Friendly reminder, to build quality software is much much more cheaper compared to to the one which isn't.

Sure, you want to build fast, sure you want to validate your product before investing many hours into the development.

I get it, but at some point it has to stop.

Otherwise, you will and with no exception, have to pay a lot more for a bad quality software.

And it's not necessary just that your users will complain, looking at the big tech, if you have monopoly over the market even that isn't something you will care about.

However, you are greatly hindering your product ability to grow.

Ever find your product team struggling to develop simple features? Two sprints for just a login page re design?

There's your answer, now you are paying for the quality software, a lot more plus, it probably will never reach the standard that it could have if you invested just a tiny bit of more time in the beginning.

To add, it's not just that cheap software became cheap because of profitability efforts, no, as a matter of fact the reason why I'm even writing this post is because I believe profitability is being hindered by bad software practices.

Biggest reason isn't business owners, it's as developers. We are the ones developing and we aren't up to our own standards.

Maybe, if we could stay a bit more than a year in a company we could have been able to see all the consequences of our work. (looking at my CV, one can say this is a self critique, lol)

Ofc, we aren't the ones to take the full blame, but we are the ones who simply knows the best and if we could care more about the business and it's profitablity we could turn things around.

I wonder what does knowing what optional chaining is tells about your skills as a software developer?

Idk maybe it is just me, but such question I would not even asked a Junior developer.

Instead Junior developer I would ask something like: Property A may be undefined how do you make sure you handle errors in case A does evaluate to undefined.

There are multiple ways how one can go about solving it, which is great! It is an open ended question, one that you can even work together with the person you are interviewing. Also, it makes developer much more at ease as they do not feel like they are being interrogated.

This way you let developer think! And you evaluate their experience and problem solving abilities instead of they memory, which make little sense to test when you can google or AI - it in a second..

Some time ago, I was asked in an interview for an engineering manager position a very simple question:

How would you measure your team member's individual performance?

I know how the industry does it, and I know how my performance was measured, but I didn't like it, so I said something along the following lines:

We should focus on the outcome rather than any other aspect of performance because it simply can't be measured accurately.

However, the value is very simple to measure, and a good manager has an understanding of each of his team members without relying on any arbitrary number.

Of course, I was not taken seriously and was not even given a chance for the job.

The truth is, if you want to measure performance, no matter what, expect the following:

1. Burnouts in your team

2. Wrong expectations that growth is always linear

3. Teammates sabotaging each other

4. An unfair and absolutely biased way of promoting people

Measuring performance has completely the opposite effect of what its initial idea was.

Solution? Managers should play by ear! They should see themselves as the leaders they are supposed to be. Drop measuring individual performance. Instead, measure team outcomes and their contribution to the overall business goal.

Spark is dying off. I'm being rundown by bad experiences in startup scene since past 6 years.

I'm seriously questioning my decision to switch from mechanical engineering to "software engineering"

Of course, one can never know. "What if" is terrible place to be.

However, as a father I would seriously reconsider pushing my son in a direction of a software development.

For the following reasons:

You can exercise all you want, there's no escaping from a life long back pain if you sit 8-10h a day.

Depending on the industry, people are one of the most disingenuous ones you can find.

Mental health issues goes way beyond the usual suspects of an imposter syndrome, it's no joke. Cold sweats and countless sleepless nights thinking if you will be fired or left for the next round. If your coworker will "set you up" for a failure etc...

Interview processes are a joke. For real, as an industry we should be ashamed of how we treat each other.And no, it's not companies who does this, it's us, software engineers to each other.

General mentally of "not giving a zero f***" about the actual product you are building, caching in you monthly paycheck and calling it a day.

Zero focus on simple concepts such as MAKING MONEY. Instead, focus on promises of making money.

About 8 years ago, I was a YouTuber ( not the most successful one ), I needed a website, Internet thought me how to make one. I got hooked. All things UI got me excited, from a simple animation on a button to a large scale apps with various of moving parts.

But it's getting harder to keep up lately. And I can only assume I'm not the only one.

To land on a more positive note, things usually become a lot worse before they starts to get better. It seems to me the bottom is

close.

Only way is up.

Why do I care?

It's not even my business. It's not going to make me any more happier and richer if I do things right.

So why do I care about your products? About your company? About your money? About your users?

I don't have a great answer to that, but how about this one?

It's literally in my job description as a software developer to make great products for the users. It's in my job description that I do that with the best interest of the company that hires me.

It's also because I just so happened to spend 5 years studying the very same engineering principles which I'm trying to employ in order to make great products.

And maybe just maybe because I have been doing this for a while now. And experience does mean I have seen how leaders fails, and how great products crumbles and how companies burns.

It's because of you lazy and uninterested leaders who take your position for granted and make it irrelevant.

You lead, I will follow.

It's simple as that. Otherwise, let us lead and you follow.

Just step away.

I always had to do above average effort for barely average results.

I hated this.

My wife turn it around. She said: "The more you struggle the more your success feels good."

We both passed driving test, she did it with zero problems just casually learning over the app. Me? Well I was studying like never in my life.

Difference is that when I passed it felt like I win a lottery.

It's good to be average. I believe it runs the world.

I learned more from a good junior than a great senior. Because seniors tends to be highly opinionated and not willing to open their minds. Juniors especially good ones, will not challenge you BUT due to their eagerness to learn will ask questions which will make you think twice about how correct your approach is.

This is why great teams should have a healthy balance of seniors vs juniors.

I am increasingly frustrated with React developers (I am one of them) always trying to be smart, super smart, or even too smart. Being too smart often means being delusional, thinking that every decision during development needs to be super clever, abstracted, and, without exception, innovative.

Which tech stack does not suffer from over engineering and is a LOT more opinionated while at the same time has decent DX?