Tag: Jobs

Beware tech career advice from old heads

If you’re new to tech – say, less than 5 years in the field – you should take career advice from people who’ve been in the industry more than 10-15 years with enormous skepticism.

March 13th, 2025 • career jobs tech

Your last one-on-one: what to do instead of an exit interview

Say you agree with me that exit interviews are dangerous for employees, but you’re a kind, empathetic manager who’s built a team with high trust. You’d never dream of retaliation, are open to feedback – even if it’s harsh. You don’t want to put your departing direct in an uncomfortable or threatening position, but you’d like to know what they have to say! What then?

April 7th, 2022 • career exit interviews jobs

Exit Interviews Are a Trap

It’s tempting to air your grievances at your exit interview. Don’t. There’s almost no upside to speaking up, and tremendous potential downside. Avoid exit interviews if you can. If you must go, be totally bland; say nothing negative.

April 4th, 2022 • career exit interviews hr jobs

Dear Potheads, You Can Work for the U.S. Government, Maybe

If you’ve used marijuana, can you still get hired by the Federal Government? Yes, but it’s complicated. I’ll try to explain…

October 25th, 2021 • 18f drugs hr jobs marijuana policy public service

What is your labor worth? Tech compensation in 2021

Salaries in tech are going up, and many people are looking for new jobs or reevaluating the ones they have. However, many tech workers have no idea what their labor is worth on the open market. There’s a huge information asymmetry here: employers have access to detailed industry data on salaries, but workers don’t. In this article, I’ll share a method people can use to determine the “market rate” for their skills. I’ve developed this method over the last six months, as I’ve helped nearly 100 people figure out their worth. Feedback has been that this is pretty accurate, so I’m sharing the technique here so you can use it to determine what your labor is worth.

October 13th, 2021 • compensation jobs labor salary value

Embrace the Grind

Sometimes, programming feels like magic: you chant some arcane incantation and a fleet of robots do your bidding. But sometimes, magic is mundane. If you’re willing to embrace the grind, you can pull off the impossible.

April 7th, 2021 • career grind jobs

Layoffs are Coming

It’s looking increasingly likely that the COVID-19 pandemic will cause a recession. It’s easy to think we might be immune from the effects of a global recession, but my experience is that tech companies are quick to cut staff, especially engineers, in the face of declining markets. I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t think I am. Either way, it’s not going to hurt to prepare.

March 13th, 2020 • career covid-19 hiring jobs layoffs

You have two jobs

Welcome to FictionalSoft! I hope your first week is going well? Great.

As you start to find your feet, I want to make sure we have a shared understanding of what success looks like here. Apologies in advance if I’m telling you something you already know, but it’s important to be explicit about this early.

You were hired to write code. Many developers make the mistake and think that their job stops there. That’s not true. In fact, you have two jobs:

November 1st, 2017 • collaboration emotional intelligence fav jobs

Psychological safety in the InfoSec industry

My co-worker Eric Mill recently brought up the topic of psychological safety. Referencing a study by Google that points to psychological safety as a key factor in successful teams, Eric wrote:

Maybe these situations sounds familiar to others (they definitely both are to me):
Did you feel like you could ask what the goal was without the risk of sounding like you’re the only one out of the loop? Or did you opt for continuing without clarifying anything, in order to avoid being perceived as someone who is unaware?

April 18th, 2016 • fav infosec jobs psychological safety