Developer Tea

Hey everyone and welcome to today's episode of Developer Tea. It's been quite a while since I've had a guest on the show. Today, I'm joined by Bryan McCann, CTO at you.com. We dive into a wide-ranging discussion, exploring the philosophical origins of his career—from studying meaning and language to working in very early AI research. This discussion is less advice-heavy and more focused on kind of theory and discussion. I hope this is insightful for you and helpful as you crystallize your own philosophies on these subjects.

• Explore the philosophical journey that led Bryan McCann from being a philosophy major interested in meaning to pioneering early AI research. Bryan views his current work as an extension of those original philosophical questions.
• Discover how Bryan shifted from hitting a dead end in "armchair philosophy" to using computational tools to study language and try to make machines that could create meaning.
• Understand why Bryan believes that meaning, in the sense he originally sought it, is an innately human thing, tied to purpose and the narratives we use to shape our sense of reality.
• Discuss the profound realization that AI breakthroughs might be akin to discovering electricity, suggesting we are tapping into a fundamental framework of meaning or connection that has always existed.
• Examine the concept of super intelligence and the "flywheel effect," where AI accelerates research and development, building better versions of itself and potentially surpassing the classic anthropomorphic vision of machine intelligence.
• Explore Bryan’s other interests, including organizations, people, and art, which he sees as continuing the uniquely human search for meaning.
• Consider the idea that humanity's constant need to differentiate itself from machines may simply be a mechanism for survival, enabling our continued dominance.

If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com..

If you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!.

If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.

I'm tackling a massive challenge today: burnout. While the standard advice usually involves working less, I want to show you a practical dimension of burnout you have more control over, focusing on increasing your agency and autonomy to manage chronic workplace stress more effectively. Burnout is classified by the ICD-11 as a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.

This episode includes practical advice for understanding and addressing burnout by shifting focus from reducing work volume to increasing control and resources.

• Understand the three dimensions of burnout as classified by the ICD-11: feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance/negativity toward the job, and reduced professional efficacy.
• Discover why the amount of time you work is not a direct input to burnout, meaning working less is often impractical and may not solve the underlying issue.
• Learn the core philosophy for addressing burnout: In order to control stress, provide control (meaning agency and autonomy).
• Explore why stress is directly correlated to the ratio of demands placed on you versus the resources (including decision-making power, training, and tooling) you have to meet those demands.
• I’ll give you practical ways to approach your manager to secure necessary resources, training, or mentoring to improve your professional efficacy and reduce job negativity.

If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.

If you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!

If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.

In this episode, I dive into the management mantra that "what is measured is managed" and explain why this simple assertion often leads to a complex trap. We discuss why the act of measuring team productivity is never neutral—it's an intervention that immediately changes behavior, often resulting in unintended consequences like gaming the metrics. We'll explore how to collaborate with your team to find measurements that truly drive desired behaviors.

• Understand why the phrase "what is measured is managed" means that measuring something triggers management of that thing, in varying degrees.
• Learn why the act of measuring something is an intervention, especially when done with the intent of turning it into a target (e.g., increasing PRs or decreasing bugs), and how this action is shown to change behaviors around the thing being measured.
• Discover how measurement can lead to unintended consequences, such as when tracking velocity via story points causes team members to inflate or deflate their estimates, making the measurement itself less meaningful.
• Explore why giving ownership of metrics to the people acting to improve them makes sense, and how you can collaborate with your team to determine what kinds of measurements should be taken.
• Recognize that if you want something to survive—such as paying down tech debt—you must feed it with time, resources, and attention, ensuring your actions line up with what you claim to care about.
• Understand that since your calendar and dashboards will get crowded if you measure everything, the exercise of choosing metrics is as much about accepting that you have to choose what you will actively manage and invest in.

If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.

If you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!

If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.

I want to dive into the concept of Deliberate Practice, which sets the greatest apart in fields ranging from sports to writing to engineering. I’ll explain why it’s much more than just repetition or experience, and why applying it to your career can lead to rapid improvement. Most importantly, I will provide concrete ways you can apply deliberate practice to level up your engineering and leadership skills, especially in areas that are traditionally difficult to practice, such as communication and strategic decision-making.

