Articles on Self-improvement

Taking Ownership Is The Most Effective Way to Get What You Want

In 1967, American psychologist Martin Seligman discovered that our perception of control greatly shapes our choices and behavior. In an oft-cited study, he subjected two groups of dogs to electrical shocks. In the first group, the dogs could press a lever to end the shock. In the second, the lever did nothing; the shocks appeared to continue for random durations, and the dogs in this group could do nothing to... (more)

How to Transition from Average Engineer to 10x Engineer

Can an average engineer develop technical skills that surpass 10x the abilities of his or her peers? Unlikely. Can an engineer of average technical ability develop into an individual contributor who produces 10x the impact of his or her peers? With the right mindset and skill development, absolutely. The key to making that transformation is understanding the distinction between those two questions. (more)

Master Adjacent Disciplines

“Should I focus on becoming a generalist or a specialist? Which route better sets myself up for career success?” Engineers who already know the importance of learning and of investing in themselves often ask these questions and wonder where to best spend their time. You can find effective engineers who create successful careers by becoming deeply proficient experts in their field — whether they’re experts in machine learning, systems infrastructure,... (more)

The Single, Most Valuable Lesson I’ve Learned in My Professional Life

I worked long hours at Ooyala, the first startup that I joined after leaving Google. There were weeks where my team and I would work 70-80 hours and hardly any weeks where we worked fewer than 60. Like many teammates, I’d work in the office during the day and then continue to work from home after dinner. Even over holidays or vacations, I’d still be chugging away on my laptop... (more)

10 Ways to Leverage Resources at Your Company to Improve Your Programming Skills

An engineer who works at a well-known tech company asked me anonymously on Quora for some advice on how he or she could improve his or her programming skills. If you’ve ever wondered something similar and are looking for some new ways to become a more effective software engineer, you might find the ten suggestions in this blog post helpful. Start by carving out 20% of your time to devote... (more)

What Research on Happiness and Motivation Can Tell Us About Finding Meaning in Our Work

In The Upside of Irrationality, behavioral economist Dan Ariely describes an experiment he conducted to measure how the meaning of work impacts the motivation for work. In the experiment, he recruited Harvard students who loved Legos to build Lego Bionicle robots and paid them decreasing amounts for each additional robot built; the first completed robot earned $2, the next $0.11 less ($1.89), the third another $0.11 less ($1.78), and so... (more)

There’s More to Learn and Grow Than You Might Think

Are we all born with a fixed amount of intelligence? Or is our intelligence a malleable quantity that can be improved upon through experience and hard work? It turns out that our belief systems about intelligence impact the types of goals that we set for ourselves and our attitudes toward learning. In one social science experiment, psychologist Carol Dweck divided New York City 7th graders in several public schools into... (more)

“A comprehensive tour of our industry's collective wisdom written with clarity.”

— Jack Heart, Engineering Manager at Asana

“Edmond managed to distill his decade of engineering experience into crystal-clear best practices.”

— Daniel Peng, Senior Staff Engineer at Google

“I wish I had this manual to give my engineers when I was a VP of Engineering at Twitter. This summarizes and presents everything I used to tell my team.”

— Raffi Krikorian, Engineering Director at Uber

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“A comprehensive tour of our industry's collective wisdom written with clarity.”

— Jack Heart, Engineering Manager at Asana

“Edmond managed to distill his decade of engineering experience into crystal-clear best practices.”

— Daniel Peng, Senior Staff Engineer at Google

“I wish I had this manual to give my engineers when I was a VP of Engineering at Twitter. This summarizes and presents everything I used to tell my team.”

— Raffi Krikorian, Engineering Director at Uber

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Grow Your Skills Beyond the Book

Listen to podcast interviews with top software engineers and watch master-level videos of techniques previously taught only in workshops and seminars.

Consistently deliver business value — become the key person your team trusts to ship business-critical initiatives.
Study in-depth interviews with leaders from Google, Facebook, Dropbox, Stripe, and Instagram — double down on their highest-leverage investments, and avoid their most costly mistakes.
Pick the right projects most likely to propel you up the career ladder — including the nuances of how the criteria change as you get more senior.

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