If you had asked 22-year-old me what my “career aspirations” were, I would have looked at you blankly and then casually changed the subject to what programs you’d recommend to model cute 3D bunnies for a video game, or whether the writers of Alias would be so devious as to…

I wish I knew these things when I started — This coming July marks my 3rd year at Google. With my approaching Googleversary, I’ve been musing about my journey from an anxious new grad to a prosperous SWE. I joined in 2019 right after graduating from The Ohio State University with a B.S in Computer Science and Engineering. I remember…

The memo below was sent to the team at Tiny Speck, the makers of Slack, on July 31st, 2013. It had been a little under seven months since development began and was two weeks before the launch of Slack’s ‘Preview Release’. It is presented verbatim, as written (including original pull-quotes)…

With skill stacking, you don’t need to be at the top to be extraordinary — Consider what it takes to become an NBA player. Most of them have been honing their skills on the basketball court practically since infancy. Years of countless practices, camps, and games have helped each player develop a skill set based around shooting, ball-handling, passing, defense, and anything else that brings…

Over 1 mm people have used our free, powerful Resume Reviewer, and 91% say they found it useful. Our reviewer is based on our 15 years experience of reviewing, writing, and perfecting professionals’ resumes, and we’ve collected even more good feedback and insights in the past year. I’ve also recently…

3 years spent eating, sleeping, and breathing data science — When I got my first corporate “data scientist” gig a few years ago, I barely knew what a decision tree was, I had no clue about why people kept talking about random forests, and I had no grasp on what people actually meant when they talked about “AI,” which to…

Meetings are a critical tool for building a diverse, high-performance team with shared values — There over 7 million Google and 13,000 Giphy search results for “hate meetings”. There are almost as many for “love meetings” but that is just irony. Beyond that there are countless posts on time and money wasted in meetings — ”This Company Spent 300,000 Hours a Year in Pointless Meetings”…

First your boss loves you, then they dislike you. Here’s how Black women can manage the icy transition. — When I started my first job as an attorney eight years ago, I was full of excitement. I had managed to secure the position despite a significant reduction in entry level positions due to the 2009 financial crisis. The summer before landing my role, I was an intern at the…

We funnel our highest achievers into consulting and finance — and it’s hurting all of us — In today’s society, there is a well-established prestige pathway. If you attend a high-ranking university, it’s very likely you’ll end up with a job in consulting and/or investment banking. In 2017, nearly 40 percent of Harvard graduates took consulting or finance jobs. That statistic remains equal or higher across other…

No one sets out to become a bad boss. Yet, slowly but surely, it’s easy to become the bad manager we all dread. Times are stressful. You’re trying to make things happen. You notice your team isn’t as engaged as they should be. You can feel your patience getting shorter…

Realities, attributes, and coping tips for any company, startup to bigco, performance review system. — Michael Lynch wrote a fascinating, albeit somewhat disheartening, post on his personal experience with Google’s performance review and promotion process. There was quite a bit of discussion so I thought I’d update this post from 2013 on the topic. Much has been written recently about performance ratings and management at…

Smart self-assessment plus clearly defined requests for feedback can prevent imposter syndrome—and being caught off-guard by hidden weaknesses. — After I had my first baby, I took three months off from work before returning. I knew the transition back would be hard, but I was not prepared for a “Winter is Coming” kind of difficult. A few weeks in, I found myself overwhelmed by every little thing. My mind…

To be a great hiring manager don’t be distracted by rockstar engineers, study up on network theory. As a manager I like to build teams out of spare parts. I hire candidates who are rejected from other pipelines, I pick up people with middling performance in other teams, sometimes I…

Here are a few things I’ve learned about competitors while working for or starting four different startups (Odeo, Wesabe, CrowdVine, Coach.me). Competitors don’t matter. If you’re going to get technical about it, worrying or planning for competitors doesn’t matter. Competitors will find a way to put themselves out of business…

Job interviews are mostly nonsense. According to Ron Friedman, a psychologist and author of “The Best places to work”, 80% of people lie during their interviews — so if that's the case, the information you’re hearing is likely fiction, or at best, inspired by real-world events. On top of that…

Hiring is harder than ever — but that doesn’t mean you should compromise on who joins your team. Or maybe, it means you need to select for something deeper than “years of experience in a similar role/function.” I have a rule that has guided hiring strategy at my last two…

A culture of being busy may be wounding our souls — “I am so busy.” I am not exactly sure when I found myself in a position where this statement felt like a 2-in-1 boast and complaint. Perhaps I first started feeling this in high school, when having a social life, good grades, and sleep all seemed to be working in…

Advice for high performers in any company — Since starting my own business as a leadership coach, I’ve spoken with a lot of folks who are at a crossroads in their careers. Should they become a manager, or should they continue to pursue excellence in their craft? Are those paths mutually exclusive? …

You probably do a lot of one-on-one meetings at work: with your manager, teammates, folks from other teams. Unfortunately, most people totally waste their 1:1 time. The problem: the 1:1s aren’t awkward enough. Here’s how to make them better. (This is part of a series. Check out Part 2 as…