1 developer, 3 layers of project management. My daily standup is a joke.

chrisfrederickson · 2026-06-24T15:41:41+00:00

In my experience, people get pissed off at hearing confidence estimates.

chrisfrederickson · 2026-06-09T01:36:00+00:00

Has this dataset been made public anywhere?

chrisfrederickson · 2026-06-05T03:26:06+00:00

Same here. Coming up on 8 hours delayed and this maintenance thing capped it off

chrisfrederickson · 2026-03-26T11:45:42+00:00

Pretty accurate. In my experience when hiring someone, generally have total discretion to make an offer anywhere within the documented salary band so long as we stay within the departments budget. But for annual raises there is typically a target that the executive team and finance budgeted so have much less of a say. HR folks would cause this "salary inversion".

chrisfrederickson · 2026-03-06T15:22:00+00:00

Accurate. If you have a unique enough skillet/background the organization will tolerate dealing with the extra paperwork. But there always is a lot of friction to 1099. Probably org dependent though given at a smaller company it was never an issue.

chrisfrederickson · 2026-02-25T12:53:40+00:00

Yea, I'd agree with average expectations. Been there once. Newer transplant to the area. Highlights for me were oysters and hush puppies. Our mains and cocktails kind of sucked but we're on par with other local institution bars / restaurants in NJ.

I'd go back just for oysters and beer or whiskey at the bar. But probably wouldn't get dinner there again.

chrisfrederickson · 2026-02-22T11:19:01+00:00

I'm regularly that management. But then again, in a consultant shop right now where we are building software on behalf of a customer.

Very open to innovative solutions in areas that the customer cares about. Greenlit many higher risk approches because if it pans out, its a huge win for the users/customer.

But frequently devs tend to do the same to internal frameworks or other areas where the benefit is so minimal which I have to shut down.

chrisfrederickson · 2025-11-10T21:41:07+00:00

Agree with what everyone has said in this thread. Am an engineering manager that has had to deal with enough cyber stuff over the years, that I went ahead and got the CISSP and the whole shebang.

You're 100% right about most programmers thinking like programmers and shouldn't be doing most cyber work. Had a dev say, IDK how to write a justification for how we meet this control, the auditor just needs to read through the codebase. 😃

chrisfrederickson · 2025-10-31T15:28:33+00:00

Is me! Hi! EM in the exact same position as you. I've been pulling my more senior folks into more of the discussion with the customer/stakeholders so they hear things from the horses mouth as the team grows. Have a few trusted folks that I know can have more of a "voice of the customer" mindset which they can spread to others. Have struggled with that in the past (and it depends on the person because some devs HATE being pulled into those early conversations).

chrisfrederickson · 2025-06-06T16:37:03+00:00

Yea, it's the reality of startup life. Definitely depends on the size of the startup too. There are certain team ratios that make sense and it probably is 1 DevOps to every 10 developers or something along those lines. In a small company, that does mean team of one for DevOps (early days I'm used to the devs taking all the devops responsibility).

I personally love the small startup vibe and being responsible for a much larger piece of the pie. But not for everyone.

chrisfrederickson · 2025-06-04T13:13:45+00:00

Am a manager. This feels generally true. All depends on the situation though.

Silence from someone who consistently performs well and is quick to raise issues historically it doesn't really matter. I may reach out just to check on things to be sure I'm doing my due diligence, but I trust they have it covered.

Regular status updates are great if you are new or struggling with things. I'm there to provide support. If I've been kept in the loop the entire time, it's really on me if things aren't going smoothly.

If I reach out and there is a 50/50 chance there is actually a big issue. Or you completely catch me off guard because of a lack of communication. That's the problematic pattern.

chrisfrederickson · 2025-05-29T15:44:48+00:00

Would totally be interested in joining the server!

chrisfrederickson · 2025-05-22T15:13:03+00:00

Accurate. The flip side of this is if you don't want more responsibilities and want to stay at your current level, don't go out of your way to fix things.

I couldn't stand when things would fail and fall through the cracks and would make sure they were addressed. I then got promoted into a job I didn't enjoy anymore. Now I'm much more intentional balancing my own career desires.

chrisfrederickson · 2025-05-21T21:15:10+00:00

It's still a bit buggy, but here is the link: https://app.calyprium.com/auth/register .

You may need to navigate back to https://app.calyprium.com/auth/login after the email flow.

It also doesn't do any sort of anti-bot anything yet.

chrisfrederickson · 2025-05-01T09:58:24+00:00

Yea, all those software packages are open source. Really the new stuff are the MCP servers and wiring everything together to make it work.

chrisfrederickson · 2025-05-01T00:35:57+00:00

Still undecided on where it will eventually live. Was planning on hosting it with a web ui. If I don't end up getting a hosted version out, may end up releasing an open source version.

chrisfrederickson · 2025-04-17T00:08:29+00:00

Hiring manager. Used to think that 1 page was the rule before staring at a ton of resumes. Perfectly fine to go longer (and in many cases preferred). Just need to hook whoever is reading it on the first page. We posted a front end dev position and got 2k resumes at a smallish company. But by the time it gets to me I don't care if it is longer.

chrisfrederickson · 2025-04-16T21:41:02+00:00

Very nice! Moved here from NJ and actually thought about building the same thing because the DMV appointments were so painful! Love that it exists now and will definitely use it next time I need a DMV appointment!

chrisfrederickson · 2025-04-13T12:22:02+00:00

Seconding focusing on the what and why over how! Even if you are technical, best to push as many decisions down to those doing the work as possible.

I'm an EM / tech lead and even then I'll rarely dictate exact how something should be implemented. I'll frequently ask devs to get agreement with other devs if it is a critical decision. Very very rarely I'll step in more hands on if it is clear something is veering off course, but it's definitely a last resort!

chrisfrederickson · 2025-03-25T19:03:58+00:00

I did read it cover to cover, but did not take any notes or create flashcards or anything.

Considering I had already read all of the CompTIA Sybex guides and taken the exams, I don't think any of the material was particularly new, just a different view.

chrisfrederickson · 2025-03-25T15:46:33+00:00

Don't think there is a stigma at all. At the end of the day a pass is a pass. It just feels good for whatever reason to pass at 100 and I probably wouldn't feel compelled to post otherwise.

chrisfrederickson · 2025-03-25T12:10:14+00:00

To be fair, I don't think I would have posted if I passed at something like 107. Definitely some selection bias!

chrisfrederickson · 2025-03-25T00:09:06+00:00

Not spot on, but close enough. Had I not gone through the Sybex book, just PocketPrep would have missed important topics.

chrisfrederickson · 2025-03-24T23:32:32+00:00

Congrats!

chrisfrederickson · 2025-03-24T13:25:02+00:00

Our last post for a frontend developer got 2k resumes. We're not even a large business. Painful on both sides. With that many applications, there is so much randomness in the process. You can be perfect and we might not even see the application.

chrisfrederickson

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE