90% of programming jobs are in creating Line of Business software

Most software is boring one-off applications in corporations, under-girding every imaginable facet of the global economy.

Engineers are hired to create business value, not to program things

In the main they converge on doing things which increase revenue or reduce costs.

You really want to be attached to Profit Centers - Engineers in particular are usually very highly paid Cost Centers

Co-workers and bosses are not usually your friends

Your most important professional skill is communication

Solaria Labs was created by Liberty Mutual Insurance with one simple mandate: to bring disruptive innovations that make a better, safer future. We pursue this mandate by building and testing experimental new products based on customer-centric research around emerging trends.

Communicate Every Day

• PURPOSE: Link individual accomplishments with the business objective
• FOCUS: Reserve new ideas until current major projects are done
• GUIDE: Demand excellence in providing ongoing specific feedback in writing
• GROWTH: Actively discuss professional development opportunities
• RELATIONSHIPS: Improve relations by chatting about non-work
• Express Feelings With Emojis, Emoticons, or Descriptive Words

The people speeding ahead tend to be “happy extroverts.”

If you’re an introvert there’s no need to despair.
In addition to performing at a high level, you should “make sure to tell everyone, bosses included, not to mistake their reserve for negativity.”

When we went back to our data, the skills that our analysis identified as making a great manager are much more other-focused:

• Being open to feedback and personal change.
• Supporting others’ development. They know how to give actionable feedback.
  Being open to innovation. The person who focuses on productivity often has found a workable process, and they strive to make that process work as efficiently as possible. Leaders, on the other hand, recognize that innovation often isn’t linear or particularly efficient. An inspiring leader is open to creativity and understands that it can take time.
  Communicating well. One of the most critical skills for managers is their ability to present their ideas to others in an interesting and engaging manner. A certain amount of communication is required for the highly productive individual contributor, but communication is not the central core of their effectiveness.
  Having good interpersonal skills. This is a requirement for effective managers. Emotional intelligence has become seen as perhaps the essential leadership skill. Although highly productive individuals are not loners, hermits, or curmudgeons, being highly productive often does not require a person to have excellent interpersonal skills.
  Supporting organizational changes. While highly productive individuals can be relatively self-centered, leaders and managers must place the organization above themselves.

Do you ever feel misunderstood by others? Maybe you feel that people at work don’t get you. Or that your friends are not on the same page.

Maybe others truly don’t get you. But that’s not because of them, it’s most likely because of your own behavior. I’ll tell you why.

People can only judge their perception of you. And often, there’s a difference between perception and reality, right?

Persuasion and influence revolve around two related questions:

1. How does our behavior influence the behavior of others?
2. How does other people’s behavior influence our behavior?

Look inwardly. Change your behavior for the better. And always be mindful of how others perceive you. Especially, if you want something from them.

Misunderstandings and conflict are the results of the gap between your perception and how others perceive you. To resolve this, you have to understand why the gap is there in the first place, and then work on closing it.

The Definition of a Mensch:
A person having admirable, noble, or dignified characteristics, such as fortitude, responsibility, and firmness of purpose: "He radiates the kind of fundamental decency that has a name in Yiddish; he's a Mensch." (James Atlas).
A person who is admired, respected, and trusted because of a sense of ethics, fairness, and nobility.

Do you know how you make people feel?

Human beings are silly. We try to act like we’re these super rational people who make decisions based on logic alone, but we couldn’t be further from that. We make many decisions based on how we feel and how other people make us feel.

IF YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW YOU MAKE PEOPLE FEEL, IT’S LIKE YOU'RE WALKING AROUND WITH YOUR EYES CLOSED AND YOUR FINGERS IN YOUR EARS, STOMPING AROUND, GIVING NO FUCKS ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE. NOBODY LIKES THAT GUY. THAT GUY DOESN’T REALIZE WHEN HE’S STOMPING ON A KID’S SANDCASTLE.

You Have to Care About the People You’re Serving

Care -> Learn more about their needs -> Make better solutions to help them

To a company, a senior developer is a box that keeps its marbles together.

In programming world, too, craft is being lost gradually.

