In this conversation, Fable and Ben dig deep on building a technical career that balances programming and company leadership. Fable shares their experience working at Stripe and the different roles they have held, including being a technical advisor to the CTO. They also discuss Fable's career move from being a hands-on programmer to role where less hands-on coding is required, Fable's take on "code crimes", and how to find enjoyment and fulfillment in solving complex problems.

Links

Tuple.app - The best app for pair programming
Stripe - The company Fable works at
Ruby Kaigi - An annual conference dedicated to the Ruby programming language.
Sidekiq - A simple, efficient background processing library for Ruby
Sorbet - A fast, powerful type checker designed for Ruby.
YubiKey - A hardware device designed for high-security two-factor authentication.

Key Takeaways

• Making connections and friendships at conferences can be valuable in the programming community.
• Debugging and problem-solving skills are crucial for software engineers.
• Being willing to learn and work with different programming languages can enhance your skills.
• Prototyping and spiking can be effective ways to test and develop new ideas.

Chapters

• (00:00 ) - Introduction and Conference Interaction


• (00:38 ) - Making Friends at Conferences


• (04:13 ) - Work at Stripe


• (06:17 ) - Becoming a Staff Engineer


• (06:53 ) - Getting Good at Programming


• (08:46 ) - Debugging and Problem Solving


• (11:22 ) - Working with C and C++


• (13:13 ) - Debugging with Print Statements and Debuggers


• (17:06 ) - Prototyping and Spiking


• (24:11 ) - Technical Advisor to the CTO


• (27:26 ) - Coding Hill to Die On


• (29:52 ) - Workflow Optimization


• (36:53 ) - Coding vs Non-Coding Time


• (39:08 ) - Transition to Leadership


• (41:07 ) - Motivation and Impact


• (42:13 ) - Love for Programming


• (44:14 ) - Coding Style: Short Methods and Small Classes


• (48:48 ) - Personal Style and Code Crimes


• (52:18 ) - Commercial Open Source


• (56:08 ) - Getting Involved in Open Source


• (01:04:52 ) - Wrap-up