If you have code reviews without actual reviews, postmortems that do not lead to improvements, and training without learning, you have form without function. It might look good, but it is useless.Read, watch, and subscribe at https://josvisser.substack.com/p/form-without-function
You might like the boat you are in, but make sure you leave it before it starts making water.
If your team's culture is not what you think it needs to be, do not explain what needs to change, instead, model the desired behavior and look for a first follower.This week's article: https://josvisser.substack.com/p/show-dont-tellReferenced video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQThursday Thoughts article: https://josvisser2.substack.com/p/keeping-it-real-about-the-european
Adaptability is the new safety net…Read at https://josvisser.substack.com/p/security-is-temporary-adaptability
If you are a software engineer today and you are not learning how to be a better and faster coder with AI agents, you are doing yourself a disservice that might have significant ramifications for your career. Do not miss this bandwagon.Read, watch, and subscribe at https://josvisser.substack.com/p/coding-in-the-time-of-ai
Whenever I get feedback, I always check if someone didn’t just explain some of the rules of the game to me.Read and watch at https://josvisser.substack.com
People with experience solving small problems often underestimate the difficulty of solving big problems.Read and watch at: https://josvisser.substack.com/p/scale-is-the-only-problem-left
If you are, like me, a certified brainiac who relishes in spouting endless factoids, I invite you to consider this: You might be wrong. Considering that you might be wrong will make it more impressive if you are right and, as a bonus, will make you a nicer person to be around.
If you want to be effective and professional, you better know your tools well and spend time gaining the required knowledge and experience.Read and watch at: https://josvisser.substack.com/p/know-thy-tools
When communicating in a professional context, you want every communication to count towards something. This in turn means that you need to have crystal clarity about your goals. If you communicate without a plan, then it should be no surprise that your non-existent plan does not come to fruition.Read, watch, and subscribe at https://josvisser.substack.com/p/all-communication-is-strategic
For the systems you own, do you ever look at the logs and metrics? If not, you are not the owner, you are, at best, the lazy guardian of a bunch of orphans, anyone of which could become the next Voldemort.Read, watch, and subscribe at https://josvisser.substack.com/p/the-burdens-of-ownership
Hot take: If you want to work in this field, you need to understand computers.Read and watch at https://josvisser.substack.com/p/keeping-it-real
You might be a distributed systems genius or the world’s best leet coder, but without tech support, your life would be miserable. Remember that next time you go to IT.Read at https://josvisser.substack.com/p/appreciate-your-it-support.
Interviewing is a skill and, much like penalty shootouts during major soccer tournaments, can be trained. Raw talent helps, but in a pinch, preparation beats talent and experience nine times out ten.Read, watch, and subscribe at: https://josvisser.substack.com/p/candidates-please-prepare
It's a magical quality that will save you, even when you (like me) are the dumbest person in the building...Read (and maybe watch) at https://josvisser.substack.com/p/getting-stuff-done.
I typically spend a large part of the weekend and most of the public holidays resisting the urge to sit down and do some work. That is obviously a terrible state of affairs and it is not a lot of fun either, so what’s up and why not give in?https://josvisser.substack.com/p/taming-the-monkey-brain
Being certain means that you don’t have to think about anything anymore, which results in more speed. You might be going in the wrong direction, but at least you are going fast, which is a great boon for all the people who confuse motion with progress. It also makes you look decisive...Listen here or read and subscribe at https://josvisser.substack.com/p/the-unfortunate-desire-for-certainty
English is a great language and given that we all have to work together we need to speak a common language. I don’t care whether that’s English or something else, but since, for better or for worse, it is English (much to the chagrin of the French. by the way), let’s be aware that many people speak, read, and write English phenomenally well, but not perfectly, and let’s have that awareness influence our communication.Read the full article, with bonus content at https://josvisser.substack.com/p/you-can-read-this
You should give yourself time to really reach the summit of any mountain you are going to climb, but you need to attack that mountain with a plan, and not just start ambling up the incline...Read this article at https://josvisser.substack.com/p/ramping-up-is-hard-to-do. Includes bonus links!
Great chefs know more than just the recipes. They understand _cooking_.Read the full article (with video!) at : https://josvisser.substack.com/p/the-black-box-engineer