Field notes,
in progress.
An irregular journal of software, leadership, and the occasional rant. Some pieces are practical. Some are me thinking out loud and hoping it’s useful to someone else.
Writing an effective self-assessment
Self-assessments in tech often feel like an awkward exercise in self-promotion mixed with forced introspection. But here's the thing: they're actually one of the most powerful tools you have for career advancement — if you approach them strategically.
Read piece ↝
How to rebuild your confidence after a job setback
Getting laid off, passed over for promotion, or having a project fail spectacularly feels like a gut punch. In tech, where we're used to solving problems and building things that work, professional setbacks can hit especially hard. Your confidence takes a beating, and suddenly you're questioning everything from your technical skills to your career choices.
Read piece ↝
tips for landing a promotion while working remotely
Remote work changed the promotion game. The old rules about being visible in the office don't apply when everyone's working from their kitchen table, but new challenges emerged around how to demonstrate value, build relationships, and position yourself for advancement when you're not physically present.
Read piece ↝
Building a remote culture
Building remote culture isn't about replicating office dynamics through video calls and virtual happy hours. It's about intentionally designing systems, processes, and norms that help distributed teams thrive. The companies that figured this out early gained a massive competitive advantage in talent acquisition and retention.
Read piece ↝
How to make the most out of working from home
Working from home isn't just about swapping your commute for coffee in pajamas. It's about designing a work environment and routine that actually makes you more productive, more focused, and more sustainable in your career. The people who excel at remote work treat it like a skill to develop, not just a perk to enjoy.
Read piece ↝
How to advance your career outside of the office
Your next career opportunity probably won't come from your manager or HR department. It'll come from someone who knows your work, respects your expertise, and thinks of you when opportunities arise. That person might be a former colleague, someone in your professional network, or even someone who discovered your work online.
Read piece ↝
How to showcase unpaid work experience on your resume
Your resume doesn't need to tell the story of a perfectly linear career path. In fact, some of the most valuable skills and experiences come from work you weren't paid for — open source contributions, volunteer projects, side projects, and community involvement that demonstrate capabilities traditional employment might never reveal.
Read piece ↝
Git Tip of the day -- Remove accidentally added files
We've all been there. You're working late, feeling productive, and you run git add . without thinking. Then you realize you just committed your .env file with production API keys, or that embarrassing debug log with customer data, or your personal notes with colorful commentary about the codebase.
Read piece ↝
Five workplace health hazards that could be silently sabotaging your productivity
Your office might be making you sick — and you probably don't even know it. While you're focused on shipping features and hitting sprint goals, your workplace could be quietly undermining your health and performance.
Read piece ↝
Seven job hunting strategies that actually work (and why most people get them wrong)
Job hunting doesn't have to feel like debugging legacy code at 2 AM. With the right approach, you can streamline the process and land opportunities that actually move your career forward.
Read piece ↝
How to handle workplace criticism like a senior developer
Workplace criticism hits different when you're used to code reviews that focus on logic, not ego. But handling feedback from humans requires a different skill set than debugging syntax errors.
Read piece ↝
Video meeting fatigue is a performance issue (and how to debug it)
Your video meetings are probably leaking cognitive resources faster than a memory leak in production. What started as a temporary solution to stay connected during 2020 has become a permanent drain on mental bandwidth.
Read piece ↝
Your home office setup is sabotaging your job search (and how to fix it)
Your job search success depends on more than just your resume and interview skills. If your home office looks like a debugging session gone wrong, you're undermining your professional effectiveness before you even start.
Read piece ↝
Managing up when your boss is a remote API (and how to optimize the connection)
Managing a remote boss is like working with a poorly documented API — you need to understand the interface, anticipate the inputs they need, and deliver consistent, reliable outputs even when you can't see what's happening on their end.
Read piece ↝
No spare room? How to architect a productive workspace in any living situation
Remote work doesn't require a dedicated office — it requires intentional space design. When you're competing with family activities, kitchen chaos, and living room distractions, you need to architect your workspace like you'd design a resilient system: adaptable, efficient, and optimized for your specific constraints.
Read piece ↝
Master Remote Work: A Developer's Guide to Home Office Success
Remote work isn't just about swapping your office chair for a kitchen table. It's a fundamental shift in how you approach productivity, focus, and career growth. After years of managing remote teams and optimizing my own home office setup, I've learned that success comes down to intentional systems and boundaries.
Read piece ↝
4 Tips to get your resume noticed
Using the CCAR method to get your resume noticed
Read piece ↝
Find What App is Hogging Your Port: A Developer's Detective Guide
You're trying to spin up your development server, and boom: "Port 3000 is already in use." Sound familiar? This scenario plays out daily in development environments worldwide. Sometimes it's obvious (your React app is still running from yesterday), but often it's a mystery process lurking in the background.
Read piece ↝