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It takes more than great code to be a great engineer. Soft Skills Engineering is a weekly advice podcast for software developers about the non-technical stuff that goes into being a great software developer.
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Host Mary Wesley takes you behind the caller's mic to explore perspectives from the people who choose to stand in that curious place between the band and a roomful of dancers. Featuring conversations with callers of American social dance forms (contras, community dances, trad squares). Why do they do it? How did they learn? What is their role, on stage and off, in shaping our dance communities?
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In each episode Adam interviews somebody who works in the web world as a designer, developer, manager, advocate, or founder. These are people who have built something awesome or are experts in something awesome. Together we're all building the web of tomorrow.
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Episode 408: Terrible retrospectives and "hard to work with"
33:38
33:38
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I am an electrical engineer working on and off with software for about 15 years. From mainframe applications with Cobol and PL/1 to plant floor supervisory systems with SCADA and some.Net along the way. 6 years ago my husband got an offer to move to Europe and I came along. Had to reinvent m…
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Episode 407: I'm too territorial and should I quiet quit?
25:53
25:53
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25:53
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I am a data scientist and have been at my company for 2 years. Each of the data scientists on my team specialize in a different area of the business (growth, marketing, etc). I have developed a reputation for being the expert in my area and have worked really hard to understand my domain. I …
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Episode 406: Acquired taste and limited mentorship
27:54
27:54
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27:54
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Listener Brad asks, I am currently a Senior Engineer with a small software company. I have been developing software for more than 20 years. We were recently acquired by another mid sized company. Since the acquisition, things have been going downhill. It feels like they’re trying to nickel a…
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Episode 405: Scaled agile pain and top-heavy team
34:24
34:24
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34:24
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: One and a half year ago, I joined my current team as a tech lead, in an organisation that uses ‘Scaled Agile’. This was my first time joining an organisation that employed dedicated Scrum masters. In previous organisations, the role of Scrum master would usually fall upon a team member that …
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Episode 404: Interview comedy and talking pay while new
28:25
28:25
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28:25
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: “Hello,Is it considered ok to be a bit funny during an interview?To give more context:In a recent interview, I progressed up to the final cultural-fit round after clearing all technical rounds at a well-known company.One of my interviewer asked how I would deal with conflicts with a peer. In…
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Episode 403: Massaging the software and career never-never-land
31:38
31:38
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I’m a bootcamp graduate working on a career shift from massage to software development. How much of my previous career should I bring into my résumé? I’ve been building projects in public, and doing open source contribution in a part-time capacity for the past two years, but ultimately have …
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See the From the Mic website for great bonus content, including pictures and audio, transcripts, and more. Click here to download the transcript directly. And the Country Dance and Song Society for information about Contra and English country dance across the continent Sound bites featured in this episode (in order of appearance): Cis calling the d…
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Episode 402: It's all on fire and title inflation
32:42
32:42
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32:42
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Happy Birthday Dave and congrats on the 400 episode milestone! Last year I was recruited away from my cushy Sr Dev role at Chill MegaCorp to an exciting technical leadership role at Fast-Paced MegaCorp. It felt like a huge level up since I had always wanted to pick up some of the softer comm…
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Episode 401: I AM the superstar and pro-rated raise
30:24
30:24
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30:24
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: A listener named Metal Mario asks, A few weeks back in Episode 395 you talked about working with a superstar teammate. I feel like for our team, I’m the superstar. We’re a small software team in a large non-software company. I joined a year ago and very quickly took on a lot of responsibilit…
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Episode 400: Underperforming intern and upskilling
32:03
32:03
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32:03
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I’m a junior software engineer who has been placed in charge of a handful of graduates and interns who have joined my team. The project is fairly technical. For the first two weeks, the new starters were pair programming. That went well, and after talking to each new starter they were eager …
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Episode 399: Higher paid than my boss and crossing over to management
30:34
30:34
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30:34
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Listener Jim asks, I am currently a senior software engineer in a well funded (but not profitable yet) startup. I am highly effective and well regarded, to the point where the tech lead also comes to me with questions and always takes my technical input onboard.I also get along very well wit…
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Episode 398: Tech lead for contractors and how to detach my ego from my work
28:26
28:26
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28:26
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: How do you mentor a junior-level contractor? My company has been hiring a lot of contractors lately. Sometimes they hire out a full team form the contracting shop to build a particular feature. Other times, it’s an individual developer, but with the same general mandate: implement some speci…
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See the From the Mic website for great bonus content, including pictures and audio, transcripts, and more. Click here to download the transcript directly. And the Country Dance and Song Society for information about Contra and English country dance across the continent Sound bites featured in this episode (in order of appearance): David calling a v…
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Episode 397: Skunkworks and too much work/life balance
25:51
25:51
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25:51
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Listener Davide says, I have a lot of ideas for significantly improving manufacturing processes, but management wants us to focus on business “priorities”. These are fun tasks such as making sure part numbers are replicated in two disconnected systems that have no way of talking to each othe…
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Episode 396: Enthusiastic scope creep and human search engine
35:44
35:44
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35:44
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: I’ve recently started a new Gig as a Senior Developer/Tech Lead at a company where we are our own clients, using the software we develop in-house. I’m encountering a bit of a hiccup, though. Our product owner, is primarily focused on support and doesn’t provide formal Acceptance Criteria. Th…
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Episode 395: Super star teammate and Getting better with no financial incentives
31:05
31:05
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31:05
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: Listener Bobby ForgedRequest asks One of my coworker, who is the nicest, most humble person I’ve ever met, is about twice as productive as I am! They’re super-uber productive! They close about 2-3x as many tickets as I do during the same sprint. For reference, I’m a software eng II and they’…
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See the From the Mic website for great bonus content, including pictures and audio, transcripts, and more. Click here to download the transcript directly. And the Country Dance and Song Society for information about Contra and English country dance across the continent. Sound bites featured in this episode (in order of appearance): Penn calling the…
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Episode 394: Scrum master, weapons master and minimum tenure to not look bad
29:21
29:21
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29:21
In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: My team are about 4 months into transitioning from a scrum/kanban way of working to a more traditional scrum/sprint way of working. I feel like our scrum master is “weaponising” some of the scrum practices in order to show up weak points and failures in the team, rather than working with the…
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Episode 393: Soft skills for interns and intern to QA
27:08
27:08
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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions: NK: Hi, I am starting a SWE internship at big tech company in a few weeks. Given the current state of the market, getting a return offer has gotten harder. I have a few software internships under my belt at this point but I am looking to excel in this internship. My goal is to get a full tim…
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