Blog

  • Progress

    ThinkingPeople

    Even though Trump has won the election, I believe we are about to witness an incredible groundswell of support for progressive policies. The next four years may be difficult and, at times, deeply frustrating for those of us who care about social justice, climate action, and equity. But in the cycle of history, this had to happen for the champions of logic, empathy and fairness to wake up and recognize that those things require constant vigilance and upkeep. We will see firsthand the impact of p...

  • Publish with Github

    ToolsGithubTypescriptEngineering

    Something I want to do on most of my versioned projects is handle the versioning and committing as part of the merge/push to the main branch. So I’m putting this here as a reminder to myself and help to anyone else who is doing this with github actions. First, you’ll need the script to do the work. Mine looks like this: The important parts of this are the configuration changes that ensure that git and npm have permission to alter upstream state. The So that my npm run deploy If your branc...

  • Single-Threaded

    ThinkingOrganization

    The ability to juggle multiple tasks simultaneously is often celebrated as a hallmark of productivity. We pride ourselves on our capacity to switch rapidly between emails, phone calls, meetings, and projects, believing that this constant state of flux maximizes our efficiency. I think that approach is lowering the quality of output and adding stress to our lives. Enter the concept of "single-threaded work." This approach, a computer-ese term, suggests that we operate most effectively when we fo...

  • Things To Watch Out For When Interviewing at a Company

    EngineeringOrganizationPeopleCareer

    I was inspired to talk a little bit about this question on HackerNews: I had some thoughts about some of the points that were mentioned in the conversation. Some of them are good things to look out for while others may not be indicative of much. Unorganized or disjointed interview process. Lack of responsiveness or clear communication. Excessive number of interview rounds. Disorganized interview process is definitely a huge concern. This is often an indication that there are some foundation...

  • Guilds

    EngineeringPeopleOrganization

    In a large corporate environment, the decisions that are made at the highest levels can be bewildering, seemingly inconsistent and out of touch with operations on the ground. That’s not to say they’re bad decisions, just that it can be hard to make sense of them when you don’t have access to all the factors that led to them. Trying to make sense of it is an exercise in frustration. If you have made your case for what you believe to be an ideal structure and made no headway, your next course...

  • Organic Engineering

    EngineeringPeopleOrganization

    In the realm of engineering team organization, a one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn't suffice. Team dynamics are complex, influenced by the individuals comprising the team and the evolving nature of their work. I advocate for an approach I like to call Experience in engineering spans a spectrum, from seasoned veterans to fresh faces eager to make their mark. While experience brings valuable insights and a seasoned perspective, it can also breed complacency and a reluctance to embrace new ...

  • Group Decisions

    CommunicationThinkingPeople

    People are complicated. Really complicated. Navigating people in an environment where their motivations (and your own) are subject to a wide variety of ever-changing stimuli and thoughts makes for an exhausting experience. But if you can observe and identify what’s happening, you'll be able to rise above the chaos and find your way to a productive outcome. Meetings are where most conversations about problems that require decisions are discussed. But they are interpersonal communication puzzles ...

  • Cataloging Conflict

    People

    I spend a good bit of time in conflict resolution - either my own, people on my team or between groups. I’ve noticed that one of the most helpful things to do in these situations - aside from empathy, which is absolutely crucial - is understanding the type(s) of conflict being had. A lot of time is spent debating decisions. Each of these decisions has consequences but the nature of those consequences should be clearly understood to better assign value to the conflict. Technical conflict h...

  • Life of a Project

    OrganizationPlanning

    Projects pulsate with life. They're conceived, they grow, they mature, and eventually, they transition into a state of completion. Each stage presents its unique challenges and opportunities, necessitating distinct approaches for optimal outcomes. This essay delves into the various phases of a project, highlighting their differences and outlining strategies for effective management. Ideas are fleeting, yet some are so compelling they demand attention. In these nascent stages, the absence of cons...

  • Predictability

    PlanningOrganization

    The topic of predictability in software engineering is one that comes up often at work. Program Increments - a tool used as part of applying agile in large teams - is arguably a tool intended to help drive some predictability in an organization. But if one purpose of Program Increments is to bring predictability to development cycles then it can only be effective if underlying systems have I will start by saying I am no expert on this subject - in fact, everything in here is based on my own ...

  • Brevity

    Communication

    In the past several months I’ve seen the affect that poor communication has on the efficiency of an organization. It’s not so much that it is the source of problems but it compounds all problems dramatically. Like the relationship between a spark and a powder keg, the more problematic an organization is, the more sensitive it is to bad communication. In these situations, But what As an engineer, if I’m talking about a specific bug that needs to be fixed to a stakeholder (say, a product manag...

  • Using CloudFlare with Notion

    EngineeringCloudflareNotionTypescriptJavascript

    With my website (which uses Notion as its CMS), I ran into a problem caused by a quirk of Notion’s API. When you upload an image to Notion and then fetch that image as part of a page payload, the image URL is an S3 bucket key that expires after an hour. Which is fine for most use cases but is problematic when pre-rendering a site - like I do for To solve the problem, I use R2 as a repository for static imagery. When I fetch an image from Notion and it is has an expiring URL, I will check to ...