In this article, I’ll briefly summarize the traditional arguments around certification, and then talk about why I think that’s the wrong conversation to be having about these things.
Career
An Open Letter to Our Bootcamp Grads
This is an open letter to Cohort 11 of Tech Elevator’s Columbus Campus. Tech Elevator is a 14 week programming bootcamp teaching .NET or Java, SQL, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Vue.js. This particular cohort was the first class I was privileged to teach software development to.
How to Start Your New Job Strong
Starting a new job can be exciting, intimidating, and frustrating. The first few weeks can set the tone for how you are perceived in the organization as well as your opportunities to succeed in your new role. Here are my thoughts on how to start strong at your new job.
Changing Careers
Career changes are huge, but you don’t have to go into them blind. In this article I’ll discuss some strategies I’ve used recently to evaluate a change in careers, figure out if you might like the change, find ways to safely practice and grow the skills you’d need, and then finally potentially make that leap in changing your career.
Upcoming Talk: Technical Debt Must Die @ Stir Trek
I am pleased to announce that I have been accepted as a speaker at Stir Trek 2020. This will be an expanded and revised version of the talk I gave this year at CodeMash 2020, which is currently live on Pluralsight. If you’ll be in Columbus on May 1st, please come and check it out and say hi afterwards.
The Myth of the T-Shaped Developer
In this article I’ll explore the pros of cons of generalizing, specializing, being a so-called T-shaped developer, as well as introducing the term “comb-shaped” which I believe is a more accurate picture of a developer career.
Personas in Writing
Some software engineering organizations rely on something called “User Personas” to help the organization keep users in perspective. It’s a decent concept, but I think it can be applied to more areas.
Conway’s Law and Cross-Functional Teams
In this article, I’ll explore and explain Conway’s Law and the effects it has on software engineering departments and the systems they manage.
How to Weaponize Impostor Syndrome
Let’s cut straight to it: Impostor Syndrome has its uses. In fact, I would argue that impostor syndrome can be one of the greatest triggers for success that people can see in their careers.
Practicing (And Nailing) My First Conference Talk
Here are the preparation steps I used to successfully deliver my first conference talk in the hopes that you might gain some insight from my journey.
