Dr Claire Knight

In case you missed it while prepping for Flag Day 🇺🇸 Happy State of Engineering Management Report Day happened this week! The annual thought leadership piece from Jellyfish has dropped. Hear from Engineering leaders, managers and frontline ICs .... we cover a range of topics that matter to great R&D leaders. Key Points: 1️⃣ Engineers are now strategic partners! 🙌 2️⃣ Burnout continues to be a challenge 😱 3️⃣ The talent shortage is spiking back up. 4️⃣ Many teams have embraced #AI 🧠 5️⃣ Others have legit concerns about AI ⁉ If #developerproductivity #genAI #engineeringexcellence are important to you .... have a read! (link in the Comments)

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I'm observing a team writing code as an ensemble without TDD. I am selfishly delighted in the confirmation of how valuable TDD is to me as I use it. The team is implementing a new function that's doing list of list manipulation and returning something. They are all over the place with naming things, creating objects, streaming, mapping, flattening maps, return object, variables, naming...so many squirrels. Too many squirrels to even really focus on "what's the simplest first thing we could do?" TDD is so much more than writing a test first. It's a framework that helps me focus, prioritize, structure, and order my thoughts. Test Driven Development is an immensely helpful design and focus tool. I should also note, that I am beginning of working with this team and meeting them where they are. #codelife #devlife #TDD #testdrivendevelopment #unittesting #designthinking #problemsolving #structuredthinking #focus #mindset #toomanysquirrels #codingchaos

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If you want to become a great software engineer... you might need to start doing your housework Lots of good thoughts in this talk bringing many ideas I couldn’t articulate front and center Technical Debt is not a cause but the effect of Technical Neglect. You can’t focus on everything, to focus is to attend to one thing exclusively. And therefore neglect / not attend to something else. In much the same way that when we cook to eat we make a mess that needs cleaning, so to does the act of building require tidying up 🧹. Working in a code base is not free unless your Middle Eastern mom/wife bless her soul is cleaning up after you. Software is not kick-able and our mind attends to hard kick-able 🦵 things better than ideas. Neglect is the absence of something happening, you only notice it when it’s debt kicks you Maintenance is a requirement for physical things that wear and tear, our interaction with code with our limited attention causes us to changes things without attending to other things, that is the wear and tear of software Prioritizings new requirements over technical work is a bit of an oxymoron, what are new requirements made of pixie dust? It’s all technical work. Fixing bugs isn’t maintenance, you don’t fix bugs you find them they were already there. Tidying up is. In software we use metaphors, because we don't have matter. metaphors is our matter, but metaphors by definition is similar not exact. Legacy tells you where you spend your time on. If you’re a having a design meeting, the system you built has veto on your decisions References the book your Code is a Crime scene When we're writing new code we have skill issues, we don't know how it should look like, we write what the tutorial looks like, so we incurs some debt, that's fine, we're borrowing, the problem is if we neglect. So why do we neglect, well in analogy to tech debt it would be the equivalent of not having a payment plan. The problem is unmanaged technical debt we could have a payment plan, but that's the managed technical debt, we may have an unmanaged technical debt problem, parts that are not in the payment plan The reason why software engineering has a tech debt neglect problem is because it's composed of people who don't like to do their housework.

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If you’re an engineering leader, this report about the current state of tech has some great insights. It’s super fascinating to see what the current common themes are.

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Talking with loads of #ios and #android engineers and leaders since my return from holiday last week. It seems there's still lots of questions around how long will it take the market to pick up! I'm getting asked 'Is it just the iOS market that's slow?' Err no, certainly not. 'Will the Android market pick up this year?' I don't have a crystal ball, but I do have optimism. "It cant stay slow forever!" I reassure them. There will be a bounceback! Let's talk..... When do you think the iOS and Android recruitment market will pick up? Are you already seeing the greenshoots of recovery? Have you got some inspirational words of positive stories to share with your fellow devs? Please let me know when you're commenting whether you're in the UK, Ireland or Europe! #androidengineer #iosengineer #uktechjobs #mobileapps #bounceback

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I don't often post things like this but I'm seeing a lot of misinformation around TDD and it not working or is a failure. I've been responsible for implementing or pushing TDD for over 15 years now and have gone through various different frameworks, and methods. When I joined SRL there was a growing bug problem, and zero worth unit, integration, or UI tests. Over the last three years Martin Thorne, Steve Pugh, Olufemi Adesina, Kathryn Beggs, and latest recruit Maude Williamson have worked diligently to create Unit, Integration and Cypress UI frameworks in place. The coverage for each is on average over 80% and continues to improve. It is the responsibility of developers to test their own code and is often the first line of defence against poor requirements. We're now averaging +1 bug/month reported from clients, and usually these are P3, P4s, or disguised scope creep. Simply put TDD DOES work - but as with any skill if you've not got genuinely experienced people then it's going to be a mess. *Ahem* Agile my eyes are on you.

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🔍 On the Lookout: Passionate about React Native and Product 🔍 A week into preparations for onward adventures so I thought it an idea to provide some details as to what an ideal role might look like for myself, to optimise further conversations: - Senior Product / Principal / Staff Engineer - A “tech for good” company - medical, agricultural, social - React Native / mobile app focused - Typescript, TDD, clean code - Product-focused agile (small “a”) development teams - Evidence of career progression opportunities For those also on the hunt, find below some of the things I have dug back out from the previous rounds of interviews, which might be of use. Recruitment platforms: - https://lnkd.in/eHRbc7-4 - https://cord.co - https://otta.com Tools: - Google Sheets: tracking applications and conversations is a must - Notion: I've used this to journal for the last 2 years and has been invaluable for populating CV's, cover letters, and interview prep - Figma: I have moved to Figma for my CV template - Wall calendar: a custom print so I can easily track interviews and preparation progress, as well as constant awareness of my deadline :D - Personal summary: A text snippet of the "things I'm looking for" to optimise initial comms Resources (most viewed): - https://www.hackerrank.com - https://lnkd.in/exhk2Dz7 - https://roadmap.sh/guides If you would like to discuss opportunities, or a fellow engineer looking to chat through anything of interest, please feel free to reach out. #lookingforwork #opentowork #fullstack #react #reactNative #seniorEngineer #SoftwareEngineer #CareerJourney

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Top tip for "No Code" integration solutions: Only use them if it can be done internally (i.e. someone in the business is has the technical ability to build and manage them) and the monthly platform bill is < £500. If you are paying a third party to build no code integrations - you may as well get them custom built so that you avoid the high ongoing fees and scalability issues that come with a no code platform. As the business scales you'll reach a point where it is more cost effective to do this anyway.

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The secrets of how experienced engineering leaders accelerating growth of new Tech Leads... 𝘔𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘴𝘦𝘵 + 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 + 𝘚𝘶𝘱𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵 + 𝘍𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 = 𝗦𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘀𝗲𝘁 Individual focus → 𝗧𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗳𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 𝗣𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 I love Andy Grove's definition 𝘓𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘫𝘶𝘥𝘨𝘦𝘥 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘱𝘶𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦. Although I prefer to use the term 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀. It's possible for a team to product a lot of output but not much value! 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱? A team scoped Tech Lead can have many flavours. Is team leadership included? What about line management? What about delivery? Clarity is key 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 Engineer → Tech Lead is a tricky transition. Holding more frequent 1:1's initially Seek feedback from team Stay close 𝗙𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 We all make mistakes when taking on new responsibilities  Provide both reenforcing and corrective feedback Observations + Impact = Actionable feedback Learn from mistakes Celebrate the wins P.S How do you support new Tech Leads?

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Join me next week at #LeadDev London to talk about "How do you know where to focus your attention as a staff+ leader?"

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Trying to hire a junior to mid-level engineer in Scotland with great benefits and remote working is hard... https://lnkd.in/eQNHVqGR Not because the role isn't attractive (you'd be working on exciting large-scale system infrastructure challenges writing code with Golang - 1,000's of Kubernetes clusters, 10,000s of cloud VMs) or because the team are all crazy (they're thought leaders in their field including multiple upstream Kubernetes contributors from 3 continents!)... you got me... maybe there's a little crazy - but only the good kind! No... my challenge is whether this AI-generated image to go with my LinkedIn post makes any sense! I never have much luck with images containing generated text. Even using prompts like "spell check any text" or as is the case with this one "do not include any text" doesn't seem to work. Not to mention, I know what a Scottish Terrier is... but that "thing" in the bottom right looks more like an angry, tartan-wearing Capybara. Comment below for your biggest concerns with this image... or if you're a junior/mid-level, talented software engineer based in Scotland - maybe just skip over the image and apply online - https://lnkd.in/eQNHVqGR

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Why did you do this? a friend asked me a few days ago and I think I now have the answer. Some things we do don't necessarily have a clear purpose or goal when we do them but we do them anyway. It is only later that we discover why - and this was the case with this project. About 10 years ago, I decided I wanted to build an app for the Google Play store and I had an idea for what I thought would be an interesting game. Leverage a physics engine to model a rope, put some bugs on it and have the player think about the smartest way to solve the onslaught. After about 5 years ago, I ran out of time to support this app so I simply unpublished it. People that had installed it could keep playing it but no one could download it anymore. Earlier this year, talking to my now teenager son, I saw an opportunity to revive the game and teach him about launching an app on the app store. What seemed to have no purpose 10 years ago, now took upon a special meaning that would help my son learn truly what the effort involved in launching an app. And what an effort it was. After 3 months of team effort (this was almost as much effort to build the game!) we've finally relaunched BugRope. If you have an Android phone, you can download this simple, ad free, purchase free game and have 10 minutes of fun from here: https://lnkd.in/gmaKuP8G If you notice any bugs while playing the game, let me know 🤣. If you leave a nice review on Google Play that would be much appreciated

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Start a business around a problem... 12 years ago it was glaring how inefficient and often broken dev teams and/or services were at agencies... The Issues: offshore talent, poor comms, lack of quality, budgeting issues, too many technologies, no transparency, creative/tech disconnect, minimal focus on QA, and high turnover. The Solution: Focused production team comprised of Senior US-based engineers, over communication, well documented/architected code, data-driven budgeting, broad technical specialization, lead with QA, process-driven development, effective cross dept collaboration, tools & systems for full transparency. Key Success Drivers: - Invest in existing clients above all. - Under promise & over deliver. - Technical Production Leads that are engineers by trade and are great client-facing. - Peace of mind is worth its weight in gold. - Always lead with honesty. - Ask a lot of questions.

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Why do I favour practices like developer testing, TDD, refactoring and continuous integration? It's to enable rapid & sustained evolution of production-ready software. The odds of delivering the right thing in a single pass are so remote that many iterations are likely required. And even when we hit the bullseye, it's almost always a moving target. Not least because putting software into an environment has a tendency to change that environment and the problems we need to solve.

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My latest on Paragraph: Quickstarts Are Recipes - Developers Are Bakers My plea is that developers stop overcomplicating their quickstart guide when building software. Treat your quickstart like a recipe: - Start with a desired outcome, much like a baked good, and get that developer from 0 -> 1 - Set a 'prep time' and 'baking time' that are clear and won't take someone an entire afternoon - Make limited assumptions and make sure you list every single "ingredient" down to what version of a particular library might be a prerequisite or environment constraints - Finally, don't let your quickstart go stale - you want them to buy your cookbook after they follow your recipe. https://lnkd.in/eFDjGR7U

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Interesting discussion with Dave Farley and Emily Bache. There are a lot of things that I agree with in it, however the one main sticking point that I have is that a true "engineer" in the more common incarnations, Mechanical, Civil, etc, require registration and licensing from a local state/district and/or governing body. I'd LOVE for programming to have such a system, but we currently don't. That's one reason why I settle with code craft and call myself a crafter. I agree it's not a perfect term, but to me its better than giving the false impression that there's a standard of skillset or understanding like other engineering disciplines. What do you think? https://lnkd.in/gXqmkden

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Here's a concise representation of your ML platform, courtesy of Laszlo Sragner.

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I think I'm coming to realise that one of my more unusual traits as a programmer - and one that has led me to preferring processes like TDD, is I'm obsessed with how code *looks and feels* before I can even make it work. My design process is more "how do I want to express this concept" than "how do I execute this task". Once I find the right form for a concept, I then work backwards and drive out tests that help me make it work. I think a lot of people do the opposite, and try make something work before finding its form. This is reflected in the phrase "working, readable, fast - in that order", but I think I've landed on "expressive, working, fast" ordering now. I'm not making a particular value judgement here - but I think finding the shape in everything is an aesthetic tactic you need if you're going to build software other programmers will consume. It's the design work.

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When people ask me why I got into dev, I always say "well, it all started with a crazy idea". That's pretty much the ethos that I go by with everything I do; in fact the best projects I work on are the ones where the client says "well, I'm not even sure this is possible, but...". So yes, we do the standard stuff like eCommerce and databases, but we also do some really interesting stuff with connectivity, AI intergration, and interactive elements that people didn't even know were possible until they see it for the first time. No matter how big or small, it always starts with that one idea, that one feeling that gives you the urge to reach out and see what's possible. Now you've got that idea, let us help you put the rest of the pieces together to create something really cool: nathan@snookdigital.co.uk #TechSupport #WebDevelopment #webdev #plugins #customdev #anythingispossible

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