Peopleware
Face It: You're a Crazy Person 9 minutes read.
Unpacking the role or career you're considering is an interesting way to eliminate options. I wonder if it's truly possible to know the answer before you try it out enough to understand how it makes you feel: "What should I do with my life?" is really a post-1850 problem, which means, in the big scheme of things, we haven’t had any time to work on it. The beginning of that work is, I believe, unpacking. As you slice open the boxes and dump out the components of your possible futures, I hope you find the job that’s crazy in the same way that you are crazy."
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On Walking Away From Success, Wandering With Purpose, and the Things Worth Not Scaling 7 minutes read.
"When you’ve proven you can win the game, the real question becomes: Is this the game you want to keep playing? [...] In tech, "doesn’t scale" is a death sentence. In life, it’s the highest praise. Unscalable things resist corruption by external rewards. They remain yours. Pure. Authentic. [...] After decades learning to scale everything, I’m learning to think smaller. To do things that only work one-on-one. To find satisfaction in repetition, in daily practice, in the ritual itself rather than results." -- Yew Jin Lim shares an honest and intimate journey, sharing his fears and joy in different kinds of discoveries. In a life of privilege working in a high-paid industry, we often seek a global maximum, as if there is one. We feel safe enough to explore. There is no recipe for living a worthy life, so don't read it to copy it, but rather to gain a perspective on one option.
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Review: Working Backwards by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr 8 minutes read.
"To minimize the Bar Raiser’s bias, the Bar Raiser can never be the hiring manager, and is typically someone completely outside the immediate team doing the hiring. Moreover, the Bar Raiser is never punished because a role went unfilled for a longer period of time." -- The last part is the key one. The Bar Raiser cares only about quality without any other (wrong) incentive. This book review from Yevgeniy Brikman is packed with many gems you can take as is, or hopefully invest more time to read the book and the stories behind it. It's a good book, so I recommend it to every engineering manager who seeks to level up their organization.
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