“It’s not that I mind filling out another survey, it’s more that we haven’t heard anything about the other one we just filled out.” The comment had no snarky tone or accusatory subtext. It was meant as a simple matter-of-fact comment on what I had just asked the team to do.
Have you ever filled out a job application only to never hear back from the company? Probably more than once. Probably more than ten times, right? It seems like the cultural norm is to ignore job applicants - unless you’re calling them in for an interview. Well, here at Corgibytes we do things differently.
Most of us love a good personality assessment. They’re usually fun, can help us understand ourselves better and, at times, may even have implementable tips for us. But, there are unspoken pitfalls that we need to watch out for.
A developer's schedule can be fraught with distractions and can feel overwhelming with commitments. Here is a surface look into why, and how we can work to overcome distractions in the work environment.
A few days ago, Basecamp announced some changes to their organization. Since we've publicly shared that some of Basecamp's books and philosophies have influenced the Corgibytes culture, we feel it is necessary to share our dissent on some of their recent decisions, particularly around their policy of "no more societal and political discussions" at work.
I have been working remotely since 2016, but I have been working from home since March 2020. Those are not the same thing. Sure, they sound the same and they have a lot of common traits... But they are very different.
As a developer, when I’m coding, I keep asking myself questions like “Am I a good enough developer?”, “Is my code good enough?”, “Am I productive enough?”. Are these valid questions?
You’re constantly short on time, forever exhausted and you promise yourself that as soon as you finish that next “thing”, you’ll get a handle on this out-of-control hamster wheel. Except next week is the same.
Empathy is an important technical skill that can drive the decisions developers make when they code. How can we make the practice of applying empathy throughout a codebase concrete? It starts with defining the practice.
This past year has been rough in a lot of ways, but we were lucky enough to be able to share our core values with the world while socially distancing.
As developers, we often get requests for new features that may seem trivial at first glance, but become much more complex when we start to dig deeper. This is a story of one such example, and how we were able to work with our client to provide a more inclusive design.
Ten years ago, I set out on the professional road trip of a lifetime. I had already started Corgibytes, but at that point, it was really just a name that I didn't know what to do with. I was thinking of creating products, specifically products for software developers and maybe the occasional casual game, just for fun. The vision wasn't quite there, but I was already eagerly in the driver's seat.
Software systems can find themselves in a state of "rock bottom." When we encounter projects like these, we need to channel our inner monk. Start where you are. Eliminate the shame that goes with having a messy codebase. Embrace that your system is worth investing in and start making it better from where you are today.
About one year ago, on Monday, November 19, 2018, I said goodbye to my dog Ein. Ein was my Corgi and the original inspiration for naming my company Corgibytes. I want to take a few minutes to tell you about Ein, what she was like as a dog, how she touched my life, and how sorely she’ll be missed.
We recently changed one of our core values to remove an obviously gendered term. This is an exploration of what prompted us to do so.
From what I see, it's this relentless commitment to maintenance and modernization that enabled American entrepreneurs like Carnegie to outpace their British competitors, and it's a lesson that modern companies would do well to learn, lest their competition overtakes them.
This weekend, white supremacists descended on Charlottesville, Virginia and committed terrorist attacks against people protesting their intimidation. Three people died and many more were injured as a result. In light of these attacks, and the Google Memo last week complaining about hiring practices that promote racial and gender diversity while ignoring ideological diversity, I felt compelled to write an internal memo to my team to help them process these events and make clear Corgibytes' stance on diversity.
Many programming languages use what’s called zero-based indexing. Counting starts at zero, not one. When building your career in tech, know there are invisible forces at play that are obvious once you uncover them. If you navigate your career without understanding this hidden framework, you’ll usually come up with the wrong answer. Let's take a peek at some of these hidden habits that are likely holding you back.
A few years ago, in a screenwriting class, our instructor asked us the following question: “How do you prepare yourself to write? What things do you do to create an environment that’s conducive to writing?” This was the third quarter with my fellow students – first class with this instructor – and I was comfortable speaking my mind. My answer went something like this: “I don’t have time for that. I only have one hour at lunch to write. So I turn on my laptop and I write.”
While doing his undergraduate at Virginia Tech, my son Tyler worked at 100-Cents (or some such store of similar name). He went on to graduate with honors and become a CPA at one of the Big-5 accounting firms. Then, he got an MBA at Darden (one of the top MBA colleges in the country). And now, he is an investment banker that manages the sales and acquisition of companies valued over a billion dollars. So he’s doing OK. But, instead of telling him I’m proud of his accomplishments, I chide him saying: “I had hopes of you becoming a manager at 100-Cents.” Which is not necessarily a career that you spend $250,000 on education to achieve.
“You should strike,” he said. We were laying in bed, catching up on the day's news when I saw an article for a general strike being organized to bring awareness to the contributions of women, both at work and at home. I mentioned it to my husband, Scott, who is also my business partner. Or as he likes to point out, I'm technically his boss as I'm the majority shareholder.
A commenter on dev.to recently posed the question, “What should someone without a computer science degree focus on learning?” As someone who was lucky enough to know I wanted to study computer science as an 18-year-old, I thought I’d weigh in on the topic. I had some ideas floating in my head about what I considered most important, but also decided I’d poll my colleagues to get their opinions.
