Beyond Coding

Pull requests (PRs), the standard way to collaborate in codebases to ensure quality (among other things).. It turns out that they're actually slowing down software development. But how?  Dragan explains how the problem lies in the way it's structured: it's asynchronous. There's a lot of time that passes before the code is merged, and the value is delivered. Large PRs are hard to review and course correct, and small PRs can introduce lots of context switches. However there are ways around this, to have both speed and quality. These ways lie in co-creation: Pair and Mob programming

The idea of a "10x engineer" is popular in Silicon Valley and is used to refer to a rare engineer who can achieve 10 times more than an average developer. We invited Chris Laffra on to discuss this idea, and as you might've guessed, it has to do with making other people more productive. But before doing that, you'll need to focus on your individual productivity and impact, and maximise that to a certain degree.  Sounds interesting? Listen in to find out more! PS: Chris gave me a copy of his book: Communication for Engineers, and in there he wrote: "To be happy, make other people happy". I love it!

As you might know, not every software engineer comes from a computer science background. But why is that? Well.. if you want to learn how to program, there’s not a lot that’s stopping you. Especially nowadays, there’s a lot of content, or even courses and companies, that’ll help you along the way. And as more and more jobs (or parts of jobs) get automated, it might be help to learn about how that automation works in the first place. Just like how we learned to do a lot of math before using a calculator. Caught your interest? Listen in!

Today we talk about mentorship in tech. One of the best things about mentorship is that it's a clear win-win. It helps the mentee gain clarity on specific situations or career questions. And it helps the mentor in mastering active listening and giving non-biased advice. Hope you like it! Enjoy :)

There's a lot going on over at bol.com, especially behind the scenes. Today Mirko van Ede (director of engineering) and Rogier Lommers (tech lead) join us to discuss one of their biggest ongoing projects: migrating to the cloud.  Enjoy!

One of my favourite things as a software developer is interacting with the community. It's a community that's about learning, sharing, collaborating, and paying it forward. All you have to do to be part of it is to engage with other people. Brian Vermeer is a person that has given back to the community so much so that he became Java champion.  Enjoy!

It takes great skill to turn an idea into a product. Especially when you're starting from scratch. Erwin did just that, and shares how he and his team built an app that could improve how kids are treated for anxiety.  Enjoy!

One of the key takeaways from this conversation is that we should favour progress over perfection. Especially as software developers, perfection is something that'll never come. Instead we should focus on progression and let the fear of the unknown drive us forward.  This is what drives Mahdi and how he got to his current position. He shares how he became tech lead, and what skills you should focus on to become one as well.  Enjoy!

Are you comfortable with what you're doing and the problems that might arise from that? In a way, that's what security and personal risk is all about.  Jeroen and Nanne provide some useful tips you can use to secure your own laptop and to reduce the risk of something bad happening. On top of that, they share what they've seen happen when that security is not there.  Enjoy!

Robby shares how he used to clash with leadership when he was a software engineer. Which lead to a lot of frustration. He didn't really understand why they clashed, but after freelancing for a while, he realised the answer lied in the lack of guidance and the quality of leadership he'd experienced. This realisation is what lead him to focus on his soft skills and go down the path of leadership. His way of giving back is to share with us what he's learned on what makes a good leader.  Enjoy!