Have you ever noticed how life's best recipes always involve a diverse set of ingredients? Much like a deliciously layered cake, your life requires a unique blend of people to achieve that perfect balance of sweetness, inspiration, wisdom, and, yes, even the occasional sprinkle of annoying persistence. Let's break down the four essential types of … Continue reading Four important people you should have in your life
Drawing Mercedes Logo With a Single Stroke – And Why You Should Not Sleep in Your Maths Class
The fun It's the new year. We had the winter break, and what do you do when your kids are at home for two weeks? They get on their iPads and, of course, watch YouTube Kids (Blippi, Bluey, and oh so many more). But it's the new year, so I want to change. I want … Continue reading Drawing Mercedes Logo With a Single Stroke – And Why You Should Not Sleep in Your Maths Class
Hacker Laws Every Software Engineer Should Know
One AWS senior principal engineer shared this Github repo with us: https://github.com/dwmkerr/hacker-laws ([PDF], [Podcast]). The compilation of "Hacker Laws" provides essential guidance distilled from decades of experience. Whether you're designing a distributed system, optimizing performance, or leading a team, these principles offer valuable frameworks for approaching common challenges. It's a really good read. Here … Continue reading Hacker Laws Every Software Engineer Should Know
What make a great contractor, or the story of how I learn to spot an A player
The fastest and cheapest ain't always the best So, back in December last year, I wanted to choose contractors to renovate my kitchen. I had a lot of bidders and ended up with the earliest - basically, to avoid decision fatigue. Let's call him Joe. Joe was responsive initially, offered me the most affordable price, … Continue reading What make a great contractor, or the story of how I learn to spot an A player
On Amazon cultures and practices
I joined AWS a while back as an engineering manager. I had fantastic opportunities to learn from Amazon's unique culture and wanted to write something about it. My first attempt is to share some of the Amazon culture from my onboarding. Customer Obsession Every company on earth will say that. Everyone will say that the … Continue reading On Amazon cultures and practices
A little bit of fun a day keeps the doctor away
Leading Through Uncertainty Time
This came in my mailbox from Harvard Business Review. It resonated greatly with my current context: dealing with new scopes, zooming in on net new focuses, and tackling greater challenges. Sharing it here as a way to remind my future self. You can read the whole article on HBR here. Facing Uncertainty - It's All … Continue reading Leading Through Uncertainty Time
12 factors of modern SaaS
TL;DR: it's a guide with best practices for any engineer who builds & deploys SaaS, based on experience working and scaling many apps on Heroku platform. Introduction In the modern era, software is commonly delivered as a service: called web apps, or software-as-a-service. The twelve-factor app is a methodology for building software-as-a-service apps that: Use declarative formats for … Continue reading 12 factors of modern SaaS
Interviewing tips for interviewers
As a manager, one of the most important tasks is to hire the right talent for the team. Well, it might be the most important one. Yet almost everyone dreads interviewing. How can we avoid asking the type of "tell me about yourself" question out of habit? Or how we can get to the real … Continue reading Interviewing tips for interviewers
From F to A+
TL;DR: this post is about how I improved my site ssllab.com HTTPS rating from F to A+ . Make HTTPS great again. Not all HTTPS-enabled sites are created equally, so welcome to the Internet of broken protocols and pardon my usage of a political phrase. When I set up this site long ago, it was … Continue reading From F to A+