newspapers, publishing 3-4 pieces a week.

From the day that I stepped into a manager role till today, I've been relying on other people to do my job.

We have been talking with other engineering leaders around me about the impact of AI in our profession.

I have a long-standing argument that passes the test of time.

I’ve been part of boy-scouts for only three days in my life.

In the dopamine economy fed by infinite content, our relationship with content turned to mindless consumption.

It's contradictory to sit alone in a café.

In the last five to six years, I've been looking for a grand goal in life.

Although this text seems related to software development projects, most lessons are also applicable to projects like planning a wedding, renovating a kitchen, and writing a book.

I started referring to one management concept.

I used to be puzzled by complex problems that cause incidents.

When I wrote about how much I abstract myself from daily news (1, 2, 3), many people asked me how I can stop worrying about a gazillion things happening in the world.

For a long time, I’ve been searching for a planning methodology that fits my life.

I spent two weeks obsessing over a problem that, in hindsight, didn’t even exist.

Something is different about owning a website—a palace on the web.

One lie I used to tell myself was that I was learning a lot from social media or content online.

What started with an experiment of living without looking at social media turned into quitting it completely, changing my reading habits, and stopping consuming news daily.

Leaders deliberately plan to develop products or deliver projects.

One of my previous managers told me, “The manager’s work happens in meetings,” while I was complaining about the lack of uninterrupted time.

The more I think about why organizational changes happen, the more I see that it’s merely an adjustment to the environment.

During one-on-ones or team meetings, people sometimes complain endlessly.

Many job descriptions, company websites, and leaders mention “having a high bar in performance.”

In recent years, I feel like we’ve been constantly forced to choose—agree or disagree, take a side, make a decision.

I had been struggling to find the right approach to delegation at work.

How many times has someone asked you, “What do you mean?”

When I peaked into the engineering management role, one of my biggest challenges was learning how to lead projects involving multiple teams.

While I was writing about goals for the first time, I challenged myself to reconsider the concept of goal setting.

Think about a company where you can find all the information you are looking for.

Once in a while, I see someone struggling to get a promotion at work.

Setting expectations for software engineers is tricky for all managers.

I'm not here to tell you that you should be working for a monthly salary for the rest of your life.

I’ve been advocating for giving space to the people and creating an ownership culture in the team for a while.

Jiddu Krishnamurti, whom I admire for his ideas, talks about what binds a person.

We had a conversation with one of my designer friends, Maria, a while ago.

A lot of events happen around us every day—at work, at home, in the city, the country, or the world.

In the book Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport talks about how we can live a focused life in a noisy world, and he says, “Humans are not wired to be constantly wired.”

As of November 2023, I have a new ritual.

Every morning, I wake up around 5-5:30, even on weekends and holidays.

When I read Rachel's post about analytics, I realized that I wasn't alone in this journey.

When I wrote about Request for Comments (RFC) documents a few years back, I hadn't tried Architecture Decision Records (ADRs) yet.

This post is about something I learned that helped me set my expectations in various situations right and position myself better in ambiguous situations.

When I was in the tenth grade in high school, a man appeared next to our math teacher at the beginning of a class.

Creating knowledge silos and building software in a team without involving others is unavoidable in growing organizations.

Many organizations have knowledge-sharing sessions where people present what they have learned or found interesting.

Finding a purpose in life is a difficult journey.

Every time I see an engineer gets headroom to make some improvements in the system, I get worried.

In 2014, Douglas Stone & Sheila Heen, from the Harvard Negotiation Project and the authors of Difficult Conversations, came together and published a book called Thanks for The Feedback.

When I look back at the topics I covered in Mektup, I wrote about energy and time management, habits, multitasking, mentoring, remote work, process thinking, and many more.

We were having dinner with a friend, and in the middle of it, he said, “Candost, why are you so silent?”

On January 23rd, 2023, I started an experiment and stopped all my social media usage.