Technical interview challenges can be incredibly nerve wracking. Having someone watch you code is scary! One way that I've seen engineers be successful is by sowing things down. Let's talk about some strategies that I've seen be pretty effective.

Slowing Down the Technical Interview

Now that you've got this fancy new job as a Software Engineer there are some things you might find helpful knowing as your career begins to take off. So let's go over some things you can do to succeed in your role.

Navigating Your First Role in Tech

Some of the best engineers I've had the privilege to work with weren't the ones that had domain expertise or knew how to code a complex algorithm. It was the ones that were consistently able to zoom out of the work they were doing and have an understanding of how it fit into the greater engineering org and the business.

Big Picture Thinking as an Engineer

There are a lot of misconceptions about what you can and can't do in Vim. Let's go over some of the most common things engineers need to be productive and how Vim can excel in those tasks. We'll cover code navigation, repo-wide search, some useful plug-ins, and more.

How I Use Vim

A thoughtful and intelligent deep dive into the origins of 'shop class,' the values of skilled manual labor, and the erosion of those skills due to their devaluation in education.

Book Review: Shop Class as Soulcraft - An Inquiry Into the Value of Work

I was recently looking into learning more about certain algorithms. One GitHub repo led to another and I instead ended up learning about some simple ciphers used throughout human history.

Having Fun With Simple Ciphers

It has now been 10 years since I've been working as a Software Engineer and I wanted to take some time to do a little self reflection on how I got to where I am today.

A Retrospective On My First Decade as a Software Engineer

Authority is a fantastic sequel to Annihilation, giving us an inside look into the machinations of The Southern Reach; an old outpost outside of Area X, and the secretive government organization that runs it. It follows the story of its new Director appointed to investigate what happened to the prior expedition, his predecessor, and uncover anything he can about the mysterious Area X.

Book Review: Authority

Annihilation is a captivating story about exploring the unknown, self discovery, and survival. It is less a story and more a personal account of a biologist’s experiences once she enters what is known as Area X. A mysterious coastal territory, Area X is the epicenter of some great natural calamity

Book Review: Annihilation

There are generally a core set of tools you carry with you regardless of the system you're working in; Git, Yarn, npm, etc. In this article I'll show you how to keep all of your systems' tooling synced.

Use Git and Bash to Automate Your Developer Tooling

So you're a people manager and you've found your groove, but you're finding it hard to get actionable feedback from your team. I'd like to share a simple strategy to ensure you and your team members are always on the same page.

Getting Actionable Feedback From Your Team

Syncing your dotfiles between systems shouldn't be a hassle. In this walk-through I'll show you how you can use Git and a simple, yet power Bash script to easily sync your dotfiles between multiple systems.

Make Your dotfiles Portable With Git and a Simple Bash Script

Since the proliferation of the smartphone tech companies have figured out how to grab our attention with surgical precision. Our online habits have become so pervasive that we are measurably more anxious, less intentional, and they significantly degrade our interpersonal relationships. Digital Minimalism is a philosophy that aims to help you regain control of these habits and live a more meaningful and purposeful life.

Book Review: Digital Minimalism - Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

Far in the future, the captain of a small crew and a detective nearing the end of his career begin to unravel a conspiracy that threatens humanity. Earth, Mars, and the Belt vie for control of the greatest scientific discovery in history. The captain, his crew, and the detective are caught in the middle of it.

Book Review: Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse #1)

The time we have on this planet is incredibly small and finite. Burkeman presents his argument for escaping to-do lists, overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and the deluge of things to do. There is no such thing as mastering time, and the sooner we accept this, the sooner we can spend our time doing the things that truly matter.

Book Review: Four Thousand Weeks - Time Management For Mortals

How faulty and self-fulfilling prediction models can have profound, long-lasting and devastating effects on society. O’Neil, a data scientist with experience in a wide range of industries, from banking to advertising startups, takes us on a deep dive into industries that use poor machine learning models that, willfully or not, have an incredibly negative impact on people’s lives.

Book Review: Weapons of Math Destruction - How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy

Snowden’s autobiography chronicles his early days with technology, computers, and hacking, as well as his ancestry and its history of public service. He takes us through his journey to answer the call to serve his country after 9/11 in the military, the Intelligence Community, and what ultimately led him to disclose the government’s biggest secret.

Book Review: Permanent Record

Over the past year I've been thinking about this a lot; what is the difference between management and leadership? Can you be a leader without being a manager, and if so, what does that look like?

The Difference Between Management and Leadership

An incredibly thorough and useful resource on what it takes to become a “Staff-plus” engineer. Becoming, and operating as, a staff engineer; writing team strategies; communicating effectively; getting “in the room”; negotiating salaries… It’s all covered here.

Book Review: Staff Engineer - Leadership Beyond the Management Track

Focus less on trying to do the right thing and more on laying the foundation for predictably positive results.

Hey there 👋
I'm Freddie Carthy

Office Hours

How I Work

Hey there 👋I'm Freddie Carthy

Office Hours

How I Work

Hey there 👋
I'm Freddie Carthy