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This is a great article and while my startup didn't make it past 5 members the advice in here is solid. On shirts (and swag): My startup had a mascot at the e

This is a great article and while my startup didn't make it past 5 members the advice in here is solid. On shirts (and swag): My startup had a mascot at the end and I wish we would have had it upfront and had stickers. It may seem trite but it's even documented in books like Managing the Unmanageable (or might have been Peopleware) that Apple made shirts for projects. When I worked at NatGeo we made internal swag for our project. For me personally, living in a world of intangible software, stickers and shirts give me something physical I can hold in my hand. Something I can wear or point to and relate to what I'm doing. On not knowing what you're doing: I think the best people I've worked with are very intelligent and curious and do great work for things they don't understand because they ask a ton of questions to learn it which helps lead to epiphanies. It doesn't always shake out that way but with a group of motivated individuals it is so rewarding. On everything being temporary: Leaving design / trends aside and looking at our code-- our engineering-- this is absolutely true. For any devops engineers out here reading this: repeatability helps a TON. It's so much easier to migrate from bash scripts to RPM/Deb and from RPM/Deb to Docker. Or from [Puppet|Chef|Ansible|Salt] to [New Flavor Of The Week]. Once it's codified in some way it's so easy to move it forward. Automation == repeatability == freedom. On people are everything: Please, please, please don't hire smart jerks. Great, you're smart, you can program in 10 languages and worked at a FANG. If the team doesn't want to sit next to you and work with you on a project I am hoping to shape my life, my future and my family's outcomes 8+ hours a day (even remote) it's going to spoil the whole bunch. I could go on and on for each section. I loved this article. Y'all will certainly find parts you disagree with but on the whole it is great and very applicable.

janlaureys 7y ago
Smart jerks are the worst. I work with a few of them and they can really be insufferable. They interrupt every conversation (IRL or through Rocketchat) because they know absolutely everything about the subject you happend to be talking about. I have started to use the AKSHUALLY meme image in retaliation from time to time. But what gets me the most is their self-importance. The bragging about the import people they have met, or the presentations they are asked to do. It gets really old really quick.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  It sounds like they just have very bad social skills and are insecure about it.
  - wellactually 7y ago
    Exactly. Social skills can be learned, but often that requires a lot more effort and pain than learning a new programming language or framework. Listening with full attention is the most underrated "best practice" in tech.
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      They can be learned to some me extent, but they are harder for some people to learn than others, especially those far off to one side of the spectrum. Actually, it is really easy to tell naturals apart from those who have to consciously study social skills, the latter being much more stilted and systematic than the former. I admit I find it really off putting when interacting with someone with heavily trained social skills (and I’m definitely not a natural). I prefer people to be themselves rather than pretending to be something else.
      - wellactually 7y ago
        > I prefer people to be themselves rather than pretending to be something else. Very few people are "themselves" in practice. There's a difference between how one feels and what one conveys. Communication is about conveyance.
        seanmcdirmid 7y ago
        If it is easy to see through communication that goes against feeling, the result can be unsettling to some listeners; eg what are they hiding? What do they really think?
    - nradov 7y ago
      At a communication skills training class the instructor asked us, "Are you listening, or just waiting to talk?"

janlaureys 7y ago

Smart jerks are the worst. I work with a few of them and they can really be insufferable. They interrupt every conversation (IRL or through Rocketchat) because they know absolutely everything about the subject you happend to be talking about. I have started to use the AKSHUALLY meme image in retaliation from time to time. But what gets me the most is their self-importance. The bragging about the import people they have met, or the presentations they are asked to do. It gets really old really quick.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
It sounds like they just have very bad social skills and are insecure about it.
- wellactually 7y ago
  Exactly. Social skills can be learned, but often that requires a lot more effort and pain than learning a new programming language or framework. Listening with full attention is the most underrated "best practice" in tech.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    They can be learned to some me extent, but they are harder for some people to learn than others, especially those far off to one side of the spectrum. Actually, it is really easy to tell naturals apart from those who have to consciously study social skills, the latter being much more stilted and systematic than the former. I admit I find it really off putting when interacting with someone with heavily trained social skills (and I’m definitely not a natural). I prefer people to be themselves rather than pretending to be something else.
    - wellactually 7y ago
      > I prefer people to be themselves rather than pretending to be something else. Very few people are "themselves" in practice. There's a difference between how one feels and what one conveys. Communication is about conveyance.
      - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
        If it is easy to see through communication that goes against feeling, the result can be unsettling to some listeners; eg what are they hiding? What do they really think?
  - nradov 7y ago
    At a communication skills training class the instructor asked us, "Are you listening, or just waiting to talk?"