This week on the podcast, Lillie & I discuss:
- Lillie's list of red flags and disqualifiers for a new job
- How to make a go/no-go decision about your current work
- Why you need to revisit your list of red flags regularly at any job
- Ways that your list of red flags might change over your career
I write something new for 2k software developers every day. Join the daily list:
https://bennettgarner.ck.page
30 Jan 2024
Finding a good developer job that matches your needs
Welcome back to the Meaning in Code podcast - starting season 2! In this episode:
- Lillie briefs us on her new developer job search
- We discuss rank-order priorities in a team, culture, learning, compensation, and more
- How to check in if your current job is/isn't meeting your needs
I write something new for 2k software developers every day. Join the daily list:
https://bennettgarner.ck.page/
31 Oct 2023
Doing a PUBLIC RETRO of our own podcast
This week on the Meaning in Code podcast, we take a look back on season 1. We performed a classic retrospective to see what we learned, our wins, and where we want to improve. In the retro, we discussed:
- What surprised us about producing 12 episodes of the podcast
- Our biggest successes from launching something new
- The challenges we faced & where we want to improve
- Feedback you can give us to decide whether we release a season 2
Leave us a reply to let us know what you think!
Daily email to 2k software developers: https://bennettgarner.ck.page/youtube
24 Oct 2023
Is COASTING bad for your developer career?
This week on the podcast, we talk about a friend who has reached the level of Senior Software Engineer & now feels like they're coasting, not learning too much or feeling challenged.
Covered in this episode:
- Is coasting bad for your career trajectory as a programmer?
- Will not pushing myself in my current job make the next job harder to get?
- Good questions to ask yourself to figure out what to do next
- How to deal with pressure or judgment from other people for working less
Notes:
- Incredibox: https://www.incredibox.com/demo/
I publish something new every day for software developers. Get the daily email here: https://bennettgarner.ck.page/youtube
10 Oct 2023
Confronting the pressure to work nights & weekends
In this week's episode, we discuss team culture around work expectations, feeling like you need to work late, and what you can do about it.
Talking points:
- The difference between flexible work schedules and the expectation to be flexible
- How to set your boundaries & maintain them with your team
- The ways Lillie & Bennett have influenced team culture around working late
- What are your options if working nights & weekends is the norm at your company?
Join 2k other developers who get the daily email: https://bennettgarner.ck.page/
3 Oct 2023
Is a meaningful career possible in tech?
This week on the Meaning in Code podcast, we go deep! Is any of this worth talking about? Or, are is it foolish to look for purpose at work? Talking points:
- Lillie's coworkers challenged the premise of a meaningful career. Isn't work what you do for money?
- Why it's helpful to think of problems at the macro & micro scales while trying not to mix the two
- The Venn diagram model of work & meaning/purpose
- Why it's often harder to break bad habits than to make new ones
Give it a listen & let us know what you think!
Join the daily email list with 2k other software developers: https://bennettgarner.ck.page/
26 Sept 2023
Do developers have shorter careers?
How do software engineering careers compare to those in other fields? Is your engineering career really likely to end more quickly than your peers? And for goodness sake, how can you squeeze making a full meal into the middle of your day?
Discussed in this episode:
- Why the relatively smaller number of engineers in their 50s and beyond may tell us more about engineering’s history than its future
- Gatekeeping in the engineering industry as compared to other fields
- The (negative) power of being undervalued at work
- Burnout is not a personal failing! And will probably come back again
- 20 year plans may not pan out, but having some sort of exit plan might serve you
Join 2k other developers who get the daily email: https://bennettgarner.ck.page/
20 Sept 2023
How to advance in your software developer career
In this week's episode of the *Meaning in Code* podcast, we're talking about how to advance in your career. What habits, routines, and mindsets take you from newbie coder to value-creating engineer?
Discussed in this episode:
- Why your job is less about coding the more you grow in seniority
- Overwhelm is normal! How do you decide what's most important?
- The path from learning to autonomy to guiding others
- How the later steps on your career path rely on coping with ambiguity & relinquishing control
Join 2k other developers who get the daily email: https://bennettgarner.ck.page/youtube
12 Sept 2023
Starting a new developer job? Here's what to do in the first 90 days.
Starting a new job can be intense as a software developer, but with a few key steps you can set yourself up for success.
In this week's episode, we give our best advice on:
- Ramping up quickly on the tech stack & codebase
- Why establishing relationships might be more important than getting deep in the code
- How to ask good questions that uncover new knowledge without worrying that you'll seem dumb
- Ways you can produce value for the company, even before you have a strong grasp on the code
Daily email list for developers: https://bennettgarner.ck.page/
5 Sept 2023
The next CODING skill you should learn & how to choose
This week we talk about a recurring question for software developers... How do you decide what to learn next?
Highlights from this episode:
- Resources for how to discover things you don't know about
- Why adjacency is one of the best heuristics for what to learn next
- Shiny object syndrome & why to avoid it
- How to stay up to date in your field without needing to learn every new thing that comes along
Daily email list: https://bennettgarner.ck.page
22 Aug 2023
Your dev career is more than just your job
Your developer career can be more than the job you happen to have at any given time. How do you move your career forward meaningfully outside of the job you do each day?
We talk about:
- Is your job just the thing you do for money?
- Why Bennett writes online for free & will continue to do so
- The macroeconomic shift of no longer staying at one job for your whole career
- How Lillie's current non-dev job fits into the story of her career
17 Aug 2023
How to combat imposter syndrome (+ more Q&A topics)
Lillie & Bennett are back with a Q&A episode where we tackle some difficult, big topics in software development.
Covered in this episode:
- Mindsets for combating impostor syndrome
- Lillie's exact study plan for excelling in technical interviews
- Strategies for overcoming coding roadblocks
- What to do when team dynamics & culture are a challenge
Get on the daily email list: https://bennettgarner.ck.page
8 Aug 2023
How do you define your own meaning in your software career?
This week we get practical with tips on how to make difficult decisions in your career as a software engineer.
How to determine what matters to you in a job (weighing the tradeoffs)
Navigating changing requirements when our needs, wants, and capacities change throughout our careers
Leaving room to be surprised by meaning and purpose that you didn't expect
A tangible tool for finding your answers to these questions (Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson's Action Venn Diagrams & Ikigai)
Lillie's website/Twitch: https://lillie.dev
Daily email list with over 2000 other developers: https://bennettgarner.ck.page/youtube
1 Aug 2023
Can a developer career have meaning & purpose?
Bennett Garner is joined by Lillie Schachter for the first episode of a podcast about building a meaningful developer career.
This week, we address the topic head on - what might make a career meaningful?
Talking points:
- What role does a values-aligned company play in meaning/purpose?- Why what you're building matters (but maybe not as much as you'd think)
- The role of team culture & mentorship in your feeling of belonging & wellbeing
- The tradeoffs of creating a career trajectory, while not sacrificing your happiness to a corporate ladder
- How we find meaning outside of coding & why it's okay for your job to not be the main source of meaning in your life
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