Always an Engineer

For today’s episode, Asim takes on the situation of tech employees going through layoffs. In recent months, there have been many layoffs in the tech industry, and people are either flustered or placed at their lowest points going through this predicament. Asim takes on a guide that can help those who have been laid off and those who are trying to avoid the situation.

[00:38] Introduction to Tech Layoffs

[01:16] Tips for Laid Off and Recent Grads

[01:20] Due to Downsizing

[02:20] Understanding Your First Downturn

[03:27] What Can We do?

[03:34] Networking In the Field Of Interest

[05:29] Seeking Part Time Roles

[05:58] Structure and Discipline

[06:35] Starting Your Own Company

[07:12] Avoid Companies of People Who Complain

[07:38] Habit of Reading

[08:44] Summary

Nowhere to Go But Up

In the position of being laid off, employees would often over analyze why they were let go or what they will do after being released. It’s important to have a quick understanding of the situation. Taking a scan of what could have been done or what can be done. In the event that this does happen to an individual, the mindset of being resourceful on how else you can build your career will be an essential tool. In the field of tech, there are many opportunities out there. While it is still valid to let out how you feel in private, what’s important is that you know how to get back up on your feet and you make a plan on how to do it.

Reading Materials

So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport

Deep Work by Cal Newport

Mindset by Carol Dweck

For today’s episode, Asim is joined by Adam Zimman, a recovering entrepreneur and an engineer who’s spent years developing software in the enterprise domains focused on infrastructure and engineering. He joins today’s show to talk about progressive software delivery to consumers and the key structure to help it roll-out efficiently.

[00:34] Introduction of Adam Zimman

[01:34] What Motivates Adam

[03:13] How Adam Applies to the Business World

[07:36] Feature Flagging Interplay

[09:15] Other Aspects of Feature Flagging

[14:48] Tooling Behind Continuous Delivery

[19:08] Key Aspect to the Roll-Out

[20:14] Companies That Adapt This Implementation

[23:18] Advice on Where to Pilot Software Delivery

[26:26] Where to Follow Adam’s Work

Progressive Software Delivery

Adam talks about the importance of progressive software delivery based on how companies can create products and tools that can be easily used by consumers from various generations. The tech industry is rapidly growing, paving way for more innovative ideas to run systems online or through various tech products. Companies now face the pressure to create softwares that can be easily accessible or user-friendly to all types of consumers. Adam talks about how companies can efficiently deploy a software product and ensure that consumers can still work around it. He backs this process by adding key driving factors that make a software roll out successful, as well as how the enterprise can adopt these practices in order to keep their customers loyal to their products.

How to Connect with Adam

Adam’s LinkedIn

Progressive Delivery website

For today’s episode, Asim is joined by Andrea Goulet, who has spent more than 20 years in the tech industry. She joins Asim as she tells her journey in the tech industry and how the idea of empathy has helped her develop some soft skills that may be productive for software engineers in the field.

[00:39] Introduction of Andrea

[2:00] About Empathy

[04:56] Andrea’s Journey in Software

[07:47] Frameworks on Empathy

[10:27] Applications of Framework to Engineers

[14:45] Taking Actions with Empathy

[20:10] Tangible Benefits of Empathy

[26:21] Task and Relationship Conflicts

[28:59] How to Reach Andrea

Defining Empathy

Empathy is the moment an individual experiences when they have the power to make decisions and then act upon it. It is that moment when one’s thought process can read the feelings or foresee the consequences of the actions they are about to do. In the world of software and tech, empathy is not the main highlight to the work system, however, this underlying skill can be the butterfly effect that can change the course of productivity and outputs of software engineers.

Essential Soft Skills

Empathy is a soft skill that can be harnessed as a metaphor to create a better working environment not just for yourself, but for your co-workers as well. Rooting back to the decision-making moments, there comes a time where you have to consider factors such as rational or logical thinking, setting up boundaries, and proper communications, these are the trigger points where empathy plays a big role in creating a good working environment. The soft skill has worked on many software developers in terms of better work productivity as well as healthier and professional working relationships with colleagues.

How to Connect with Andrea and Other References:

Andrea’s Linkedin 

Heartware’s Website 

Corgibytes Website 

Empathy in Tech

For today’s episode, Asim Razzaq is joined by Tim Chou, an entrepreneur and engineer-at-heart who’s had great career success at Oracle and speaking engagement in universities. Tim shares insights on the art of influence, a way to sell yourself and your ideas to clients. He crafts a unique process to let engineers become their very own entrepreneur.

[00:46] Introduction of Tim Chou

[02:45] The Art of Selling Ideas

[06:10] About Insight

[07:50] Selling the “Not”

[10:58] Strategizing Sales as Individuals

[13:29] Disadvantages of Staying

[15:34] Importance of Storytelling

[18:18] Other Analysis of Approach

[20:19] Building Your “Tribe” and Language

[27:39] Summary and Resources

Creating Your Story

If you are trying to sell yourself, crafting a story is one of the important elements to convince customers that your services and products resonate to their wants and needs. Simple descriptions are the basic foundations to any product or services, but the story behind them is what captures buyers to hook on to them. Storytelling can stem from factors such as background or personal history, insights from customers, breaking the status quo, and many other factors.

Crafting the Language

Influencing your customers is also gauging their language and niche. They say that it takes one to know one, and for influencing, sellers need to really grasp the idea that customers need to understand your language. Conversing with customers can impact the dynamic of influencing others. The butterfly effect of creating a community of dedicated customers or the sphere of influence of knowing who your crowd are and if they understand you can be beneficial for long term transactions.