The ultimate questions you need to answer is:

• Will they want it
• Can I build it

You should draw.
Sometimes a problem seems too big or too abstract to fit into a neatly formatted list of requirements. It’s difficult to hold and pick apart a series of steps in your head. You want to connect ideas, follow many series of steps in different directions, while also considering constraints and stress cases. But your brain wants to follow one train of thought from beginning to end. Anything that looks like it’ll take you off track gets brushed aside, “We’ll come back to it.” You end up in a battle with your own mental capacity. You need to explore all sides of a problem while simultaneously looking for weak points. There comes a real concern of things slipping through the cracks because your brain can’t hold them all or remember them for long.
Visualizing problems on a canvas gets them out of your head and into the real world. You can put all the pieces in front of you so you — and everyone else — knows what you’re working with. Every time a new idea, challenge, or path comes up, make a note. You may not solve it at the same time, but it’s there, waiting until you’re ready. This frees up mental space to start challenging your ideas and working towards solutions that include everyone — instead of barrelling down one track to the obvious, happy-path conclusion.

Your team should draw.
Because whiteboards are part of our physical space, they can be gathering places. We sit together with our teams, but each facing our own personal, digital canvases: our monitors. Work is only shared when you as an individual feel it’s ready, or a colleague has asked you to share. When we work at the whiteboard, we share our work while we work .

Everyone should draw.
The whiteboard is not a canvas for designers, it’s a canvas for discussion.

1. Say it three times
   Rather, the first time serves as a primer, the second as confirmation, and the third as a reminder.

2. Mean (and do) what you say
   If you can’t stand behind your statements or answers at work, repeating them will be both hard to do and misleading for the listener.

3. Remember that real love has real boundaries
   So often frustrations arise when a decision seems arbitrary or contradictory.

4. Expect change regularly
   But if we can accept that most things at work will change at some point, and account for that in our plans, we’ll be able to better recover and face new realities with perspective.

5. Provide a soft landing for transitions
   No amount of self-awareness can stop the emotions my daughter — and all of us — feel around transitions.
   We should be gentle with ourselves during these moments, recognizing that our emotions are legitimate and normal.
   We should extend the same generosity to our colleagues, whether or not they acknowledge they’re having a difficult time.

Let’s take a deep breath together

To do something well you have to like it. That idea is not exactly novel. We've got it down to four words: "Do what you love." But it's not enough just to tell people that. Doing what you love is complicated.

Soft skills are as important, if not more important, than technical skills

Unfortunately, his career progress was sluggish. It was hampered by the fact that it was not easy for others to work with him due to his difficult personality and meager soft skills.

Skill #1: Marketing your work
The impression that managers have on us is based on their observations. They piece together an image of your performance based on contact points like:

your direct communication with them (1-on-1 meetings, working together on projects)
meetings they attend where you are present
demos and presentations that you give
your communication with others where they are passively involved. For example, email CC.
what others are saying about you behind your back (yes, people do talk behind your back)

Skill #2: Time management
Skill #3: Networking
Skill #4: Open-mindedness

Through experience and research, I have a few theories about why this is occurring in the design industry.

1. Ability is limited
   When hiring a designer, I look for a balance of solid skills, style and strategic thinking. For the majority, strategic thinking is the weakness, and in all honesty, businesses want this.
2. Expectations are too high
3. The false vision of ‘a dream job.’
4. Unable to adapt processes
5. Companies don’t know what they want

If you’ve never created a technical presentation then let me help you understand what you are missing. Imagine writing a term paper like you did in college, except that the content is all in PowerPoint and SQL scripts. And your head. Mostly in your head, because you have to verbally speak way beyond what’s written down in slides and scripts. And it has to be an hour’s worth of material. And this will all be done in front of a roomful of strangers. Strangers who get to ask you random questions at random times.

I’d go as far as saying that you should not expect any traction until you have put out (published, shipped) at least three hundred great pieces of work.

It is this level of quantity that leads to:

Refinement and mastery of your skills;
Being faster, more efficient and better at flow;
A growing sense of momentum and energy;
Getting a better sense of what people WANT;
More ‘nodes’ through which to attract attention online and elsewhere;
More ideas and more ‘aha’ moments that lead to more electric, more emotional output;
Others believing in you because you believe in yourself, by showing up often or every day.

I’ve finally realized the glaring missing element from online art education: The studio.

Studio was the room where we all made things together. Studio was where we talked together.

Studio was where we worked all day, and chugged coffee all night. Studio was where we dragged ourselves back to in the early morning to present our projects and get feedback.

Studio was where we got stuff done. Studio was where we slacked off.

Studio was where we shared favorite books, playlists, blogs, and inspiration. Studio was where we laughed, learned, and grew together.

Let’s start with the ground rules. For every open job on your team, you need to spend one hour a day on recruiting-related activities. Cap that investment at 50% of your time. No open reqs? There’s still important and ongoing work you need to do on a regular basis that I’ll describe below.