This is a set of posts that I’d like to highlight, generally longer and more in-depth thoughts that hopefully make for interesting reading.
in|retrospect Articles.
It’s 2023, but the layoffs in tech continue unabated from last year, impacting some of the biggest companies in our industry. Fortunately, reports suggest that workers are able to find new jobs within a couple of months of a layoff, …
Compared to the year-long economic celebration of cheap capital in 2021, the contrast to 2022 is stark: raising interest rates, high inflation, a battered stock market, mass layoffs—and this is with a strong US economy with persistently low unemployment rates. …
It feels like 2022 is the year of democratizing AI. GPT-3 made headlines back in 2020 when it launched to a limited audience and its new users played around with the tool, but it took a little over a year …
It took about 10 months, but Drop and Kinesis finally shipped their new Kinesis Advantage360 Professional keyboard over late September. Coincidentally, at about the same time, I started messing around with mechanical keyboards and had just built a GMMK Pro …
In engineering management circles, a common question that gets asked—in podcasts, in job interviews, and sometimes in peer coaching sessions—is whether managers should stay technically proficient, and if so, how and how much. The subtext here is that as people …
The PayPal Mafia is stuff of legend around Silicon Valley—at least, for the first 2 decades of the 21st century. Counted in this group of early employees are a number of entrepreneurs and investors for some major companies during that …
One of the first interview questions I learned to give, as a new grad engineer a couple months out of college, was asking candidates how to detect a cycle in a linked list. I was taught that the “right solution” …
Often, I end up relating my own experiences in industry to other software engineers and managers to help them in their careers. At times, it’s someone on the same team at work, one of my direct or skip-level reports. I …
It’s close to the end of another year, which makes for a good excuse to take stock of these last 12 months, take a deep breath, before charging forward into 2022. Unfortunately, COVID-19 is still very much a part of …
First, some personal news: I’ve recently started a new job as the VP of Engineering at Kiddom! Upon leaving my previous role at Mystery, I found myself still intrigued by the educational space and how it intersects—or doesn’t intersect—with technology, …
I had a chance to chat with someone who recently joined one of the major tech companies as an engineering manager. Upon settling into their team, they were disappointed to learn that the actual work environment, plus the work itself, …
When the COVID shutdowns began and my kids were forced to learn from home, I noticed that they were enamored with this app that taught them STEM concepts. Specifically, the app featured a bunch of videos and activities focused on …