• Differentiate Practice from Deliberate Practice: Understand that while repetition is part of practice, deliberate practice specifically involves engaging in a very narrow set of activities with the intentional goal of improvement, requiring very quick feedback for continuous incorporation.
• Identify Opportunities for Rapid Improvement: Learn why deliberate practice is much more effective at achieving rapid improvement than simply engaging in repetition.
• Apply DP to Leadership Skills: Discover how to incorporate deliberate practice into roles like engineering manager, tech lead, or IC (Individual Contributor) leader, where the activity of practice is often harder to pinpoint.
• Leverage Existing Work for Practice: I suggest a mindset shift where you begin looking at existing responsibilities, such as one-on-ones, as opportunities for practice. For example, you can focus on improving your clarity when providing constructive criticism and ask for specific feedback on that aspect.
• Generate Novel Value Through Practice: Explore how engaging in deliberate practice activities—like recording a video to communicate a technical concept or creating documentation—serves the primary goal of practice, while almost certainly creating unexpected value for your team (often net neutral or positive).
• Use Backwards Training for Strategy: Find out how to practice strategic decision-making and forecasting by using "backwards training". This involves reviewing past decisions or work scopes, creating your own rationale or estimate, and then calibrating it against the known reality.
• Simulate Difficult Conversations: Consider leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) to engage in deliberate practice around language-heavy skills, such as modelling sensitive or difficult topics, or practicing receiving harsh feedback.

If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.

If you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!

If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.

This episode explores the concept of Locus of Control and why developing a more internal locus of control is beneficial for your career and life. You'll learn the difference between internal and external perspectives, why one is more useful than the other, and practical exercises to shift your mindset to believe you have more influence over the outcomes you care about.

• Understand Locus of Control: Discover what psychologists mean by locus of control—whether you believe outcomes are determined by your own actions (internal) or by external forces like luck and chance (external).
• Adopt a More Useful Mindset: Learn why an internal locus of control, while not a perfect reflection of reality, is a more useful and effective mindset for your career, as it prevents you from missing opportunities to influence outcomes.
• Recognise Your Influence: Find encouragement in the idea that you almost certainly have more influence and control over situations in your life and career than you currently believe.
• Shift Your Perspective with Practical Exercises: Engage in two research-based exercises to help you recalibrate your default beliefs and intentionally develop a more internal locus of control.
• Leverage Your Strengths: See how focusing on your strengths can create a positive feedback loop, reinforcing the belief that your efforts directly impact outcomes and helping you build a stronger sense of agency.

If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.

If you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!

If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.

In this episode we'll discuss why "Résumé Driven Development" is a powerful mental model for building a thriving career. Instead of seeing your résumé as just a job-hunting tool, you'll learn to use it as a guide for setting measurable, impactful goals that benefit you, your manager, and your company.

• Focus on Impact, Not Just Tasks: Discover why a great résumé is built on proof of impact, not just a list of completed projects. The best way to improve your career is to focus on achieving measurable goals that demonstrate real value.
• Have the Goals Conversation: Learn how to initiate a critical conversation with your manager to define measurable goals for your role. If your manager can only provide project deadlines, take the initiative to propose your own impact-oriented goals.
• Connect Goals to Business Value: Understand the importance of linking your work to business metrics. While there's a risk that a project might not meet its business goals, you can also measure impact through clever technical solutions or process improvements, like reducing team cycle time.
• Take Control of Your Career: Realise that your career success is ultimately dependent on your own actions. By proactively setting and tracking goals, you take control and can clearly tell the story of the value you bring to the table.

If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.

If you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!

If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.

In this episode, we introduce a simple yet powerful mental model from the world of sports: forced vs. unforced errors. By understanding this concept, you can shift your focus from things outside your control to the simple, foundational behaviours that truly define a successful career.

• Understand the Difference: Learn the distinction between forced errors—mistakes caused by chance, situation, or randomness that are hard to prevent—and unforced errors, which are avoidable blunders resulting from a lack of attention or care.
• Focus on What You Control: Discover why the most successful engineers prioritise reducing their unforced errors. While most people worry about hard-to-predict "forced errors," top performers concentrate on the fundamentals they can directly influence.
• Identify Your Unforced Errors: Recognise common unforced errors in your career, such as not testing your work, being late for meetings, erratic communication, or posting unprofessional content online. These simple mistakes can significantly impact your career over time.
• Conduct a Self-Audit: Learn the value of regularly performing a "self-audit" to identify and correct the simple, common-sense things you may be failing at. By improving in these areas, you can dramatically increase your reliability and competitiveness.

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If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.

If you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!

If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.

In this episode, we introduce two fundamental thought experiments to help you uncover your true priorities and core values. By exploring scenarios of scarcity and abundance, you'll learn to align your daily actions with what truly matters, leading to a more satisfied career and life.

