A primer on setting up your remote employee

Last night, I was talking with a tech lead of a local company. He was struggling with supporting two of his teammates who are newer to their roles (let’s call them Alyssa and Ben). Alyssa, like nearly all her teammates, works in the local office, and is…

How to interview your future manager

We often get the chance to interview our future manager, but usually it’s while being evaluated for a new job. What do you do when you find yourself getting to interview your current manager’s replacement?

Know your priorities

Practical Empathy, or: How I Stopped Hating Pair Programming

I used to think I hated pairing.

One of my first experiences pairing was with my least favorite co-worker. In my previous programming jobs, I’d always been the only Rails developer, or one of two, and…

Embracing Uncomfortable Refactoring

Sometimes refactoring is fun. Sometimes refactoring feels therapeutic.

Pair programming problems are not a smell

Earlier this year, Betsy and I sat down and wrote down a few dozen types of…

Interviewer Skills Part 1/??: Why set specific goals

Tell me about a time when…

Here’s a question I got recently: “Doesn’t it work to ask a candidate what they would do? couldn’t I present a situation to them and ask what they would do?”

My first impulse was to jump into an answer about behavioral interviewing, and explain how…