If you would have told me 7 years ago I’d end up in management, I’m not sure I would have been happy with the prospect. I always considered myself a hardcore tech guy, perhaps not a nerd, but at least geeky. I started programming when I was 9,
Ever since PAW patrol launched on TVs world wide in 2013, the management world has been buzzing about Ryder, the human leader of five puppies responsible for saving various inhabitants of their local village. Ryder’s excellent attitude, swift decision making, and driver of the patrol’s creative culture, leaves
Here’s episode 244 of “Zef talking to himself,” in which I’m organizing my thinking by writing about it publicly — because why write something in private when you can publish it, and be killed for it in Reddit comments? So here’s my secret: I’m a hopeless silver
Seven years ago I wrote an article entitled “I hate puzzles: am I still a programmer? [https://zef.plus/musing/i-hate-puzzles-am-i-still-a-programmer] This article resurfaced a few times over the years on Reddit and Hacker news. A year ago I even appeared in a podcast because of it [https://podtail.com/
A year or two ago I had the opportunity to shadow somebody who did partner recruitment for the company I worked for at the time. After listening in on a few calls, he asked me if I had any feedback. I answered that I didn’t. I felt quite unqualified,
We have many inspirational quotes painted on the walls in our office. This is the one next to my desk. It’s just about 5 months ago that I joined OLX Group [https://www.olxgroup.com], a world-wide classifieds company. With over 5000 employees, it’s the biggest company I’
Ideas on deciding what to speak or write about Whenever I read an article, or watch a talk, I ask myself: why are you telling me this? Why not anybody else? What makes you the best person — ideally in the world — to tell the story that you’re telling? In
Most companies have some rules or guidelines in place for whenever an “incident” happens, be it an outage or something else that impacts customers. Some companies call them incident reports, others root cause analyses. Sadly, too often, producing these types of reports is seen as a chore — essentially punishment for
If you’re afraid I’m about to get all “Mindful” on you — no worries. If you want to dive into that topic, talk to my brother. No, I’m about get all grandpa on you. Warning: Rant alert. I’ve noticed something. I noticed it again today at the
There’s two common “w” questions around serverless: the first one is “WHAT IS IT?” because, if you’re anything like me, your first response to this term was that it sounded more like link-bait than actual technology. I’ll get to my definition of serverless in a bit (because
Hi, and welcome to my team, I’m happy you are here. Since every manager has a different view on what this job entails, I thought I’d write down my approach to the role, so you will have a better idea what to expect and what not to expect
Contrary to popular belief, management isn’t all roses. At the top of my list of least favorite parts is people quitting on me. That’s right, this does happen. Luckily not a lot, but given enough time and scale, this will happen to every manager at some point. This