The Weekly Gist
Learn practical, straightforward methods to boost your soft skills and enhance your career as a software engineer because you are so much more than a developer.
What "Full Stack" Really Means
Helping you learn practical, straightforward methods to boost your soft skills and enhance your career as a software engineer. Weekly Newsletter January 21st, 2025 What "Full-Stack" Really Means You've undoubtedly seen the term "full-stack developer" everywhere. At a high level, it means someone who can work on both front-end and back-end systems. Unfortunately, "full stack" often means vastly different things to different companies. Check out these job descriptions... A full-stack job...
Stop Juggling: Regain Your Focus to Achieve More
Helping you learn practical, straightforward methods to boost your soft skills and enhance your career as a software engineer. Stop Juggling: Regain Your Focus to Achieve More Do you ever feel like the more you take on, the less you actually achieve? It’s not your workload; constantly switching between tasks drains your focus and energy. Context switching, the habit of jumping rapidly between tasks, steals your time and mental clarity. Research shows it can reduce productivity by up to 40%,...
Remote, In-Person, or Hybrid: Where Do You Thrive?
Helping you learn practical, straightforward methods to boost your soft skills and enhance your career as a software engineer. Weekly Newsletter January 7th, 2025 Remote, In-Person, or Hybrid: Where Do You Thrive? Remote work sounds like a dream for most tech professionals—no commute, flexible hours, and working from the comfort of your home. But let’s be honest: it’s not always smooth sailing. Even the best engineers can struggle with remote setups, facing challenges like isolation,...
Finding Value in the "Boring" Work
Helping you learn practical, straightforward methods to boost your soft skills and enhance your career as a software engineer. Weekly Newsletter December 31st, 2024 Finding Value in the "Boring" Work Not every project will be exciting. Sometimes, it's debugging old code, processing endless data requests, or updating documentation no one's looked at in years. These tasks don't make headlines—or the top of your resume. But here's the thing: these projects actually matter. They're where you can...
How to Become Resilient
Helping you learn practical, straightforward methods to boost your soft skills and enhance your career as a software engineer. Weekly Newsletter December 24th, 2024 How to Become Resilient Setbacks are a part of every job, especially in technology. A tool update might disrupt your workflow, a bug can appear at the worst time, or a project might not go as planned. These moments can feel overwhelming but also present opportunities to grow and build resiliency. Resiliency is the ability to...
Becoming a Locksmith: How to Problem-Solve Like a Pro
Helping you learn practical, straightforward methods to boost your soft skills and enhance your career as a software engineer. Weekly Newsletter December 17th, 2024 How to Problem-Solve Like a Locksmith Let's start with a quick story: A locksmith is called to unlock a car. She arrives, examines the door, and opens it in 30 seconds. Shocked at the bill, the customer protests, "That only took you 30 seconds! I'm not paying you $200 for that!" The locksmith replies, "You're not paying for the...
Embracing Ambiguity to Build Better Solutions
Helping you learn practical, straightforward methods to boost your soft skills and enhance your career as a software engineer. Weekly Newsletter February 13th, 2024 Embracing Ambiguity to Build Better Solutions When building something new, it's easy to get caught in a cycle of overthinking. You want every detail nailed down before you take the first step, but that perfectionism can stall your progress. The secret is that you don't need to know everything to start. In fact, starting with a bit...
How to Avoid Becoming a Lone Wolf
Helping you learn practical, straightforward methods to boost your soft skills and enhance your career as a software engineer. Weekly Newsletter February 13th, 2024 How to Avoid Becoming a Lone Wolf How often do you feel like you're coding on an island, far from the rest of your team? You're not alone—many software engineers experience this, especially in remote settings. Being a "lone wolf" might feel productive initially—you get things done your way, on your timeline. But over time, this...
How to Ace the One Question You’re Asked at Every Interview
Helping you learn practical, straightforward methods to boost your soft skills and enhance your career as a software engineer. Weekly Newsletter November 26th, 2024 How to Ace the One Question You’re Asked at Every Interview "Tell me about yourself." This simple question—or a variation like “Let’s do introductions” or “Walk me through your background”—is almost guaranteed to appear in every interview. It’s broad, vague, and, let’s face it, not the best question. But it’s a staple. As someone...
How to Build Credibility by Pairing Problems with Solutions
Helping you learn practical, straightforward methods to boost your soft skills and enhance your career as a software engineer. Weekly Newsletter November 19th, 2024 How to Build Credibility by Pairing Problems with Solutions Have you ever brought up an issue at work and felt like it didn’t lead anywhere? It’s easy to point out problems—things that aren’t working or could be better—but what happens next? Think back to the last time you raised a concern with your team. Did you also suggest a...
Learn practical, straightforward methods to boost your soft skills and enhance your career as a software engineer because you are so much more than a developer.