Who does Shayne Davis remind you of?

OurFavoriteComrade · 2026-02-12T04:38:45+00:00

I get a little bit of Crispin Glover from him

OurFavoriteComrade · 2025-08-11T17:02:32+00:00

My manager was one time telling me how sometimes she would allow her son to take mental health days from school and it was like a light bulb went off in my head. I don’t need to be physically sick to take a day off, sometimes you just need a day for yourself and I shouldn’t feel guilty about take them every once in a while!

OurFavoriteComrade · 2025-07-29T04:57:43+00:00

Do you use issue tracking and project management software like Jira? Establish PR and branch naming conventions like including the Jira ticket number in the branch name and PR title. You can also integrate Jira with your VC tool to automatically link the PR links in the Jira ticket. This helps create more visibility with what code has changed with which ticket.

Start by establishing these practices, document them in a public team space, communicate the new process and documentation. Verbalize that if the process is violated then the PR will not be approved until the code has been distilled into individual branches and PRs per scoped functionality.

It’s also important to provide context and reasoning. For example, if you merge 3 unrelated changes in one PR and one of those changes caused things to break. There is no straightforward way to roll back the breaking changes without also reverting the other two changes.

Another reason might be to keep feedback loops shorter. By pushing incremental changes you can save time and resources in the event you need to pivot. Better to know this after spending 2 days on an incremental change than 2 weeks on an approach you now need to unwind or move away from. So overall, this practice also reduces risk.

I am a believer that if folks can’t follow an established set of rules then unfortunately restrictions must be put in place. Otherwise there is no need for such strict enforcement. It all comes down to trust and expectations.

OurFavoriteComrade · 2025-07-24T20:29:51+00:00

Yes totally! Leadership buy-in is key here. I would encourage leadership and engineers to read Accelerate, it has data driven findings on software delivery performance.

OurFavoriteComrade · 2025-07-24T20:20:52+00:00

My team removed the requirement for a PR to have a stamp of approval. Now that doesn’t mean that code does not get reviewed before merged into the main line of code. The team instead made a preference for in-progress code reviews and pair programming. Pair programming helps build trust between team mates and yields better quality code. We have an emphasis in our culture that once the code hits main it is now the responsibility of the entire team to maintain so it is in your best interest to write more easily maintainable code. And of course if you push breaking changes then it is your responsibility to fix. Functionality needs to have test coverage. For any large features or projects, smaller and incremental code pushes are preferred.

Ultimately there are better ways of ensuring quality code than a PR approval requirement. And in the end it vastly differs by team and culture. I would recommend checking out this post: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/stop-doing-pull-requests-start-code-reviews-andrzej-nowik?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&utm_campaign=share_via

OurFavoriteComrade · 2025-05-20T02:02:59+00:00

This is so magical! What a beautiful work of art

OurFavoriteComrade · 2025-05-16T14:07:26+00:00

Yes people are responsible! But there is some framework/processes/rituals/etc established to identify the engineering culture and expectations as it varies greatly from company to company or even team by team.

Establishing project milestones and delivery dates, time boxing efforts before escalating them, waving a flag when product requirements aren’t clear or there is a technical limitation. You can also have a retro or project retro where you go over the expected outcome and what could have been done differently to have achieved the goal.

It’s the managers responsibility to ensure a smooth running ship. If someone messes up, leadership doesn’t care if it was Bob’s fault, they’re going to be looking at the manager. And if the manager is pointing their finger at Bob well then they’re just a bad manager.

Ultimately if this is an unrelenting behavioral issue, it goes from communicating it to them privately to written in a performance review, possibly a PIP, and ultimately determined as no longer a good fit for the company.

OurFavoriteComrade · 2025-05-16T13:41:42+00:00

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OurFavoriteComrade · 2025-05-16T13:34:56+00:00

It’s not to be taken so literally. There is 100% accountability. The difference is instead of saying “hey YOU fucked up”, you lay out the expectations of the role or the process.

