11 Articles that Heavily Impacted my Career Trajectory in Tech
Sharing here a selection of articles that have influenced my career, how I think about things, and my leadership approach.
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1/ Joel Spolsky (@spolsky) on Software Rewrites titled "Things You Should Never Do, Part I."
It heavily influenced me probably 10 years back and explains a lot about why I’m not a big fan of “Green Field Projects”.
Link: joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/
2/ “How to change your organization” as an Engineer, or as it is titled “For Peons” by Jim Little (a.k.a @jamesshore)
I came across this article around ~2013/2014 - right by the time I moved to NYC to join a small tech startup.
Link: citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.499.9652&rep=rep1&type=pdf
2/ Still on "Change Your Organization (For Peons)" by @jamesshore
Be a Change Agent has been a big goal of mine since forever, and this article gave me a more structured approach to use that has proven to be somehow effective and has avoided many frustrations on my side.
3/ “Generalizing Specialists: Improving Your IT Career Skills” by Scott Ambler (@scottwambler)
~2008/2009 and It helped me a lot to understand how to think about my skills and to evolve as a professional focusing on being a “T-Shaped Engineer.”
Link: agilemodeling.com/essays/generalizingSpecialists.htm
3/ Still on @scottwambler's Generalizing Specialists:
Here is the catch:
* Generalists: Jack of ALL trades and Masters at NONE.
* Generalizing Specialists: Jack of MANY Trades and Masters of SOME.
* Pure Specialists: Jack of ONE Trade and Master of ONE.
4/ Patterns for Effective Acceptance Criteria by Philip Bretton Ansley
I came across this one in 2012 inside @thoughtwork's "internal wiki" while I was working there.
It completely changed how I think about User Stories & BDD in general.
Link: brettsbabble.wordpress.com/2011/03/26/patterns-for-effective-acceptance-criteria/
5/ Another one by @spolsky - The Law of Leaky Abstractions
Came across this ~2014 and it helped me to see how libraries, programming languages & frameworks will always abstract you from things that might be crucial for you to solve a deep problem.
Link: joelonsoftware.com/2002/11/11/the-law-of-leaky-abstractions/
6/ How to Misuse Code Coverage by Brian Marick (@marick)
Also first read it around ~2014 and it was mindblowing in so many ways. It introduced me to the concept of "Faults of Omission" and made me go on the rabbit hole of Checking vs. Testing.
Link: exampler.com/testing-com/writings/coverage.pdf
7/ Test Mercenaries by Mike Bland
I'm always impressed by how much I learn every time I revisit this blog post from Mike Bland.
This explains how Google changed its engineering culture towards Unit Testing around the time they acquired YouTube.
Link: mike-bland.com/2012/07/10/test-mercenaries.html
8/ The classical, Mocks Aren't Stubs by Martin Fowler (@martinfowler)
First read this around ~2011/2012. Just one thing to say on this. Print it and read it on paper. Take notes, carry them around with you.
Link: martinfowler.com/articles/mocksArentStubs.html
9/ The Combined Engineering Software Model by Brent Jensen (@BrentMJensen)
Link: testastic.wordpress.com/2016/01/03/the-combined-engineering-software-model/
10/ Consumer-Driven Contracts: A Service Evolution Pattern by Ian Robinson (@iansrobinson)
Read this on ThoughtWorks Anthology Book in 2012 and it was mindblowing. This article set all the foundations of we call "Contract Testing" today.
Link: martinfowler.com/articles/consumerDrivenContracts.html
11/ Goto Fail, Heartbleed, and Unit Testing Culture by Mike Bland
I have more highlights on this article than I have in most books. Probably the single article I would recommend anyone to read on Unit Testing and Engineering Practices.
Link: martinfowler.com/articles/testing-culture.html
Want to know more about How to Grow Your Career?
Check it out the article I wrote last week with my best tips on How to Build a Strong Career in Tech:
Link: linkedin.com/pulse/how-build-strong-career-tech-thiago-ghisi/
Thiago Ghisi
@thiagoghisi
🤹♂️Director of Engineering @Nubank. Ex-Apple. Ex-TW. 🇧🇷in🗽. 🎙Co-Host @EngAdvicePod. 📚🐛. 💡Sharing Tech Career Growth Tips & Eng. Leadership Insights👇