Life

My New PC Build

I felt the time was right to do a new PC build

Wednesday, April 9, 2025 | 6 minutes Read

I haven’t posted in a few weeks, and there’s a reason for that. I recently changed jobs. It was a long journey, and I’ll go in to that here in this post. But the last few weeks were focused on wrapping up my work with my old employer and getting ramped up with my new employer. And with all of the recent layoffs in tech, I thought it might be of some value to others for me to post about my own job search journey. Maybe it will be of some help to you.

Friday, February 17, 2023 | 17 minutes Read

A Day In The Life

Taking some inspiration from my favorite ‘cast this week, Guidance Counselor 2.0, by Taylor Desseyn. I wanted to ‘get real’ a little bit about what it’s really like to be a professional software developer and use this post to delve a bit into the day-to-day life of a dev. A bit of disclaimer first: This is entirely based on my experiences and that of others I am familiar with. That said, there is no single, real answer to the question: What is it like to be a software developer? It literally varies from company to company, position to position, person to person, and even day to day. That’s one of the greatest parts of being a software developer: the variety.

Wednesday, November 30, 2022 | 12 minutes Read

Imposter Syndrome Never Ends - And That's Fine

There’s a ton of feeling in the developer community among new, so-called “junior” developers. It’s something that has come up in many of the mentoring sessions I have held with quite a few people who are new to coding or trying to get into the field. It’s a feeling that you will never be good enough, will never learn all the things you need to learn as a developer, and will never be as good a developer as many of the other devs around you. Many people call it “Imposter Syndrome”. I call it normal.

Tuesday, November 15, 2022 | 7 minutes Read

It's Your Time Off... Take It

A quick rant this week. There’s a trend in American workplaces, and it’s terrible. People are taking “time off”, but still working. I can’t even begin to count the number of co-workers I hear who say something to the effect of “I’m out next week, but I’ll still be monitoring emails or joining some calls”. I’m even guilty of doing this on occasion. This isn’t taking time off. If you’re checking email or attending meetings, on your “day off”, you might as well not take time off. There are a couple of reasons why this is the case.

Tuesday, October 18, 2022 | 3 minutes Read

The Employee Right to Privacy

I’ve seen a lot of posts on social media in recent months where people are complaining about their companies spying on them and what they’re doing on their employer-issued equipment and accounts. I want to put this in as plain a statement as possible. ANYTHING you do on employer-issued equipment or using employer-issued accounts is, at the very least, subject to monitoring by your employer. And at worst, belongs to your employer.

Tuesday, September 13, 2022 | 7 minutes Read

Is a College Degree Necessary To Find A Tech Job?

It used to be that having a college degree was a necessary thing to getting a job in software development. This was especially true at the “entry” level of the spectrum. Oftentimes it didn’t really matter much what that degree was in. It was just “required” that you have one. But is that still the case in 2022? Thankfully, in most cases, the answer is: No. Don’t get me wrong. Some companies still keep a stranglehold on doing things the way they’ve always done them. These companies are collectively known as dinosaurs. They live in the past and they are usually either very big, with a huge bureaucracy (i.e. HR department), or they are owned or run by someone who can’t let go of the past (i.e. an old dude who likes to start stories with “in my day…”). These are the same companies that are currently demanding that developers and engineers return to working onsite in the office, because “reasons”. And in today’s world, these are companies that are struggling to get and keep talent.

Tuesday, August 16, 2022 | 7 minutes Read

Guest Post: What are the different types of interviews?

I’ve got a guest post this week provided by the Codementor team. Thanks to them for providing this, and I encourage you to take a look at what they have to offer. Your resume got you in the door. What awaits you is a big hurdle: the interview process. Whether it’s a one-on-one interview with the manager, a group interview with the entire team, or multiple interviews of all types, you’ll have to pass them to land the job.

Tuesday, July 19, 2022 | 9 minutes Read

The Ethics of Being a Software Developer

There’s a lot of pain in the world right now. In nations where freedom exists, the rights and privileges of their citizens are eroding away. The world is changing. Freedom is under attack from every corner and by every means possible, be it war, oppression, apathy, or the destruction of rights by those who have been entrusted to uphold and sustain those rights. As technologists, we have a duty and responsibility to evaluate our roles in those changes.

Wednesday, July 6, 2022 | 11 minutes Read

My Being Fired/Laid Off Horror Stories

So I saw a tweet in my stream a couple of days ago that got me thinking a bit about my own job history, especially in tech. First “real” job. Mostly research. Acted as office receptionist. I was replaced by a bell. I made the bell business cards on my last day. https://t.co/Jztrw4kEFG — emily freeman 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@editingemily) June 15, 2022 For the most part, every job I’ve ever left has been on my own terms. It might be for a better opportunity. It might be because I was fed up with the state of the company I was working at. But almost always I left when I decided it was time to go…. with 4 exceptions.

Thursday, June 16, 2022 | 9 minutes Read

New Blog, New Style

I’ve gotten completely fed up with the hassle of trying to get GatsbyJS to work on Windows Subsytem for Linux (WSL). It just doesn’t work and I’ve wasted so many hours just trying to get a site to build. I had initially changed my site to use Jekyll, but saw people referring to Hugo on Twitter. And Hugo will run natively in Windows. So I spent the last two days redoing my blog with Hugo. AND IT WORKS. The only time investment was picking a theme (which really does take a long time) and fixing some headers and references in my blog posts Markdown files to work in Hugo.

website

Monday, November 8, 2021 | 1 minute Read

The True Costs of a Startup Failing

I read an article in Fortune magazine’s online site this week titled “What Happens When a Startup Goes Bust”. The article focused on vendors who don’t get paid when startup fails. It gives examples of several small businesses owed various amounts of money in the wake of Bay area food delivery startup Munchery failing. And while the article is interesting in its take on vendors losing out on payments and how venture capital firms should have more accountability, it doesn’t even give a single mention to those who end up getting screwed the most when a startup fails: the employees of the startup.

Monday, February 4, 2019 | 13 minutes Read