Recommended Resources:

The Challenger Sale by Brent Adamson and Mather Dixon

For today’s episode, Asim Razzaq takes on the skills of interviewing candidates. It’s one thing to be interviewed, and it’s another to be the one asking the questions. When it comes to interviewing software engineers, there are many points to remember when interviewing a candidate. The process should be beneficial for both the candidate and the interviewer.

[01:01] Interviewing as a Skill

[01:58] Beneficial Strategies of Interviewing

[02:21] Approaching as a Collaborator

[03:31] Ensuring a Skilled Interviewer and Bar Raisers

[05:10] Structured and Written Feedbacks Pre-Interview

[05:59] Informal Settings With The Candidates

[07:06] Ensure Back Channel References

[08:04] Check Their 90-Day Plan

[08:57] Feedbacks on Interview Skills

[09:35] Situation: Declined Offer

[10:40] Attention to Candidate’s Behavior

[12:55] Being Human to Candidates

[13:33] Schedule Interview Briefing Earlier

[14:30] Summary

Knowing Your Candidate

Many companies from all over the world make the error of interviewing a candidate for the sake of just checking if they qualify for the job. While yes, having the proper skillset is an alluring factor to hiring an individual, but there’s more to the interview process than just knowing what the candidate can do. It’s also important to know who your candidate is. While you can be good at your work, attitude will come a long way. There are other non-traditional ways to get to know your candidate, which some companies are trying for nowadays. This allows employers to be immersed with their respective candidate and finally gets a full character profile on who they really are and how they will behave as a worker.

In this episode, Asim responds to listener questions about how they can build a successful and fulfilling career as a software engineer. There is a lot of information out there regarding tips and tricks, but ultimately it boils down to developing rare and valuable skills that set you apart from others. You have to be deliberate and disciplined about it. The reward is worth the effort. 

You must invest time and energy into honing your craft before the real passion and enjoyment comes. It can be a struggle before that. How do you hone in your craft? You must practice every single day.

Additional resources: 

In this episode, Asim Razzaq explains Conway’s Law, which states that “Any organization that designs a system, will inevitably produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure.” Applied to software development, this means that your software architecture will mimic your team, organization, and communication structure. 

Conway’s law is the most critical principle in software design. You can have the best manifesto and intentions, but your architecture and design will always follow how the team and the company is structured. No amount of agile/scrum/lean software development can fix this problem. Structure teams from their inception for the most efficient and elegant software design.

On today’s episode, Asim Razzaq elaborates on the misconceptions between artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, and data science. While many might not be able to see the difference in the 4 fields, experts are still advised to know how each of these work, and the outcomes and process are definitely not the same.

[00:57] The Misconceptions of AI, ML, DL, and DS

[01:57] How They Are Related

[02:01] Artificial Intelligence

[04:06] Machine Learning

[06:50] Deep Learning

[07:48] Data Science

[08:09] In Application

[09:27] Summary

Need-to-Know

In an age where AI and ML are progressively developing, engineers are advised to recognize the difference between the four categories of artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, and data science. It is crucial and important for experts in the field that despite being an expert in a certain sector, you will either be indirectly or directly exposed to one or all of these elements down the line.

Related But Different Functions

All four categories are related, but each field has a specific function that defines them for that particular category. While AI is the general domain, ML, DL, and DS bring a different type of tool into the spectrum. It is important to know what sets these domains apart from one another by looking at the methods and processes on how they run, as well as the ultimate contribution to the solution.

Join Asim Razzaq as he introduces the concept of antifragile software systems. This concept aims to demonstrate what happens during catastrophic scenarios inside the system. For today’s episode, he will highlight key principles that can lead to antifragile teams, processes, and code.

[01:11] What is Antifragile

[02:14] Modern Resilient Software

[03:17] Antifragile System

[03:51] Building the Software System

[04:11] Techniques for Antifragile System

[05:34] What Leads to Antifragility

[06:39] Summary

Thriving Not Surviving

Most software nowadays is rapidly adapting to more efficient use due to advanced machine learning capabilities. Developers, and even consumers, are keen to find ways to make their software products thrive rather than just surviving, which leads to the concept of the antifragile system. While it’s great that software can survive even the most dire of situations, consumers are also inclined to a system that can self-learn from these issues then provide its own solution to adapt moving forward.

Additional Resources

Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Chaos Engineering

On today’s show, Asim Razzaq focuses on the importance of customer-centric software engineering. Software engineers should always be creating meaningful value for customers, and other stakeholders as well, not just writing code.

[01:03] Wasted Software Features

[01:25] Envisioning Success for Customers

[02:23] Misplaced Customer-Centric Service

[07:20] Ways to Be Part of the Conversation

[12:42] Summary

Always Put the Needs of Customers First

A fundamental for software engineers is that you always need to put the customer first. Many times, engineers fall into the trap of following only the directives coming from the product or internal teams. In a crowded marketplace, a lot of solutions are built in order to keep up with what competitors are doing. But what problem does the customer need to solve? What is the use case? Software usage, customer satisfaction, and even product reviews can be hit-or-miss if you don't deliver real value for users.

Communication is Key

Just like any other healthy working environment, having open dialogues can lead to great success and development stories. For software engineers, it is advised to always have an open mind and discussion with the internal teams on what they can contribute from a professional’s point-of-view. The thought process of knowing what the customer wants can trigger engineers to give plenty of recommendations on how their services can be more efficient. This would also allow them to build a meaningful and more established working environment with different stakeholders while keeping the customer satisfied on a steady to upward scale.

Got questions or suggestions for future episodes? Just visit www.alwaysanengineer.org