Atish Jain - Technical Trainer⚡️’s Post

🎉 Today, Peter and I welcome our first full-time hire: Rick Moore! Rick is someone I worked with five years ago at a previous company. In fact, I tell a story involving him often. It's not a good story, but one you can learn from. Rick joined us via an acquisition our company made. He was initially in the marketing department but had taught himself to code. He asked to speak with me and said he was interested in switching careers to become a software developer. We made it happen, and Rick started working with me. Rick picked up skill after skill. A year in, it was clear he was a fast learner and would be a great software developer. And that’s when I went wrong. Rick had well exceeded his current role. He asked how to move up. We didn’t have well-defined roles, and leadership was skeptical about moving him up quickly because he was initially a marketing employee. I knew this was wrong. Rick was doing the work and was someone we didn’t want to lose. I could give anything to him, and he would get it done. I made this argument. But I was still a young dev leader and lacked confidence and conviction. And so my arguments failed, and I stopped pushing. I explained to him that he would have to wait, but I didn’t have a good reason for it. Rick moved on to a better opportunity that recognized his skills & contributions. Honestly, part of me was happy he was getting what he deserved. But, mostly, I was sad I let him down. Luckily, throughout the years, we have stayed in touch. Rick has an entrepreneurial drive. He also loves to read. As Patrick Lencioni would put it, he is the ideal team player. Hungry, humble, and smart. And he resonates with our company values: Uncomfortable Focus, Apple Quality, and Start the Clock. And so, I could not be happier to welcome Rick as DevClarity’s first full-time employee! We now get to work on building a tool that would have helped me keep Rick in the first place. A tool that gives dev leaders, especially young ones, confidence and conviction. So, Rick, let’s build something great together!

Controversial point of view about management. As one of the ICs working for this company I understand better why companies want managers who operate at all levels.

50,312 people have been laid off in tech since 2024 began 🤯 This is an amazing tool, but it makes for some sobering reading. Roger Lee's Layoffs.fyi has been tracking layoffs and redundancies across the tech industry since 2022, and you can filter by company, location, date and more. It's a reminder of the importance of networking, being a part of a developer community like WeAreDevelopers and always keeping your skills sharp. 🔗 https://layoffs.fyi/ #tech #programming #coding #webdevelopment

Have you ever dreamed of working at top tech companies like Google and Atlassian, imagining the incredible perks and prestige? 🌟 Let's uncover recent events in a clear and accessible way: #Google: - Entire Python team layoffs to reduce costs. #Tesla: - Recently conducted significant layoffs, impacting many employees. #Atlassian: - Revoked PPOs of students while still hiring other software engineers. Fond memories of idolizing companies like Google and Atlassian, inspired by their renowned culture and grandeur. With these companies prioritizing profits over their workforce, the concept of a "dream company" is challenged. 🎉 Despite these shifts, exciting opportunities and innovative cultures continue to emerge, reshaping the idea of an ideal workplace. Always stay open to new dreams and possibilities!  

Prediction: More game devs will increase their External Development. They'll start to view working with more external partners as a real, powerful alternative to ramping up large in-house teams. - Better manage risk - More flexibility with staffing - Skill-set ramp up / ramp-down - Access hard to find skills / elite level talent - Cost saving / budget management - Protect internal focus / resources The hope: This will lead to growth in the ExDev market with jobs being created to accommodate those effected by industry layoffs. Thoughts? #GameDev #ExternalDevelopment

The 5 skills every engineer needs to stay relevant (it’s not only about the code) I don’t know what the future will bring Market crash and businesses going bust AI taking over engineering More cuts and layoffs Or it can be the complete opposite One is clear We need more than code to thrive → Adaptability → Time management → Emotional intelligence → Communication → Learning You can rise to new challenges With time for yourself and your family You work in synergy with your team and manager When you need new skills, you take no time to get them Tough market what? Which one do you like the most?

