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The Human Dimension of Software Engineering

The Human Dimension of Software Engineering

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Interviewing Engineers, Patterns and Common Behaviors

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Reading Time: 7 minutes

Interviewing engineers is a normal part of the life of a developer. Most software engineers sooner or later are asked to do it, but there is rarely any formal training that teaches them how to be effective interviewers.

Interviewing is an art; not everyone is good at it. With experience, you get better, and you start observing recurring patterns. In this post, I am going to describe some typical behavioral patterns you’ll encounter when interviewing engineers and some suggestions on how to interpret them. ... 

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5 Best Strategies To Get Your First Programming Job

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Reading Time: 8 minutes

A First Programming Job Requires Experience, But… How?

A question that aspiring young developers ask me all the time is: How do I get the first programming job that I need to build the experience required by most programming jobs?

It appears like a chicken and egg problem. You need work experience to get your first job, but you can’t get that experience without the first job. It might seem like an impossible riddle. In reality, it is far from impossible.  Here are five strategies that will not fail you.

Strategy #1 – Acquire Experience Well Before You Finish School

I worked a lot while I was still in school, and it made my life much easier later. Before finishing my studies, I accumulated a substantial number of professional programming experiences that made me into a senior developer even before I was interested in a full-time job. ... 

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A Day in The Life of a Software Engineer

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Reading Time: 6 minutes

Meet Bolbo.

Bolbo is the name of my mental framework for the quintessential software developer. I draw it with a square jaw, black messy hair, round glasses, a cynical sense of humor and a snarky attitude. He doesn’t exist in the flesh, he never did and never will. He is a fictional character that I use as a thinking model in a few situations. For example, I write code comments as if I was trying to explain to him how the code works. I mentioned this in 9 Software Engineering Career Mistakes To Avoid At All Costs. ... 

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19 Types of Developers Explained

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Reading Time: 6 minutes

The software development landscape changes constantly. New areas of specialization, technologies, and methodologies pop into existence every few months, forged by the relentless innovation of the software industry. With it, terms to describe specialized types of developers become part of the unofficial industry lingo and show up in job ads and corporate titles.

Before the existence of the internet, many of these specializations didn’t exist. The world wide web has shifted most aspects of our lives, including revolutionizing the career paths of software engineers. ... 

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The Fallacy of Extreme Tech Interviews

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Reading Time: 8 minutes

Life of a software engineer.

It must have been more than 15 years ago. I was working as a developer for a company in Seattle. I spent my days writing code, designing technical solutions, leading projects, and interviewing job applicants for engineering positions. I loved my job. The interviewing part was a nice distraction from hours of uninterrupted programming sessions. It was more enjoyable than the average meeting, more social than coding, and I got to meet lots of interesting and like-minded people.

On a gloomy evening of February, my calendar informed me that I had one more thing to do before going home. I had almost forgotten. I had to interview someone for a Senior Software Engineer position. His name was Bob. ... 

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