Amanda Murphy

SWE Industry: Never manipulate strings in Prod if it can be avoided, and if seen in a PR by a staff/principal engineer would immediately be rejected Job Market: Manipulate these strings in weird ways on this assessment so you can get this job... Wild, if you are interviewing software engineers, give them real world problems to solve, not some arbitrary random string manipulation that we would never do in production. You're likely missing out on a lot of talented people.

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With patience the most tangled cord may be undone. The pseudonymous sage Lao Tzu said that in the Tao Te Ching, and I say it at the end of all 52 episodes of Craft vs Cruft. However, just as I feel like I'm hitting my stride with it, I notice the channel itself has become tangled. As a dedicated Untangler, I must not stand for this! Especially not for fear of some measly short-term metrics. So tentatively this is the plan. * Craft vs Cruft remains on theme: "Meditations on software quality and professionalism" and 2024 is still the year of Formal Methods lest we forget. This year we've had a video every week so far, that will slow down a bit. * NEW PODCAST: Empathy in Tech with Andrea Goulet - first episode very soon. Andrea co-founded the Legacy Code Rocks community and podcast which had a huge influence on me and many others. In addition to co-hosting this new show, I'm also speaking alongside her at Mendercon this month (tickets available). * NEW WEBSITE + CHANNEL: nopilot.dev is focused on the emerging ecosystem of Autonomous DevTools (e.g. Devin, OpenDevin, SWE-agent). This is the first official spinoff of Mender.AI, the AI legacy code strategy guide. That's a mouthful! I'd love to hear your thoughts as these are taking shape.

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This one was fun and different for me 👻 No, it's not Halloween in June. I wanted to solidify some terms in my head while also sharing concise examples to hopefully help others better grasp some of these terms I keep coming across in my career and then forgetting about and then having to re-look up and then forgetting....you get it. They seemed big and intimidating at first, but over time they've started to stick. 🤪 Idempotent | Polymorphism | Isomorphic [JavaScript] Enjoy! https://lnkd.in/gmfzSgNQ #softwareengineering #softwaredevelopment #programming #coding #tech #vocabulary #learningjourney #codeoutloud

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Pushed out a new blog post this evening discussing different programming languages and their syntax. A few thoughts I thought I'd put down. You can find the post at https://lnkd.in/ekVT6UqU Hope everyone enjoys!

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I recently reminisced about an interesting experience from when I started coding eight years ago. At 14, I was trying to write a script in Java to clean up my desktop and hit a snag (though I can’t recall the exact issue). Active in programming forums, I posted the classic question: "Are there any expert Java programmers?" Almost instantly, I received a link to this page: Don't Ask to Ask(https://dontasktoask.com/). For some reason, that moment has stuck with me through the years. Now, working with Open Source software at Rocket.Chat and being part of several programmer communities, I frequently encounter similar questions. This experience taught me the value of asking better questions and engaging more effectively with the community. Here is a passage I think about a lot: """ The solution is not to ask to ask, but just to ask. Someone who is idling on the channel and only every now and then glances what's going on is unlikely to answer to your "asking to ask" question, but your actual problem description may pique their interest and get them to answer. So, to summarize, don't ask "Any Java experts around?", but rather ask "How do I do [problem] with Java and [other relevant info]?" """

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I've been thinking a bit about the concept of "expert beginners" lately. Probably because I feel like I'm seeing more and more of them (at least by my perception) here on LinkedIn, especially in the area of software career advice and "self help". There's nothing wrong with sharing what you're learning, or what you think has helped you, no matter how experienced or inexperienced you are. The problem is when you still don't know what you don't know. (I say "still" in the sense of people still fairly early in their careers, but unfortunately I do think it's possible to never outgrow this stage.) When your experience is narrow and limited, it's possible to think you know exactly what worked for you, why it worked, and how it will surely help everyone else too. That just isn't life. In reality, there's almost always a bigger picture and information that you don't have access to. Maybe dropping out of high school and self-learning got you a $100k (in some unspecified market) job, but it won't work for everyone. Maybe your resume got you a job at Google, but maybe your experience at another MAANG company helped you more than the resume format you're crediting. Maybe you really like how they did everything at your ex-MAANG job, but those concepts aren't as uncommon as you think, or the culture wasn't as healthy as you thought (it was all you knew?). Maybe you climbed several rungs of the career ladder really fast, but maybe there are behind-the-scenes factors you didn't see or know about, or you happened to be a favorite with management. What's my point? If such posts were phrased as "this is what I did", or "this is something I found helpful", or "here's something I learned", I think they'd be interesting and useful as data points (if true, of course--some stories are so repeated and wrapped up in sales pitches that I find their credibility doubtful). But the overgeneralizations towards "and therefore it will work for you too" just aren't realistic or reasonable promises to make. They're setting a lot of people up to be disappointed when they follow all the same steps (or worse, pay money to learn those steps), and it _doesn't_ work for them. Every company is different. Every team is different. Every person is different. Heuristics, tips, and ideas are helpful, but there's no such thing as a magic formula for formatting your resume, getting an education, doing an interview, or landing a job. Be skeptical of such "one size fits all" or "simple" claims. Ask yourself "what _else_ could explain this?" And "follow" people who aren't afraid to post about complexity, nuance, difficulty, and failures.

