Published in Geek Culture·PinnedChange The Way You Learn and Grow as a Software EngineerThe Easiest Way To Succeed and Move Up in a Software Engineering Role. Traditional Growth as a Software Engineer There is a lot of discussion about what software engineers need to understand and accomplish in order to be successful. The assertion we see on Medium, LinkedIn, Reddit, etc. ultimately boils down to mastering the software development…Software Development4 min read
Published in Level Up Coding·Apr 21Ask the InterviewerWhat questions should you ask at the end of an interview? In standard interviews, the last 5–15 minutes are typically given to the candidate as an opportunity to ask the interviewer questions. …Software Development3 min read
Published in Geek Culture·Apr 5How I Prepared For My Interview With Microsoft And Landed The RoleI’m writing this on April 5th, 2022. Yesterday, April 4th, 2022, was my first day at Microsoft as a Software Engineer. It was fantastic! It’s no secret that big, prestigious tech companies have long, difficult interview processes. …Software Development3 min read
Published in Level Up Coding·Mar 23To Pair Program, Or To Not?When is pair programming useful and effective? When is it not? What Is Pair Programming? Pair programming is when two (or potentially more) software engineers code a feature together on one machine. There are actually many different approaches to pair programming, but the most common involves two roles: A driver, the software engineer “at…Software Development3 min read
Published in Geek Culture·Mar 16My Small Talk TipsWhat I’ve learned starting countless conversations with strangers. I used to roll my eyes when I saw posts on LinkedIn about soft skills being more important than hard skills for software engineers. I still do, to be entirely honest. I’m not here to trivialize the importance of hard skills, or…Software Development3 min read
Published in Geek Culture·Mar 9What I Learned in My First Five Years as a Software EngineerA timeline of my career with lessons learned along the way. University Okay — to be honest, I was an intern for the first two years of my career. Many wouldn’t include an internship in years of experience. That is fair enough. If you fall in that camp, think of this…Software Development5 min read
Published in Geek Culture·Mar 8The Dead Sea EffectAn anti-pattern in business. What is the Dead Sea Effect? If you follow me, you know I normally write about software engineering. You’ll find a lot of the discourse concerning the dead sea effect is related to software engineering, but the dead sea effect isn’t exclusive to software engineering. …Software Engineering3 min read
Published in Level Up Coding·Mar 1An Intermediate Data Structures and Algorithms Study PlanA Concise List of Problems for Software Engineers Familiar with DSA. — LeetCode, with its 2000+ problems, can be very intimidating. I love the idea of cultivating lists of at most 10 questions that cover a wide range of topics and famous interview and computer science questions. This is a follow up to my article, A Beginner’s Data Structures and Algorithms Study…Programming3 min read
Published in Level Up Coding·Mar 1The ‘Unique Paths’ Software Engineering ProblemA simple, optimized solution for a popular algorithms question. — The Problem Unique Paths can be found on leetcode here. There is a robot on an m x n grid. The robot is initially located at the top-left corner (i.e., grid[0][0]). The robot tries to move to the bottom-right corner (i.e., grid[m - 1][n - 1]). …Programming3 min read
Published in Geek Culture·Feb 18A Beginner’s Data Structures and Algorithms Study PlanA Concise List of Problems for Software Engineers New To DSA Practice. I wrote about LeetCode style questions and other modern software engineering hiring practices here. Check it out if you’re interested. LeetCode, with its 2000+ problems, can be very intimidating. I wanted to cultivate a list of 10 questions…Software Development3 min read