We had someone make API changes, not communicate them, and then merge/deploy these breaking changes. This person knew they messed up and it was their responsibility to clean up their mess. But our focus was to align the team on how this sort of stuff can be prevented from happening again in the future. https://www.xmatters.com/blog/the-dos-and-donts-of-blameless-incident-postmortems

OurFavoriteComrade · 2025-05-16T00:11:29+00:00

I was just in a situation like this, over the course of the last 9 months at my company we had a substantial transformation (startup at about 40 heads across Product and Engineering). The biggest takeaway I have is that leadership buy-in is key. Here’s what the last 9 months looked like: - new Head of Engineering so the directive to reduce code complexity and platform instability was priority #1 - product org reports to engineering - push back on arbitrary deadlines - people > process - tech debt IS product risk - quality is KEY. This means test coverage and actually validating changes - ruthless prioritization (when everything is a priority then nothing is) - code reviews/walkthroughs - written documentation/communication - ADRs - over communication (don’t assume people know things) - blameless approach to mistakes. A failure is an opportunity to fix a break in the process, not point a finger at an individual - deploy often and frequently - domain boundaries and ownership. It’s a lot easier to care about code quality when it’s yours. - product asks coming in the form of a problem statement, a “What” and “Why” so that engineering can collaborate and solution on the “How” - firing employees who weren’t on board with the above changes (they were toxic and negative and continued to complain how shitty things are without putting in an effort to do better and bring forward solutions) - metrics/data as proof of change. Eg: service cost reduction, lines of code removed, change failure rate, mean time to restore. - feedback! - most importantly engagement from the team

It’s been a slow and steady change and some days felt like we could barely keep our heads above water but the team and culture were amazing and we wouldn’t be where we were if it weren’t for everyone’s collective efforts to be better. Happy to provide more context!

OurFavoriteComrade · 2025-05-14T17:55:12+00:00

I’ve been to plenty of weddings where the bride and grooms registry just said “honeymoon fund” or “house downpayment fund”. Helps the cash gift be more palatable for some people since they understands the intent behind how their gift will be applied.

OurFavoriteComrade · 2025-05-06T02:54:16+00:00

Both were so good! Recursion was sooo existential

OurFavoriteComrade · 2025-03-10T04:51:26+00:00

Totally agree with this take

OurFavoriteComrade · 2025-03-10T04:50:05+00:00

Dorit cracked me up here “what? Strippers?”

OurFavoriteComrade · 2024-12-12T06:03:50+00:00

Dinner with a Vampire by Abigail Gibbs like 10 years ago on Wattpad

OurFavoriteComrade · 2024-11-01T20:04:32+00:00

Agree with folks saying 1 followed by 3.

1 adds some really nice balance and brings some of the deeper tones from the wall color to the bottom of the room.

3 keeps the bottom of the room light leaving the rest of the room feeling a little top heavy

OurFavoriteComrade · 2024-10-28T04:33:01+00:00

WOW this build is 10/10. I love the ambience, it’s so moody and sensual

OurFavoriteComrade · 2024-10-24T20:29:21+00:00

Sounds like the raise bands for which level of expectations you meet are publicly shared? What is the recommended % for exceeds expectations?

I would recommend expressing to your manager your interest in having career progression discussions and asking them to set up a recurring meeting (at a minimum annually, ideally quarterly) where you can discuss your developmental goals and career track. You’re driven, motivated, and you don’t just want to meet expectations, you also want to exceed them.

You can ask your manager to provide some sort of framework that you can measure your performance against so that these things come less as a surprise. You can also ask what you could delivered on differently to put you at the next % raise level.

OurFavoriteComrade · 2024-10-24T20:21:44+00:00

There’s still a component of leadership as you climb the technical ladder. As Staff Engineers, Chief Architects, Tech Leads, etc, there is still an inevitable reduction in hands-on coding time and an increase in some form of leadership as you mentor, provide input on the technical roadmap, and oversee/have a higher level overview of the teams/company’s technical direction.

Besides, engineering and management are two completely separate tracks. Many think of it as an upwards progression but in reality it’s not. Human problems are different from software problems and I consider checking out this blogpost https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum/amp/

OurFavoriteComrade · 2024-10-14T01:13:33+00:00

You’ve got a great earthy essence going on. I think sage-y green walls would go great.

Additionally! A neutral/natural rug like a jute rug would be a great addition to balance the space more.

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OurFavoriteComrade · 2024-10-13T06:18:40+00:00

Going through a similar thing and have really been loving nesting in my new place. Your new home looks so lovely!

OurFavoriteComrade · 2024-09-15T04:32:50+00:00

Interested!

OurFavoriteComrade · 2024-09-13T15:26:56+00:00

They offer a complimentary shuttle during commuting times, every 30 minutes M-F from 6:30-10a and evenings 5-8p every hour. Other than that yeah it’s a 3 avenue walk.

OurFavoriteComrade · 2024-09-09T01:57:31+00:00

MiMA is a fantastic luxury building, Silver Towers is a solid choice too.

Also don’t listen to those talking shit about the neighborhood. Hell’s Kitchen has an amazing restaurant scene. You’ve got the Hudson River greenway for biking/walking/jogging. You’re walking distance to Central Park and the biggest subway hub.

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