• Uncover Your Priorities: Engage in a "5% exercise" where you imagine only being able to complete a tiny fraction of your to-do list. This thought experiment leverages a scarcity mindset to reveal your genuine priorities, helping you distinguish between what you perceive as important and what truly is.
• Discover Your Values: Participate in an "abundance exercise" by imagining all your obligations are met and you have complete autonomy. What you choose to do next in this state reflects your core values and helps you move beyond aspirational or culturally normative answers.
• Go Deeper: Learn to challenge superficial answers when identifying your values, pushing beyond the obvious to find unique and potentially surprising insights that genuinely guide your decision-making.
• Unify for Satisfaction: Explore the profound insight that the most likely path to a satisfied career and life comes from unifying your priorities and values, thereby avoiding actions that don't align with what truly matters to you.

If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.

If you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!

If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.

This episode explains what is arguably the best career advice you'll hear this week: the one skill that signifies seniority in software engineers is the ability to synthesise and optimise for multiple factors at once. Instead of focusing on a single factor, such as performance or maintainability, senior engineers identify and weigh the various trade-offs involved in any decision.

• Discover the key skill that distinguishes a senior engineer: It's the ability to synthesise multiple, competing factors—like performance, maintainability, cost, and time to market—rather than focusing on just one.
• Learn why single-factor thinking can hold you back: Junior engineers often optimise for what they know best or what is easiest to measure, which can harm the overall solution, the team, and their professional reputation.
• Understand how to demonstrate seniority in interviews and at work: You can show your maturity and wisdom by identifying the crucial trade-offs for any given problem, asking what factors need to be balanced, and exploring options that might satisfy multiple goals at once.
• Explore how to find better solutions by thinking in trade-offs: The goal isn't just to make sacrifices; often, the mark of a great senior engineer is finding a third option that effectively balances or optimises for multiple important factors simultaneously.
• Start practising this skill today: Challenge yourself to identify what you are giving up with any decision and consider factors you don't normally prioritise. Ask "What am I saying no to?" to develop this crucial skill.

If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.

If you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!

If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.

This episode focuses on the critical importance of having a backup plan, not just for technical redundancies but especially for situations involving human error, which are highly prevalent in one's career. The core argument hinges on understanding risk and reward curves, highlighting the disproportionate impact of failures compared to incremental successes.

Understanding Risk and Reward Curves:

• Successes are often incremental. Delivering a project on time typically leads to opportunities for more projects, good performance reviews, and modest pay increases (e.g., 5-7%). These are positive, but linear or slightly bumpy gains.
• Failures, especially uncaught ones, have a much longer negative tail. The potential for loss from a significant mistake or a disastrous project significantly outweighs the potential for gain from a success.
• A bad performance review, for example, can affect future reviews, decrease promotion likelihood, and follow you for a much longer period than a good one.
• Uncaught failures can place individuals in a pool for budget cuts or layoffs, leading to catastrophic curves where negative effects compound much faster, resembling a logarithmic function. One or two significant negative events could wipe out all accumulated incremental gains.

The Criticality of Backup Plans:

• Backup plans are essential to avoid these catastrophic negative curves and major "wipeout scenarios".
• This preparedness applies to project failures, personal career contingencies (e.g., getting laid off), and even events beyond direct control.
• It's crucial to prepare for theoretically possible catastrophic events, not just those that have historically occurred. Even "Black Swan" events or things you're not prepared for can cause major issues.
• Thinking like this (e.g., similar to life insurance, which you only need once if at all) encourages hedging efforts with basic backup plans, such as redundancy.

Benefits of Preparedness:

• The more you prepare for contingencies, the more likely you can deal with the majority of failures, preventing the catastrophic curve.
• Having backup plans can create a "flywheel effect", where your ability to respond to negative events actually increases the speed of stacking up further positive outcomes.
• Being proactive in your career (e.g., interviewing even when you're happy in your current role) builds resiliency.

Actionable Advice:

• Focus on what could go wrong: Try to figure out how things could fail and what catastrophic events are possible, even if they haven't happened yet.
• Identify vulnerabilities: Locate areas where a catastrophe could lead to a steep drop-off in your career trajectory.
• Implement a basic backup plan: The recommendation is to put just one in place this week for something that could catastrophically impact your career. This provides a sense of relief and ensures readiness if needed. Taking this first step is likely to encourage creating more backup plans for professional situations.

If you enjoyed this episode and would like me to discuss a question that you have on the show, drop it over at: developertea.com.

If you want to be a part of a supportive community of engineers (non-engineers welcome!) working to improve their lives and careers, join us on the Developer Tea Discord community by visiting https://developertea.com/discord today!

If you're enjoying the show and want to support the content head over to iTunes and leave a review! It helps other developers discover the show and keep us focused on what matters to you.