💡 I once worked with someone who was celebrated as the best engineer on a team because of their exceptional coding abilities. But soon things went down for the team because of their bad behavior! This person had no soft skills and absolutely did not respect their peers! Their pride went over the roof, bringing down the morale of everyone around them! They acted like they had control over the entire team’s codebase, and the company cannot operate without them. This is a classic “brilliant jerk” in tech! If there is one thing that I have learned with several years of being in tech, it is that no one is indispensable to a company! You are absolutely replaceable! The recent layoffs in tech is a good reminder to that. I would rather work with 10 software developers with average coding ability, who are modest, and willing to learn, than 1 brilliant jerk who puts people down because he/she is really good at something! Coding is a hard skill and being a great coder is very important in your journey as a software engineer, but exceptional coding ability does not give one the leverage for bad behaviors! #techcareers

Web Summit challenged me to present a controversial topic to the management community: Technical CEOs vs. Bozo Managers. As I dove into the data to support my argument that management is often overrated, I found that the real power in companies lies with those who excel at getting things done: 1. Often promoted-from-within managers 2. With the individual contributor spirit still on 3. Operating at all levels! It was fascinating to see how this pattern contradicts what consulting firms and paid research tell us. When we look at the messages sent by tech layoffs, such as Brex, we see a different reality. What are your thoughts on this? Do you believe that management is overrated? Let's discuss in the comments. #TechnicalCEOs #ManagementDebate #TechLayoffs (Link of the Video in the comments 📹)

What surprised me at #LeadDevBerlin? What didn't surprise me: ✅ many conversations about layoffs and "doing more with less" ✅ valuable activities, sessions and exchanges ✅ meeting many former colleagues ✅ excellent organization ✅ spacious venue ✅ great talks Overall it was very energizing and inspiring! What did surprise me? I talked to tens of people and most described their (agile) ways of working quite similarly: 🫨 Product (team or manager) gathers requirements and hands over a solution to the developers to implement. Engineers do not talk to customers and sometimes don't know why they work on things, because things come from senior management or a project team without adequate context. 🫨 No pairing - each person works alone in order to maximize throughput. 🫨 Radical estimations of stories, projects and features in order to communicate a business plan, usually a roadmap as a Gantt chart. Some projects are months long before they are released. A lot of effort goes into making the estimations "correct". 🫨 Manual testing by default, either tester roles or separate teams. 🫨 Refactoring is a special activity that requires approval and scheduling. 🫨 Reliance on others for infrastructure modifications, observability and alerting, such as a platform team. Why is this surprising? There is a lot of literature about ownership, effective product discovery and delivery, about agile and about effectiveness and efficiency, like "Extreme Programming Explained" by Jent Beck, "Empowered" by Marty Cagan and many more. I am not "Mr. know it all". I understand that there is no "one size fits all" and the context can be wildly different, but it seems like in many places things are done the way they are because they were always done this way, or because of misinterpretations or lack of knowledge and leadership to push them. I have recently blogged exactly about this topic: https://lnkd.in/dyqigNsU The futility of estimations: https://lnkd.in/dU9dkZgB And principles for effective teams: https://lnkd.in/dgZq8cMJ

With all the recent tech layoffs and hundreds of applications with few callbacks and no hires, I find myself drawn towards my architectural visualisation skillset. I'm not sure who needs to see this, but it's the number one thing I do effortlessly, when I'm not PMing or scrumming with sprints, schedules, deliverables, budgets, status reports, Gantt charts, burndown charts, kanban boards and iterations. For those out there still searching, may your road be rough, so you build the strength needed to be the warrior required at your destination. On that same road, take a little time to enjoy the things you love. Stay strong and keep pushing forward. Remember to keep learning, and don't forget to showcase and improve your own skills and talents. Let's keep building and growing together. #architecture #visualization #jobsearch #careeradvice #projectmanagement #scrum #pivot