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Lately, I'm running into an issue with senior devs not being able to pass coding screens. I'm NOT talking multi-day take home projects or leet code style questions that require dynamic programming. I'm talking the equivalent of fizzbuzz. -- tic tac toe in react -- pulling data from a data store in python -- using types in typescript ... Anyone noticing the same thing? How much prep should a senior dev really need to do these tests?

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Just transitioned back from parental leave and hit the interview circuit! It's interesting how some interviews felt more technical than others. This got me reflecting on my own past interview practices. Was I focusing on the right things? One thought leader who resonates with my approach is Dave Farley. His advice on "Hire Smart People and Let Them Be Smart" or "The Tech Matters Less Than the Person" aligns with how I believe we can get the most out of interviews. If you want to review his advices on detail check the following: https://lnkd.in/djGHkmAz. I hope that you enjoy the content as much as I did.

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Programming 101, Ask for help. When I was a young developer, my manager told me “if you are trying to solve a problem, give yourself time limit of 1 hour and if you do not find a solution in that time, ask for help”. That helped me heaps in my career. Do not spend hours on a problem before asking for help. Do not wait for a seasoned developer to barge into your life because you look a bit in distress. That will not happen, not many of us can read clues like that. Ask for help.

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#GAAD 2024 is coming up on May 16th. Who’s qualified to comment on accessibility? I don’t have a disability so I can listen but not comment? NO Who’s qualified to talk about accessibility? Anyone with empathy. Empathy is about putting yourself in the shoes of someone else. You don’t have to be an expert in other people’s issues to sympathize with them… to empathize them. The A in #GAAD is awareness, not expertise. A person with dyslexia does not know what it’s like to be blind. If you have no disabilities you are not an outsider to talking about blindness any more than the person with dyslexia is. There’s no badge that qualifies you. Learning and understanding start with understanding there’s something you need to learn. That’s what awareness is.

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“Why doesn’t anyone want to hire me?” - Entry Level Developer This is a question I often hear and I’d like to share a story about “A” reason why this happens. A long time ago I worked with a company where they hired a developer straight from college. It was their first development job and it was a great opportunity to learn skills they haven’t had before. The manager spent an incredible amount of time training this person to get them up to speed. After one year passed this employee demanded more money, of course why wouldn’t they? The company was not willing to budge on their salary so they left. It cost alot of money for companies to onboard employees and train them, so more times than not companies want to bring in someone who is going to add value quickly. In order to combat this problem, especially if you are an entry level developer, is you need a way to show case how much value you are going to bring into the company you are applying to. You can do this by taking part in open source code, coding for local business, getting involved with like minded folks in your community by attending meetups and coding together. Whatever you decide to do find a way to code that doesn’t involve another tutorial but solves a real world problem. Let’s go! 🔥

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Software Engineering Joys: One of my favorite things as I’ve grown in my career is the ability to jump between programming languages as I find them suitable for the current task. At my old gig, I would often go back and forth between Python, Go, and SQL. It was fun because they felt different. We used Python for a lot of our production code, and I used Go for personal tools. I loved the power and simplicity of Go, and I like hacking data pipelines in Python. I also love its ability to prototype. Currently, I’ve spent the majority of my time over the last two days in Python and Bash, and I find it so cool how quickly I’m able to iterate and script in these languages. Having spent two days in these languages, I miss C++! I miss the power and expressiveness of it. I love the fact that adding debugging symbols can make the program too slow to keep up with data. I’m amazed at how quickly data can move through the GPU. It’s an awesome language with access to so much! Each of these languages has taught me something different, and I find the variety and pace of each refreshing when I haven’t worked with them in awhile. If you are still learning your first language, that’s great! Keep it up! If you are considering learning a second language, do it. That was the one that felt like it unlocked the door for me. After I learned two I knew I could work with any. Keep at it, and be thankful people have dedicated so much time to making it enjoyable for us to solve (create?) problems on computers. If you like my content, feel free to follow or connect! #softwareengineering #languages

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I see a surge of posts on LinkedIn along the following lines: "I am a better software developer than anyone I know. However, despite this, I keep getting fired (or nobody wants to hire me)." Well, the inconvenient truth is that, if you keep getting fired (or if you are struggling to get hired), you should consider that you may not be as good as you think you are. I am not trying to disparage you. The data in your environment shows that you may be wrong. However, thinking that you are already better than everyone else prevents you from growing to the level where you become attractive to employers or consulting clients. After all, how can you learn anything if you believe that nobody has anything worthy to teach? This is the opposite of impostor syndrome, but it's much worse. While impostor syndrome is unpleasant, it actually motivates people to keep learning. The superiority complex, on the other hand, stops any learning in its tracks. P.S. If you comment on any of my posts with thinly veiled insults and your profile is a combination of you saying how you are better than everyone else and complaints about how you never got any reply back despite sending out 500 resumes, I will not bother engaging in any debates with you. I will block you right away.

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A shocking amount of engineering managers get into the role because they frankly aren't very good at coding and wanted to "get away from it". These managers are some of the worst out there, and reporting to one of them is a prime recipe to toss your career in the trash. To become a top-notch engineer, you need a manager who actually understands what high-quality code looks like and respects it. Just because engineering manager is a non-technical role doesn't mean it shouldn't require deep technical skills and understanding. To learn how to avoid the bad engineering managers (of which there are far too many) and find a good one, check out our masterclass here: https://lnkd.in/dTd56Am9 #techcareergrowth #softwareengineering #management #growthtips

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