A while back, I wrote a blog post about IDEs vs text editors. Ultimately, I was really writing about whether using an IDE made me less of a software developer. My conclusion was that while it definitely didn't make me less of a software developer, there were things experienced software developers did that I wasn't doing that were worth learning. So I've been trying to do what it takes to earn the right to call myself a “software developer.” I've learned a lot in the process: about shortcuts, vim and bash, but, mostly, about myself.
Recently, I was on the STEMxm podcast, where the host asked me a simple question: “You’re a woman in tech, you’re also a business owner and you have small children. Do you have any thoughts on the balance question and managing all of this?” Let’s first address the maternal bias that comes with just asking the question. Scott never gets asked how he “does it all” as a father, but I do all the time as a mother.
Even though Conway's Law originated in the software world, it's easy to extrapolate the idea to pretty much anything an organization produces, including content. I would even say that it’s not only the communication structures that permeate the content, but also the organization’s values and culture.
If you sent me an email today, you’d get an autoresponder that starts with a quote from Jan Tschichold. What better quote to feature during my own “White Space” time in December and January, during which I’ve purposely limited my meeting schedule and am only checking email once a day.
We're interviewing people to join the Corgibytes team. When I mention this to others, I hear a wide range of opinions on what exactly those technical interviews should look like. Over the years, I've experienced the gamut myself. Some were intensive. Some thought-provoking. Some... bizarre.
After years of scoffing at talk of prejudice in the information technology field -- as a white male with good hair --, I'm starting to call prejudice against my being old(er). It’s true: age discrimination is a real thing.
Working on a remote team, we need to be extra creative to find ways to socialize, get to know each other better and even share a few laughs. Those natural moments like a quick hello-how-are-you in the hallway just don't happen. That's why we've enlisted the help of our very own custom bot member, Ein.
Last Friday, I caught a friend’s band at a local pub. I know how it sounds. “A friend’s band. That’s cute.” Except it’s not like that. This friend is an exceptional guitarist. When he plays, it’s like watching Joe Satriani, Jimmy Hendrix, Slash. His instrument becomes an expression of his soul.
When building a feature or fixing a bug, you will be reading the code that exists. One thing I do often is ask, “Why was this done this way?” Programming is not a binary profession. Fuzzy logic would be a better way to explain how problems get solved. Just as programmers' experiences vary, you can find many solutions to get from 0 to 1. So, when I want to answer my initial question, I leverage git blame.
Is your code difficult to work with? Chances are, it’s time to get rid of code you don’t need. That can be a scary prospect, but the rewards can be well worth the effort. Recently, I was inspired by KonMari, a technique for decluttering physical spaces, to help me visualize how to refactor codebases to make them easier to work with.
Markdown, GitHub, Atom, Jekyll, rubber duck, refactoring… Those are just a few of the terms I had never heard before starting here at Corgibytes. Yes, I had heard of a rubber duck, but not being a rubber duck. In case anyone’s thinking “Oh, she’s one of those drips,” let me stop you right there. I’m a knowledge-thirsty geek.
One of the many cool things that we do here at Corgibytes is yoga classes three times a week. The word “yoga” conjures up images of fit ladies on their mats in a classroom, and the teacher in the front doing crazy poses. You probably don’t imagine a group of people, each one sitting at his own desk, on different continents, connected online with the teacher and doing the crazy poses in their chairs. Well, that’s how our yoga classes are, and as unusual as this might sound, it is amazing. I love yoga classes!
My first job out of college took me 1,500 miles from where I grew up. After a year of working there, I spent most days working from home along with my other co-workers. The team commuted to a single point about once a week since we enjoyed hanging out with each other and it helped us catch up on what we were working on. Shortly after this, I had a desire to move back home to spend time with family, but wanted to keep working with a great team. That wasn’t a problem and this soon unlocked the awesomeness that was being remote.
Eight years ago, I went to my high school reunion. I had worked successfully in the field of sales and marketing since graduation. I had started my own consultancy when I was twenty-four which helped clients with sales and developing their “brand voice.” I was the human voice behind businesses large and small. At the time I loved my job and had no plans on leaving my industry. At the reunion, I looked around, and after the mandatory mingling that comes with being a social butterfly, I locked eyes with someone I recognized. He was leaning against the bar, drinking a soda, and looking utterly uncomfortable. Yep. That was none other than M. Scott Ford.
One of the great benefits of working for a small company like Corgibytes is the ability to adopt change quickly, especially in day-to-day operations. Some of the biggest improvements in operational efficiency have come through our virtual office manager and assistant, a little canine chat bot we call Ein.
“You’re so lucky! You get to work in your pajamas!” That’s the most common reaction I get when I tell people I work from home. I don’t work in my pajamas. I’m pretty sure none of my colleagues do either. And if they do, they’re not sharing it. Obviously, it’s a personal decision, but, for me, when I’m in my pajamas, I want to chill, not work. And although my “office” is at times my recliner, I am working, not lounging.
At Corgibytes, we have five core values: Think of Others, Calm the Chaos, Communication is Just as Important as Code, Adopt a Growth Mindset, and Craftsmanship in Context. These values are the nucleus of our company: the center of all decisions, big and small, for the Corgibytes executive team and staff. Here's a look at each one in detail.
How do you interrupt your engineers appropriately? At Corgibytes, we use Inception Layers do describe how interruptible we are.
While it's true that there are many software developers who do enjoy starting with a clean slate, there is also a group who loves working on making existing applications better. Rather than starting from scratch and building an 80% solution, these developers are ideal for taking over a project once it's become stable, and nurturing it for a long time. Neither developer is better. Both are needed in the software world. You just need to understand when to use each one.