Strategic thinking isn’t just the generative idea creation of a “strategy”. It’s also about savvy execution within a strategic context.
In every project a thousand decisions are made by “drooling labor” and the better each of those decisions ladders up to the strategy the more meaningful the impact of the work.
Watching people proclaim no impact on strategy but thinking they deserve tons of credit for their code is a failure mode I’ve seen with engineers. Watching people get frustrated not being promoted when “idiot peers” get credit was often more about their own idiocy.
Don’t dismiss the impact you have in every role, it’ll hurt your career and the actual impact you have.
Oh, absolutely. On both counts: strategic decisions that have been delegated to you are important to get right, and relentless self-promotion is the single most important skill inside and outside of any workplace. It's also important to recognize it for what it is, though, and TFA, well, is what it is.
I feel like we have phrases in software like bikeshedding particularly because these sorts of problems are common in teams. It’s not about being idiots it’s about software being more art than science and these things just being hard and people wanting to treat it more like science than art.
As a software engineer I think you need a good balance of both. Strategy that never sees the light of day isn’t that good. Part of the great joy of the art of being a software engineer is putting your stuff out into the world and showing it.
One way to establish that expertise would be to execute and show the others that your advise/strategy is good. For that I think we have to execute fast. So we can build first, ask permission later. And if you build fast enough, then others won't question you as much.
But tbh I have had only reasonable success this way and you have to be ok with pushback. And gets is harder if others around you make it a point to pushback - instead of seeing if your solution solves the problem and letting you own the solution for a period of time.
Dunno if you are bay area. The blog article is mostly about SF, but his points about work culture might apply to the broader bay area. Maybe issues like safety and cleanliness are better in other parts. Practically, for younger folks, "American dream" has to be realized in the big cities and they all probably have a similar story to SF.
Weren't tech companies historically in the San Jose area ie "Silicon Valley"? SF is relatively new on the "tech" scene.
Also the blog author's moving to Miami, he's gonna coast at the beach.
Not in that area. Other than the safety and cleanliness the rest is pretty universal. Merit, hard work, etc has gotten be no where. I make under $100k and support a family. Coasting is not good in this situation, but I don't have any good options.
Thoughts on getting another gig or contract work? There seems to be plenty of software work that can be done remotely. Maybe you can coast thru 2 jobs.
Nah, I'll just do one. There are about 3-4 hours of meeting most days. If km going to go through that kind of stress or juggling, then I might as well try to find a good job.
- Software engineers - we have a rails and react stack
- Product & Design
- Lifecycle & Copywriter & Content Marketing
We're also hiring OIRs & EIRs. Our OIR & EIR programs is for experienced professionals to take 6 - 12 month roles working with our community and writing blog posts, teaching classes, and running events. OIRs should have significant experience in tech and reached levels in product, engineering, and marketing like Staff SWE or Group PM or Director and EIRs should have experience as Principal, VP or C level in a unicorn or better tech company.
You can apply directly or talk to me (CTO: run product, eng, and design) matt (at) reforge (dot) com.
Reforge | Engineering, Strategy Leads, Product, Content Designers | Full Time | Remote (Prefer US) | https://www.reforge.com/careers
Reforge helps people in tech do the best work in their career. We have an awesome community of experts and learners who started with Growth related programs, moved to Product and Marketing proper, and will be launching Engineering this spring. Company is self funded and doing great and we're hiring again.
Engineering: Full stack react + ruby.
Product: Community focused product managers who love learning and teaching.
Strategy Leads: We have a team who works with experts in their field to turn their insights into actionable content (https://www.reforge.com/careers/strategy-lead). Must be a strong synthesizer and writer.
Content Designers: Work with strategy leads to create the visuals for the frameworks and story to tell.
If interested, reach out to me (no agencies please): matt (at) reforge (dot) com
I'm CTO and Head of Product & Design so will get you to the right place quickly.
Most of them do this. Like in the recent bashing of a bunch of senators for market insider trading a few of them had their money in blind trusts invalidating the criticism. One of them was Feinstein.
Credit Karma | almost all roles and levels (entry level jobs not available til next year) | SF, LA, Charlotte, London, Leeds | Full Time, On-site | https://creditkarma.com/careers
Credit Karma is a unicorn (4B+ valuation) personal finance product that champions financial progress for its members. I’ve been there for almost four years and seen it grow from startup to powerhouse and it’s been the best job I’ve ever had. We are hiring in each of our offices for SWEs and leaders and we’d love to have you. I’m particularly looking for folks who want to join our team in LA for an as yet unannounced business and in the UK in either Leeds or London to help us win our second international market. If you are interested in personal finance, machine learning, scala, react, kotlin, beam, swift, kafka, typescript, or Google cloud and have a growth mindset; boy do I have an amazing job for you.
I’m particularly looking for frontend / full stack web engineers in LA and platform engineers in the UK.
Apply online or email me directly at matt (at) creditkarma (dot) com. I’m one of our VPs of Engineering and lead international and other emerging verticals and I’d be jazzed to help you find a great team. I’ll apologize ahead of time if I don’t respond directly to everyone particularly new grads, the volume on these posts can be immense...
Credit Karma | almost all roles and levels | SF, LA, Charlotte, London, Leeds | Full Time, On-site | https://creditkarma.com/careers
Credit Karma is a unicorn (4B+ valuation) personal finance product that champions financial progress for its members. I’ve been there for almost four years and seen it grow from startup to powerhouse and it’s been the best job I’ve ever had. We are hiring in each of our offices for SWEs and leaders and we’d love to have you. I’m particularly looking for folks who want to join our team in the UK in either Leeds or London to help us win our second international market.
If you are interested in personal finance, machine learning, scala, react, kotlin, beam, swift, kafka, typescript, or Google cloud and have a growth mindset; boy do I have an amazing job for you.
I’m particularly looking for a couple frontend web engineers in LA and platform engineers in the UK.
Apply online or email me directly at matt (at) creditkarma (dot) com. I’m one of our VPs of Engineering and lead international and other emerging verticals and I’d be jazzed to help you find a great team. I’ll apologize ahead of time if I don’t respond directly to everyone particularly new grads, the volume on these posts can be immense...
Credit Karma | almost all roles and levels | SF, LA, Charlotte, London, Leeds | Full Time, On-site | https://creditkarma.com/careers
Credit Karma is a unicorn (4B+ valuation) personal finance product that champions financial progress for its members. I’ve been there for almost four years and seen it grow from startup to powerhouse and it’s been the best job I’ve ever had. We are hiring in each of our offices for SWEs and leaders and we’d love to have you. I’m particularly looking for folks who want to join our team in the UK in either Leeds or London to help us win our second international market.
If you are interested in personal finance, machine learning, scala, react, kotlin, beam, swift, kafka, typescript, or Google cloud and have a growth mindset; boy do I have an amazing job for you.
Apply online or email me directly at matt (at) creditkarma (dot) com. I’m one of our VPs of Engineering and lead international and other emerging verticals and I’d be jazzed to help you find a great team. I’ll apologize ahead of time if I don’t respond directly to everyone particularly new grads, the volume on these posts can be immense :)
